Fans of Norah Lofts discussion
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Group read of The Concubine
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Interesting partial article, Barbara. Reminds me of Princess Diana's lament ...I was nothing to them (the royal family) but a brood cow.
Barbara wrote, "And, after all, she was the mother off arguably the greatest Sovereign England has ever had." Absolutely! The greatest King England ever had was a Queen! And if Henry had really got what he wanted, she would probably never have reigned. In March 2003, I arranged a program in her honor at the college where I taught. It was something like a ceilidh in that anyone who wanted to speak or perform something related to QEI and her era could do so. I began the event by saying, "Four hundred years and one week ago today, one of the greatest women who ever lived, died," and the group took it from there.Sallie, you mentioned the later Queen Anne and her many pregnancies, and I think you're right in putting it that way. I've actually read that she had 17 children, all of whom died, and I've long suspected that it was 17 pregnancies, most of which ended in miscarriages. From Jean Plaidy's novels The Haunted Sisters (aka Royal Sisters) and The Queen's Favorites, I learned that she had at least one child (a baby girl named Mary) who died in infancy and a son, whose name I forget but who was Duke of Gloucester, who lived for several years. According to Plaidy, he was quite a favorite of William and Mary, who evidently had accepted their own childlessness and saw him as their heir. There's even a portrait of Anne with him.
On a more positive royal subject, I think there's a record that's about to be broken in a few days!
Barbara, thanks very much for leading this discussion. A job well done as usual!
Still on the subject of the Rh factor, what I was also taught in that college biology course was that, although a mother's bloodstream and her fetus's don't mingle, occasionally some fetal blood cells get through the placenta and cause the reaction I described earlier. Now, just this evening, I read this article: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science...(Well! I didn't expect the link to be so long!)
In view of what we've been discussing in regard to Henry's children, it may interest others.
I've mentioned that I've been reading Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII. I highly recommend this non-fiction book for providing some excellent research and facts. Some of the points made in Weir's book: Katherine and her supporters didn't seem to realize that her stance of insisting she was Henry's wife was what actually led to the split with the Church in England. (And we thought it was Anne's fault!) Also Henry remained clean-shaven with Anne because it was her preference (a small human touch). Also Anne adored her baby Elizabeth; she tried to keep the baby by her side as much as possible, even keeping her in a small basket near her throne.
Since we've mentioned Elizabeth, Weir points out the trauma to Elizabeth of losing a mother and a stepmother (Katherine Howard) to beheading. Katherine Howard's death led Elizabeth to declare she was never getting married (she was 9 at the time). Weir also gives great credit to the highly intelligent Katharine Parr for guiding Elizabeth's (and Edward's) education, serving as a role model for Elizabeth and Mary, and giving the Tudor kids a sense of family life.
Mary, just 2 more days for that record to be set! Peggy, those were great points from Alison's book! Knowing that Anne adored her baby made the tragedy so much more grievous. I had never considered the future queens as step-mothers to Elizabeth either.Your mention of Katherine Parr being a great influence made me search out more, and I read that she was the most married queen (4 husbands), the first to be queen of both England and Ireland, and she had her first baby at 36, which killed her before the week was over. Her daughter Mary then lost her father when she was 1, and it is likely, though unknown, that she died at 2.
I feel guilty for not posting more, but could just not read the tiny print of my Concubine. I did like one short quote by Woolsey when Henry began to make his decisions independently of Woolsey. Still thinking of Henry as a beloved son, he said, "If the lion knew his strength, who could rule him?" Indeed!
My thanks also, Barbara, for the excellent leadership.
I had never heard before of the details of Anne loving Elizabeth and having her close by at all the times she could . Or about the clean shaven thing. Wonderful human stuff, thank you Peggy
What wonderful rounding up (and leading-on) comments from Peggy , Sylvia and Mary . Thank you so much and Sallie too for making it a great discussion . Too kind of you to say I lead it well, I thought I could have done much much better!
Maybe we could do Katherine (the Kings Pleasure) fairly soon so as to take advantage of our momentum?
Barbara, that's an excellent idea! Only NL could make readers feel really sympathetic to both those two!
MaryC wrote: "Barbara, that's an excellent idea! Only NL could make readers feel really sympathetic to both those two!"Yes so true!. What do you think. NL-ers - call this a wrap up of dear departed Anne and start soon on dear departed Katharine?
Sounds good - and we should vote Barbara in as facilitator to continue her momentum as well
It sounds good to me as well. And if Barbara is tired and wants a break, we will draft Sallie!
Who's Sallie???? Wasn't she the one we banned from the group? Yes, I'm sure she was. Such a pity.
We know Sallie--the one that made such good insightful comments on The Concubine discussion.
Sallie wrote: "I think she moved to New Zealand "If she did, that's OK, they have the internet there . I think . LOL
I'm willing to do Katherine though, if needs be (she said, with a consciously virtuous air)
Just to finish Anne, has anyone read this? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1405...
I think I'll get it .
Me, too, Barbara. It looks good. Thanks for the info. PS - I heard that Sallie person has lead groups before and is famous for making participants write 50000 word papers on the selected book. She corrects them in New Zealand with a red pen. So we probably don't want her.
I just bought a package of 10 red Bic pens, and would be glad to send her a few.
Heeeeeeeeeeee-I will tell that Sallie somebody to be on the lookout. I hear her internet prob is only partially resolved so her mood is, how shall we say, a TAD on the grumpola side.
Barbara, Sallie, Sylvia, you must be REALLY good friends! <:)
Mary, I got so silly on Message 69 last night that I edited it this morning! But you did bring up a joyous point. In the 5 years since I found this NL forum, I have "met" some treasured friends!
Well, I enjoyed the whole conversation! (Still smiling!)
Yes a nice, fun silly way to end ! So chaps, shall we plunge soon into The King's Pleasure? I am actually willing to lead if all else fails ( and it looks like it has, lol)
Lol TY, Barbara. No good deed goes unpunishded!
Sounds like a unanimous election to me, Barbara! May I make a suggestion that our discussion of The Concubine be tucked in with the grouping "Norah Lofts Royals" and then the new one for The King's Pleasure can be added when we're finished. I think you started that grouping, but sometimes we forget we have it.
Sylvia wrote: "Sounds like a unanimous election to me, Barbara! May I make a suggestion that our discussion of The Concubine be tucked in with the grouping "Norah Lofts Royals" and then the new one for The King'..."OK , good idea Sylvia. I don't think I remember how to shift an entire thread so if you do , please do it if you would be so kind ?
I went to do it, Barbara, and it's already been done! Good job, Somebody (Peggy, I suspect)!
Wonderful. Onward and upward to The Kings Pleasure then!
And won't the logical next read be Crown of Aloes?
MaryC wrote: "And won't the logical next read be Crown of Aloes?"Absolutely! Would you consider leading that discussion Mary ?
I'm not sure! What does leading a discussion entail? (Asks the retired literature teacher. :) ) Doesn't it involve being able to move comments from one thread to another? Or am I thinking of another group that we both belong to? But let me think about it while I search in the garage for my copy!
No, you don't have to move anything Mary. I can start the thread up for you and you simply do 'leading comments' ,as it were . But please don't feel obliged .
Found this the other day www.anneboleynfiles.com - has great information, details about Tudor times.
Barbara wrote, "No, you don't have to move anything Mary. I can start the thread up for you and you simply do 'leading comments",as it were. But please don't feel obliged." Ooh, that sounds good! I'll do it! (I'd better start searching.)
I have just been gobsmacked to find, when looking for something else, that Anne's mother Elizabeth, sister of the Duke of Norfolk, had in fact been alive during the whole story, that she didn't die until after Anne & George and that she was Thomas Boleyn's only wife. I was aware that Emma was fictional but I had absolutely no idea that an actual historical mother had been written out and substituted by a wholly fictional stepmother!Is it possible that when NL was writing Elizabeth was thought to have died and the fact that she hadn't was only unearthed later?
I've read a few other novels about Anne, at least one of which (Margaret Campbell Barnes's Brief Gaudy Hour) also gives her a stepmother. However, one actual history that I dipped into (Francis Hackett's Henry the VIII, I think) does say that Anne's real mother outlived her and George, but not for long. I suspect that NL knew this but chose to present a stepmother, who could be the kind of character NL wanted to present. The possibility of a stepmother seems to come from misinterpretation of some contemporary comment to the effect that "he" had married a woman of lower status as his second wife, in a context that made it unclear whether "he" was Henry or Thomas Boleyn. Apparently the writer meant Anne herself as the woman of lower status. Maybe someone else reading this can identify the writer and the actual words.
Interesting link below and though it , regretfully , does not mention Norah Lofts by name it does attribute the quote to The Concubine. " The Concubine (1963) refers to Anne’s stepmother as Lady Bo: "
“George had given her that name, being, as she shrewdly guessed, unwilling to call her `Mother,’ yet thinking `Lady Boleyn’ too formal.”
https://anneboleynnovels.wordpress.co...
It seems it may have been Agnes Strickland's influential 'Lives' which cemented the stepmother myth.
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The Six Wives of Henry VIII (other topics)The Six Wives of Henry VIII (other topics)
The Six Wives of Henry VIII (other topics)
Stress on the women of course but Henry, under the gun to produce that male heir, surely would have been anxious and emotional as well. He blamed the ladies ....wonder how it would have gone down if they knew 500 years ago that the male determines the child's gender!! Maybe old Henry's head would be the one on the block!