Read an excerpt from my NEW BOOK!

This is an introduction to my newest book entitled "Jacquetta Woodville, Margaret of Anjou & Cecily Neville: Women Behind the Wars of the Roses". Enjoy it!

Jacquetta Woodville, Margaret of Anjou and Cecily Neville are among the best-known female figures during the Wars of the Roses, a dynastic conflict that raged in England from 1455 to 1485. Jacquetta, daughter of the Count of Saint-Pol, married John Plantagenet of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, and became one of the highest-ranking women in England and France. After Bedford’s death, she married Sir Richard Woodville, a mere knight and squire, with whom she produced a large brood of children, including Elizabeth, the future Queen consort.

In her lifetime, Jacquetta was best known as the mother of Elizabeth Woodville, a commoner who married King Edward IV. In her afterlife, she is best known as the heroine in Philippa Gregory’s bestselling novels of The Cousins’ War series, The Lady of the Rivers and The White Queen, wherein she is depicted as an intelligent, strong woman with psychic abilities. Portrayed on screen by Janet McTeer, Jacquetta became one of the most beloved characters in The White Queen.

Yet the real Jacquetta, a woman who was the mother and grandmother of kings and queens, is buried beneath a thick layer of myths. Was she really a witch, as suggested by contemporary rumours and modern fiction? Did she have a sinister influence of her son-in-law, Edward IV? Was she really a power-thirsty individual who sought the advancement of her family at all costs? Jacquetta is an elusive historical figure, but her importance cannot be emphasised enough. Through the marriage of her daughter to Edward IV, she is the ancestress of entire houses of royals: Elizabeth of York, Henry VIII, Margaret and Mary Tudor, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth Tudor and many, many more. Her blood flows through the veins of modern royalty, and it’s only fitting that Jacquetta should become the subject of a biography.

Jacquetta’s story is inevitably linked to the lives of two other women: Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England, and Cecily Neville, Duchess of York. In 1445, fifteen-year-old Margaret of Anjou made the perilous sea journey from France to England, where she married King Henry VI. Jacquetta was among the noble ladies selected to welcome Margaret and escort her from France to England. Soon Jacquetta became one of Margaret’s favourite ladies-in-waiting and chief confidante. The Queen’s failure to provide a male heir, as well as her part in ceding French territories to her husband’s political enemies, gained her many enemies among the nobility and general populace. When she finally gave birth to a son in 1453, her world came to a crashing halt.

In 1453, shortly before Margaret gave birth, Henry VI descended into a mysterious mental illness. Richard, Duke of York, who had hitherto been denied an important role in the government, seized the opportunity and became lord protector. But this powerful lord’s ambitions clashed with Margaret of Anjou’s own plans. As her husband rebelled against Henry VI, Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, found herself in the position of queen-to-be. England slid into chaos and war.

Set against the rich background of fifteenth-century court life are the interwoven stories of these three women whose relationships were tested by the changing loyalties of their husbands, sons and daughters.

YOU can see Henry VIII's love letters to Anne Boleyn!

Did you know that thanks to the Vatican Library's digital repository we can see Henry VIII's original letters to Anne Boleyn without leaving our homes? NO? What are you waiting for, grab a hot drink and look at them, so beautiful!

My favourite letter of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn (© Vatican Library)

Sex with Anne Boleyn

         At the beginning of Henry VIII's infatuation with Anne Boleyn, she famously refused to have sex the King. What made Anne's refusal so dangerous was that it coincided with Henry VIII’s doubts about the validity of his marriage to Katharine of Aragon. The King had pondered repudiating Katharine in 1514, but the idea was dropped, and two years later, on 18 February 1516, the Queen gave birth to a healthy daughter, Princess Mary. Henry consoled himself that both he and Katharine were still young and thus able to have sons, but no son was born, and by 1527 Henry had given up hope.

A heart enclosing Anne Boleyn’s initials with a motto “H. aultre A.B. ne cherse R.”, which means “Henry seeks no other than Anne Boleyn”(© Vatican Library)

Anne Boleyn’s refusal to grant the King’s sexual desires has been variously interpreted over the course of history. Some historians see her rejection of the King’s advances as a first step towards becoming the Queen of England, but this is applying too much hindsight to Anne’s actions at this point. The reason why it is generally assumed that Anne envisaged becoming queen at this early stage of her relationship with Henry VIII is because all that we know about her character from sources describing her later life affirms that she was an ambitious, intelligent and cunning young woman who knew well how to navigate through the courtly intrigues during the years of her ascendancy.  The fact that Henry VIII was desperately trying to make her his mistress for more than a year attests that Anne held on to her virginity to preserve her honour rather than to become the King’s wife and queen.

Sexualization of Anne Boleyn in The Tudors

 

Yet there's convincing evidence that when Henry VIII initiated the annulment proceedings, Anne yielded to his passion. One of Henry's famous love letters to Anne reveals that he couple indulged in intimate relations. The letters are undated but the letter in question offers some clues as to when it was written. Henry wrote:

"But now that I am coming towards you, methinketh my pains be half removed; and also I am right well comforted in so much that my book maketh substantially for my matter; in looking whereof I have spent above four hours this day, which causeth me now to write the shorter letter to you at this time, because of some pain in my head; wishing myself (especially an evening) in my sweetheart’s arms, whose pretty dukkys I trust shortly to kiss."

This later can be firmly dated to November 1528. In September 1528, shortly before the papal legate Lorenzo Campeggio came to England, Henry VIII sent Anne Boleyn to Hever Castle so as to avoid the impression that he pursued his divorce because of Anne. Things didn't go quite as planned and by November both Henry and Anne were miserable, missing each other immensely. Henry mentioned that he was "coming towards you" so he was going to leave London and visit Anne who was temporarily lodged at Beddington Place in Surrey, some five miles from London (oh irony, eight years later another royal mistress, Jane Seymour, would be waiting for the news of Anne's trial at this very place). 

This letter throws light upon the intimacies between Anne and Henry. Although the couple stopped short of consummating their match, they were certainly intimate with each other. The King’s sexual desire underpins many of Henry’s letters to Anne; in this particular letter, the prospect of seeing Anne, holding her in his arms and kissing her “pretty dukkys”—that is, breasts —gave Henry energy to continue on in his quest for divorce. 

My new book is a best-seller!

I'm so happy thanks to *YOU* Over the weekend my new book Rival Sisters: Mary & Elizabeth Tudor hit the best seller list in category History of Renaissance Europe. I'm blown away! Thank you for your support! 

Anne Boleyn's necklace in The Family of Henry VIII?

In 1544, to celebrate the new act and memorialise his daughters’ restoration to the line of succession, Henry VIII commissioned the famous Whitehall family portrait. The portrait captures the royal family in a private setting, with the King sitting in the centre beneath a canopy of state, flanked by his son and heir, Edward, on the left and his third wife, the late Jane Seymour, on the right. The King’s hand rests firmly on Edward’s shoulder, showing quite literally that Henry VIII’s dynastic hopes now rested on the shoulders of a single surviving son. The King is richly bedecked in a splendid costume of cloth of gold and red with a knee-length cloak furred with sables. Jane Seymour wears a matching gown of cloth of gold, with red sleeves and kirtle. Her large oversleeves and the edge of her gown are furred with ermine, a symbol of wealth and royalty. The inclusion of Jane Seymour rather than Katherine Parr showed that Henry VIII desired Jane to be regarded as the matriarch of the Tudor dynasty.

Elizabeth stands on the far right while Mary occupies the far place on the left. Their costumes are far more modest than those worn by Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, but they match Prince Edward’s outfit in terms of colour and fabric. They are wearing dark-patterned gowns with red undersleeves and kirtles. There is nothing remarkable about their costumes—the gowns look rather simple and are calculated to blend in with the dark background. What draws the viewer’s attention are the jewels. Upon closer inspection, it appears that Elizabeth wears a golden letter A suspended from a double strand of pearls with large pearl hanging down from an emerald within the letter. In Tudor Costume and Fashion, Herbert Norris suggested that the necklace belonged to Elizabeth’s mother, the executed Anne Boleyn.1  This suggestion may be close to the truth. Mary wears a similar pearl necklace; suspended from it is a golden cross with three hanging pearls. It is known that Mary received “a necklace with a cross” from her dying mother; was it the same necklace worn by Mary in this family portrait?2 Let’s think about it; both Mary and Elizabeth were memorialised in this painting as Henry VIII’s illegitimate daughters. They stood to inherit the crown if their half brother, Edward, died without issue. Such a turn of events seemed unlikely at the time, hence the positioning of the Tudor half sisters at the far ends of the painting. Both Mary and Elizabeth wear similar gowns—at first glance they look almost like twins. This type of representation may have served to emphasise their status as the King’s illegitimate daughters. In this context, it made sense to allow Mary and Elizabeth to wear jewellery belonging to their disfavoured mothers, whose marriages to Henry VIII were annulled in 1533 and 1536 respectively.

The Family of Henry VIII

1.       Herbert Norris, Tudor Costume and Fashion, p. 363.

2.       Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 5 Part 2, n. 9.

NEW PORTRAIT of Queen Elizabeth I is going on sale at Bonhams

New portrait of Elizabeth I, Bonhams

Today I learned that this newly discovered and hitherto unrecorded portrait of Queen Elizabeth I is going on sale at Bonhams on 4th December. 

Workshop of Steven van der Meulen (?Antwerp -circa 1564 London)
Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, three-quarter-length, wearing a black dress embroidered with gold, an ermine-trimmed surcoat, a white ruff trimmed with gold and a pearl-encrusted headdress, holding a red rose in her left hand and a gold chain in her right hand, which rests on an embroidered cushion
oil on panel
96.6 x 74.2cm (38 1/16 x 29 3/16in).

What do we know about Queen Elizabeth's portraits? Later in her reign, painters and miniaturists were forbidden to show the real likeness of the Queen, depicting her instead as the iconic, changeless and radiant Virgin Queen. Elizabeth hated posing for portraits, and “the natural representation of Her Majesty” was forbidden from being painted directly from life.1 Instead, one officially approved face pattern was produced and inserted into all subsequent portraits. Posing for a portrait took up to three or four hours if the artist was skilled in his craft; the Queen preferred her ladies-in-waiting to be dressed and styled, pretending to be her, instead of sitting in one pose for hours on end. 

1. George Lillie Craik, The Pictorial History of England, p. 550.

Tudor MythBuster: When was the last time Mary Tudor saw her mother?

One of the things I came across while researching my new book Rival Sisters: Mary & Elizabeth Tudor was that Princess Mary saw her mother for the last time in the summer of 1531. I've read that in nearly every single biography of Mary Tudor and believed it until I found a primary source that says otherwise. 

In June of 1531, Henry VIII broke with tradition and took only Anne Boleyn on an annual summer progress, leaving his wife Katharine of Aragon behind at Windsor Castle.1 The Queen drew consolation from the fact that her daughter, the fifteen-year-old Princess Mary, was allowed to spend the summer with her. On 31 July 1531, the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys wrote that the Queen and princess intended to pass their time hunting and visiting the royal seats around Windsor, but their reunion was to be cut short. In mid-August the King informed Katharine that he wished to hunt near Windsor and she should remove to The More, while Princess Mary was ordered to leave for Richmond Palace.

Most historians will tell you that the summer of 1531 was the last time Princess Mary saw her mother.2 Yet this is clearly not the case because on 27 September 1534 ambassador Chapuys wrote to Charles V that Katharine of Aragon was allowed to visit Mary:

“The Princess [Mary] has been very ill. Having been obliged to remove and follow the Bastard [Mary’s half sister Elizabeth] when a little indisposed, it increased her illness, but she is better. It has been a great comfort to her that the King her father sent her his physician, and permitted the Queen also to visit her, and the apothecary from whom she has received all her medicines for four years.”3

Mary’s condition was apparently so serious that the King sent his own physician to treat her and allowed Katharine of Aragon to come and see her; this is often overlooked by historians who state that Katharine and Mary never met after 1531. This sudden change in Henry VIII’s treatment of Mary reflects his love for his elder daughter and, perhaps, a personal disappointment. That summer, Anne Boleyn was not by Henry’s side. She had given birth to a stillborn child, dashing the King’s hopes for a male heir yet again.4 However, when Katharine of Aragon died in 1536, Henry didn’t allow Mary to see her, but that’s a different story.

---

1. Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, Volume 5, n. 308.

2. See for example my favourite biography of Mary by Dr Anna Whitelock Mary Tudor: England's First Queen, p. 48: “It was the last time mother and daughter would see each other, though at the time neither realised it.”

3. Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, Volume 7, n. 1193.
4. During my research I stumbled upon evidence that in the summer of 1534 Anne Boleyn gave birth to a stillborn child. Some historians believe she miscarried.