The Wars of the Roses

[EC2]

I've read that book and it's sequel. Don't forget that the author made Henry Stephen and Maude's child I read the sequel as well and that was even worse. She had Eleanor going on Crusade and having icky sexual type stuff going on with her uncle.

Is that the Ellen Jones book Misfit - Beloved Enemy? Not read it, but I've heard about it. Jean Plaidy based a novel on that premise too. It's all down to some comment in a chronicle where Stephen says something loving towards Henry and it's been (wilfully) misconstrued by modern mindset. A bit like trendy historians at one time saying Richard I was gay because he shared a bed with Philip of France.

[Juniper]

The author plays very fast and loose with the history doesn't she? I've read and been underwhelmed by the second one - The Exiled - and was very surprised to come across a detailed scene with a prosperous Jew - 150 years after the Jews were all expelled from England. I also understand from friends who know the history of the time better than me that the actual likelihood of Henry VI having a bastard daughter are very remote and totally out of known character.

I don't know about the scene with the Jew, but you're definitely right in saying it was unlikely that Henry VI had a bastard daughter! That took me a while to get my head around.

[Margaret]

Oh, my, I had forgotten the part about Henry II being Stephen's child. Henry would have been furious, wouldn't he?

People used to share beds and sleep with many beds to a room, because it was hard to heat those old castles. There's a scene in one of the Tristan and Isolde stories that has King Mark dusting flour over the floor between the beds, then spending a night away from the castle, so he can tell if Tristan leaves footprints traipsing from one bed to the other during the night. One of the weirdest modern misinterpretations, IMHO, is the one that deduces Abraham Lincoln must have been gay because he occasionally shared a bed with another man.

[Margaret]

I've finally got the "Wars of the Roses" page posted at my website: http://www.HistoricalNovels.info/Wars-of-the-Roses.html. Thanks to everyone here who suggested novels in this period - there were quite a few that had not previously been listed on the "Medieval" page. It's amazing to me how many novels have been written about Edward IV, Richard III, and their cohorts. I don't think there's another outpouring of novels focusing on one generation of royals until Henry VIII and his wives. It was an exceptionally dramatic time period, of course, with many interesting people to write about!

[Volgadon]

Actually, it's a bit of a myth that all the Jews left. Legally and officialy they weren't there, but............

[Christina]

Dusting the floor to trace footprints!!! LOL!!

I am very much looking forward to the release of Sandra Worth's new book: "The King's Daughter - the first Tudor Queen" which, I hope, will throw a lot of light onto the mystery of Elizabeth of York. I had never considered, until I read the preview of this book, how amazing it is that Henry VIII's mother is so lost among so many other people of that time....I am sure it will be a brilliant read

[Margaret]

You're right, Christina - it's amazing she hasn't had more written about her. She must have been trained from childhood to hate and fear everything Henry VII represented. It's very interesting that they named their first son Arthur, harking back to a Celtic hero figure who united Britain. I'm sure they were highly conscious of the symbolism of that. And then when he died ...

[Misfit]

Jean Plaidy wrote Uneasy Lies the Head and recently republished as To Hold The Crown. Although the new book jacket claims to be Elizabeth's story (a love story !!!), it really focuses on Henry VII and his difficulties holding on to his crown admidst all the false claimants. Elizabeth was a virtual door mat, a non-entity. I'd like to read her story.

[boswellbaxter]

Jean Plaidy wrote Uneasy Lies the Head and recently republished as To Hold The Crown. Although the new book jacket claims to be Elizabeth's story (a love story !!!), it really focuses on Henry VII and his difficulties holding on to his crown admidst all the false claimants. Elizabeth was a virtual door mat, a non-entity. I'd like to read her story.

There are several other historical novels about Elizabeth of York that focus more on her and Henry as a couple. Roberta Gellis has written one called The Dragon and the Rose (I got annoyed when she conflated three generations of Staffords into one Duke of Buckingham, but otherwise it looked pretty good, with three-dimensional characters that are often absent from WOTR novels). Brenda Honeyman has written one called Richmond and Elizabeth, and Margaret Campbell Barnes has one called The Tudor Rose that has an unusually spunky Elizabeth of York, though some of the historical details (Elizabeth having a friendship verging on romance with Edward Stafford, historically a child of five at the tme) are decidedly iffy. There's an even more obscure one called The Playing Card Queen by Wendy Miall.

[Volgadon]

You're right, Christina - it's amazing she hasn't had more written about her. She must have been trained from childhood to hate and fear everything Henry VII represented. It's very interesting that they named their first son Arthur, harking back to a Celtic hero figure who united Britain. I'm sure they were highly conscious of the symbolism of that. And then when he died ...

I'm not sure that they considered it Celtic symbolism. They liked to see themselves as the descendants of the Britons, even though of Saxon and Norman extraction. Celtic nationalism didn't really exist until the mid 1800s.