Charlie Fenton’s Reviews > The King's Concubine > Status Update

‘I was full to the brim with self-pity, and because I no longer felt brave I wept for my own weakness, for all I had lost. That the gifts given to me by Edward out of love and gratitude should be snatched back in spitefulness, destroying the physical evidence of Edward’s place in my life.’

“he created two images of yourself and His Majesty, binding them together to make an indissoluble bond. Thus Edward’s infatuation with you. Their words - not mine. Your physician made two rings with magical properties for you to put onto Edward’s finger, one to refresh the King’s memory so that you would always be in the forefront of his thoughts. The other to cause forgetfulness of all else but yourself.”

‘Two men. One old, one in what should be his prime. One fading, slowly as the years took their toll, the other racing to his death. Unless there was a miracle, there was not one man in the country who would wager a purse of gold on the Prince outliving his father. Edward might be fifty-nine, the Prince a mere forty-one years in comparison, but I knew who would die first. So did Joan.’

“We’re not discussing something so trivial as mercenary, woman! It’s self-preservation. If you don’t look to yourself whilst the power is to hand, no one else will. And if you’re thinking, ‘Does this make me too hard, too avaricious?’ then consider this. Who will give you a moment’s thought the day that Edward goes to his grave?”

‘As the King’s mistress and Philippa’s favourite I was invulnerable. I had won this little battle: no damsel would ever dare show me discourtesy again. The might despise me, they might wish me disgraced and banished from Court, but they could not touch me.’

‘Did I enchant and entrap him, as the malicious tongues were to accuse many years later? Was I complicit in this seduction?
Complicit, yes. But when did any woman entrap a Plantagenet? Edward had his own mind and pursued his own path.
Was I malicious?
Not that either. I was too loyal to the Queen. Guilt was not unknown to me, whatever slanders held otherwise.’

‘I knew beyond doubt why she had chosen me to wait on her. I had had no part in the choosing. It had nothing to do with the antics of her perverse monkey, or my own foolish attempt to catch her attention, or my labours to be a good maidservant. She had chosen me because I was ugly, while in stark contrast this educated, sophisticated, highly polished Court beauty would shine as a warning beacon’

‘Philippa of Hainault... The years had not treated this woman with gentleness. All trace of youth, any beauty she might have had as that young bride who had come to England from the Low Countries to wed our vigorous King Edward, more than thirty years ago now, all were lost to her. And where was the expression of regal power? She was not elegant. She was not tall. She did not overawe. She wore no jewels.’

‘But what was I? It seemed I was neither flesh nor fowl. Here I stood in a house that was not mine, a wife but a virgin, with the knowledge that my marriage vows would make absolutely no difference to my role in the household. I would wager the whole of my sudden windfall on it. Signora Damiata would never retreat before my authority. I would never sit at the foot of the table.’