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The White Queen

Carla
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Post by Carla » Wed August 12th, 2009, 5:21 pm

[quote=""annis""]The Angevins were supposed to be descended from Melusine. It's surprising that there seemed to be no conflict with the Church over claiming this otherwordly ancestress! There's often been a strong link between royalty and the dragon image- it would be an interesting subject for study.[/quote]

Isn't that part of the origin of the "Devil's Brood" nickname?

Early Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies claim descent from Woden (approximate equivalent of the Norse god Odin), who was a god of magic among other things. (Alfred the Great's genealogy, written by the Christian bishop Asser, happily continues the descent back from Woden to Adam without batting an eyelid). Supernatural / magical descent has a long history. I suppose it helped reinforce the idea that royalty was inherently 'special'.
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Miss Moppet
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Post by Miss Moppet » Wed August 12th, 2009, 7:03 pm

[quote=""Carla""] Supernatural / magical descent has a long history. I suppose it helped reinforce the idea that royalty was inherently 'special'.[/quote]

Rather makes me think of Aravis in CS Lewis's The Horse and his Boy and her claim to be descended 'in a right line from the god Tash'.

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Post by annis » Wed August 12th, 2009, 8:36 pm

Julius Caesar claimed the goddess Venus as the clan geneatrix, too. I guess the theory is that a divine ancestor gives you a touch of divinity yourself, reinforcing your regal claim :)

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Margaret
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Post by Margaret » Thu August 13th, 2009, 3:16 am

Alfred the Great's genealogy, written by the Christian bishop Asser, happily continues the descent back from Woden to Adam without batting an eyelid
I love this! Perhaps the Christian idea of the divine right of kings is a direct outgrowth of the pagan idea of kings and queens being descended from gods and goddesses. One of the reasons Christianity caught on was because of the advantages monarchs saw in adopting it - for one thing, the early medieval church was the inheritor of the well-organized Roman governmental system after the Roman Empire itself fell apart into a lot of smaller kingdoms, and this gave the rulers an easy system to adopt for purposes of taxation. Maybe that idea of the divine right was compensation for the loss, to at least some degree, of the sense of legitimacy that came from divine ancestry.
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Post by Carla » Thu August 13th, 2009, 10:40 am

Miss Moppet - I'd forgotten Aravis until you mentioned it. Yes, that's exactly the same sort of thing. I'd guess Lewis probably had the classical examples in mind, like the one Annis mentions - Narnia always has a classical feel to me, with the fauns and maenads (sp?) and centaurs and so on.

Annis - Exactly so. Royalty depends on an idea that a particular family is somehow inherently special and superior, and divine descent is a good start. I can't help thinking Caesar's claim must have gone down a bundle in a society that was supposed to be a Republic :-)

Margaret - it's terrific, isn't it? Asser also makes mention of Geat, another (mythical) figure a few generations before Woden in Alfred's genealogy, having been once worshipped as a god. Snorri Sturluson in Iceland rationalises the Norse gods in his stories by saying that they were great heroes who were so powerful and skilled that people thought they were gods, which is quite a neat way of recounting legends about gods you don't believe in without belittling them. Asser may be reflecting something like that, which would be in line with Pope Gregory's much earlier advice about not making too many changes. One way of accommodating pagan deities is to turn them into saints, another is to turn them into great legendary heroes.
I agree that the 'divine right of kings' idea looks like a direct descendant of the pagan idea of divine descent. It may have developed as a sort of consolation prize, as you suggest, or it may have been thought of as another aspect of the same thing. It's a short step from being a descendant and thus current earthly heir of a god to being the current earthly representative of a god.
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Editor's Choice, Historical Novels Review, August 2009
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Margaret
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Post by Margaret » Tue August 18th, 2009, 6:17 am

My review of <i>The White Queen</i> is now posted at http://www.HistoricalNovels.info/White-Queen.html. I rather like the way Gregory handled the folk magic practiced by Elizabeth Woodville and her mother, because it offered a nice vehicle for the novel's theme, which involves the negative way that bitterness and hatred affect a person, even when it seems most justified. The magic is not of the spectacular sort that would shift the novel into the fantasy category.

There's also an interview with Gregory on my blog.
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Post by SonjaMarie » Tue August 18th, 2009, 6:28 am

So, this book is supposed to be better then "The Other Queen"? Cause that one sounded like a howler. I only want to read it if others recommend it.

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Margaret
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Post by Margaret » Tue August 18th, 2009, 4:27 pm

I didn't read The Other Queen (I think it would be hard to write a really good novel about Mary Queen of Scots - to me, she seems like kind of a drip, not very bright, and I think she probably did plot to have Elizabeth assassinated), but I did read The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen's Fool. I would say The White Queen is definitely better than The Queen's Fool. Whether a reader would like it more or less than TOBG depends what you look for in a novel. The plot is not quite as gripping throughout as TOBG, but I thought The White Queen had much more thematic depth than TOBG, so I liked it better. The magic is not sensationalized and is integral to the theme.
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Post by EC2 » Tue August 18th, 2009, 4:32 pm

Thanks for the review Margaret! I also see that Tanzanite and Medieval Bookwork on the forum have posted reviews at their blogs - and all of you seem to be favourable. I should get around to reading it soon.
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Post by Misfit » Tue August 18th, 2009, 4:35 pm

[quote=""Margaret""]I didn't read The Other Queen (I think it would be hard to write a really good novel about Mary Queen of Scots - to me, she seems like kind of a drip, not very bright, and I think she probably did plot to have Elizabeth assassinated), [/quote]

That's the thing, even Margaret George's book on Mary, well written as it was, just fell flat by the end. I'm also encouraged by the reviews I've seen, but I will still wait for the library copy.
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