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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Reader Questions for Sharon Penman
- anne whitfield
- Reader
- Posts: 61
- Joined: October 2008
- Location: England
- Contact:
- Margaret
- Bibliomaniac
- Posts: 2440
- Joined: August 2008
- Interest in HF: I can't answer this in 100 characters. Sorry.
- Favourite HF book: Checkmate, the final novel in the Lymond series
- Preferred HF: Literary novels. Late medieval and Renaissance.
- Location: Catskill, New York, USA
- Contact:
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.
Though it should have worked okay - other forums do this sort of thing all the time.
Browse over 5000 historical novel listings (probably well over 5000 by now, but I haven't re-counted lately) and over 700 reviews at www.HistoricalNovels.info
[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!
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 nI 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
www.elizabethchadwick.com
Souvent entre piez de chevals
Kar ja li coard nI 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
www.elizabethchadwick.com
- michellemoran
- Bibliophile
- Posts: 1186
- Joined: August 2008
- Contact:
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!!
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
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
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!
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!