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Reader Questions for Sharon Penman

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anne whitfield
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Post by anne whitfield » Mon October 20th, 2008, 9:30 am

I just read all the posts, very interesting.

Thanks for stopping by, Sharon. I enjoyed all your books. My two favourites are Sunne and Here Be Dragons.
The Devil's Brood is in the post. Yay!
Your titles are great too.

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Spitfire
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Post by Spitfire » Mon October 20th, 2008, 5:35 pm

[quote=""Amanda""]Well I have just read through all the thread, and I must say.....what a great discussion!

I'm pretty keyed up to read a Penman now! [/quote]
Me too! I think Here be Dragons will be my next read!
Only the pure of heart can make good soup. - Beethoven

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Margaret
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Post by Margaret » Mon October 20th, 2008, 9:12 pm

Maybe the next time we try this, we should start a thread a day or two before to post people's questions, and then fewer people will be trying to post while the author is present.

Though it should have worked okay - other forums do this sort of thing all the time.
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EC2
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Post by EC2 » Mon October 20th, 2008, 10:32 pm

[quote=""Margaret""]Maybe the next time we try this, we should start a thread a day or two before to post people's questions, and then fewer people will be trying to post while the author is present.

Though it should have worked okay - other forums do this sort of thing all the time.[/quote]

Perhaps Sharon will stay on as a permanent member of the forum!
Les proz e les vassals
Souvent entre piez de chevals
Kar ja li coard n’I chasront

'The Brave and the valiant
Are always to be found between the hooves of horses
For never will cowards fall down there.'

Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal

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michellemoran
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Post by michellemoran » Tue October 21st, 2008, 12:31 am

Oh shoot - I missed her visit! I was searching for the thread but must have overlooked it somehow. That was so nice of Sharon to stop by, and what interesting questions and answers!
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LCW
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Post by LCW » Tue October 21st, 2008, 12:34 am

I also hope she decided to participate here regularly as a forum member. As a reader, I really enjoy the interaction with the authors. And it makes me more likely to buy your books!! :p :)
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them. --Arnold Lobel

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Misfit
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Post by Misfit » Tue October 21st, 2008, 1:34 am

I'll jump in on that request as well - would love to see Sharon stop by again.

Ash
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Post by Ash » Wed October 22nd, 2008, 12:08 am

Sharon emailed me, and answered many of my questions. With her permission, here are her answers.

I don't think that Hal was mentally unstable, Cindy. Emotionally unstable, perhaps, and certainly very immature, not to mention spoiled. Hal would have made a perfect playboy prince for our tabloids, hitting all the clubs and hanging out with Paris Hilton and Brittny Spears! But Henry didn't really have much choice, for Hal was the eldest surviving son and therefore his heir. By the 12th century, primogeniture was accepted in England--that the firstborn son had the right to inherit. It is true that it was not yet carved in stone. For example, when Richard died, some argued that John should then succeed him as Richard's lone surviving brother. But others favored Arthur of Brittany, as the son of John's elder brother Geoffrey. It would have been very difficult, however, for Henry to have bypassed Hal in favor of a younger son. And of course when Hal was crowned at fifteen, Henry had no reason to doubt his fitness to rule. To the contrary, he was confident that his charming, handsome,spirited young son would make a fine king one day. By the time he was forced to face the truth, there was little he could do about it. Ironically, Hal was the only one of the Angevins to enjoy widespread popularity during his lifetime, as evidenced by the odd little sainthood boomlet that followed his death. Henry did not have free choice in picking his heirs. During those last bitter months of his life, he was likely tempted to disinherit Richard in favor of John, the one son still loyal to him. But he knew better. Many would have seen Richard then as the injured party, the son with a just grievance and rallied around him. And of course Henry the pragmatist would have known that John could not have held onto the crown with Richard determined to lay claim to it.

I think Henry's greatest mistake was in not making peace with Richard, in not naming him as his heir, and of course in not trying to compel Richard to yield Aquitaine to John. Of course he made other grievous mistakes as a father, too--in crowning Hal during his lifetime, in favoring Hal above his brothers, in using Geoffrey as a weapon against Richard. And we mustn't forget the mistakes he made with John! For all that he loved his sons, Henry was not a good father, and that, too, was his tragedy.

Hal died of dysentery, what they called the bloody flux, one of the great killers of the MA. He actually died of dehydration caused by the dysentery, and those are the symptoms I describe in his death chapter. Henry most likely died of septicemia or blood poisoning caused by an injury that wouldn't heal. He also suffered from what a chronicler described as
"an abscess of the groin," and possibly an ulcer, as well as a chronic leg injury resulting from being kicked by a horse. We rarely know the exact cause of death in the MA; Hal is a rare exception. If we are lucky, we are told of symptoms, as in Henry's case, and we can draw conclusions from them. But often we know nothing, as was the case with Henry's daughter Matilda, Duchess of Saxony, Tilda in Devil's Brood. She died suddenly in the summer of 1189, at only thirty-three. Henry at least was spared this grief; he never knew that she'd preceded him to the grave. Eleanor was not as fortunate; she would eventually outlive all but two of her ten children.

I enjoyed writing about Geoffrey and Constance, and I guess it showed, didn't it? It is interesting to speculate how history might have been changed if Geoffrey had not died in that needless tournament accident. At the very least, John would not have become king. But those are the What ifs and If only of history. So often I wish I could write my own endings!


And she's going to reading and signing in my neck of the woods next month, I am so excited!

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Misfit
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Post by Misfit » Wed October 22nd, 2008, 12:27 am

And she's going to reading and signing in my neck of the woods next month, I am so excited!
Very cool Ash, thanks for sharing and thanks to Sharon as well.

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LCW
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Post by LCW » Wed October 22nd, 2008, 3:55 am

Great idea, Ash! She wasn't able to answer my questions either so I'll email her.
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them. --Arnold Lobel

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