Review: The Kingmaker's Women by Julia Hickey

Synopsis: They were supposed to be pious, fruitful and submissive. The wealthiest women in the kingdom, Anne Beauchamp and her daughters were at the heart of bitter inheritance disputes. Well educated and extravagant, they lived in style and splendour but were forced to navigate their lives around the unpredictable clashes of the Cousins’ War. Were they pawns or did they exert an influence of their own?

The twists and turns of Fate as well as the dynastic ambitions of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick saw Isabel married without royal permission to the Yorkist heir presumptive, George Duke of Clarence. Anne Neville was married to Edward of Lancaster, the only son of King Henry VI when her father turned his coat. One or the other was destined to become queen. Even so, the Countess of Warwick, heiress to one of the richest titles in England, could not avoid being declared legally dead so that her sons-in-law could take control of her titles and estates.

Tragic Isabel, beloved by her husband, would experience the dangers of childbirth and on her death, her midwife was accused of witchcraft and murder. Her children both faced a traitor’s death because of their Plantagenet blood. Anne Neville became the wife of Richard, Duke of Gloucester having survived a forced march, widowhood and the ambitions of Isabel’s husband. When Gloucester took the throne as Richard III, she would become Shakespeare’s tragic queen. The women behind the myth suffered misfortune and loss but fulfilled their domestic duties in the brutal world they inhabited and fought by the means available to them for what they believed to be rightfully their own.

The lives of Countess Anne and her daughters have much to say about marriage, childbirth and survival of aristocratic women in the fifteenth century.

~ ~ ~

Hickey makes the statement: "... identity and importance came from their role as daughters, and , later, as wives of the great and the good ...". Whilst true of the period, and of the periods both before and after, it is a rather disappointing one to make if you are writing a book that focuses on, brings to the fore, the women who were central in the events known as the Wars of the Roses.

However, as the blurb tells us from the beginning: "The lives of Countess Anne and her daughters have much to say about marriage, childbirth and survival of aristocratic women in the fifteenth century." Unfortunately it is the reverse - the author has much to say on marriage, childbirth and domesticity in the fifteenth century, but very little on her chosen subjects. 

We know there is no documentary trail for us to follow with regards to specifics for these women, and as such, Hickey provides generalities, assumptions and comparisons based on known contemporary sources.

Like many other authors, where the information is just not present, the focus turns to the more documented males and the usual genealogical information (who married who, who inherited what, etc).

The work is taken up to the period of the death of Anne Neville, and finishes up with a brief recap as to what was next for Anne Beauchamp and the fate of her grandchildren under the Tudors. And Hickey does provide the usual accompaniments - family tree, period timeline, a who's who, notes and pictures for those interested. 

Unfortunately, for me - personally - I found nothing new; nothing that I did not already know from my own extensive reading, and nothing that could not be found in even the most general history of the Wars of the Roses. For the newcomer, however, this book would make a good starting point - for the more well-read looking for specifics and more details, then less so.

Review: Medieval Royal Mistresses by Julia Hickey

Synopsis: Marriage for Medieval kings was about politics, power and the provision of legitimate heirs. Mistresses were about love, lust and possession. It was a world that included kidnap, poison, murder, violation, public shaming and accusations of witchcraft. Ambition and quick wits as well as beauty were essential attributes for any royal mistress. Infamy, assassination and imprisonment awaited some royal mistresses who tumbled from favour whilst others disappeared into obscurity or respectable lives as married women and were quickly forgotten.

Meet Nest of Wales, born in turbulent times, whose abduction started a war; Alice Perrers and Jane Shore labelled ‘whores’ and ‘wantons’; Katherine Swynford who turned the medieval world upside down with a royal happy-ever-after and Rosamund Clifford who left history and stepped into legend.

Discover how serial royal womanisers married off their discarded mistresses to bind their allies close. Explore the semi-official roles of some mistresses; the illegitimate children who became kings; secret marriage ceremonies; Edith Forne Sigulfson and Lady Eleanor Talbot who sought atonement through religion as well as the aristocratic women who became the victims of royal lust.

Most of the shameful women who shared the beds of medieval kings were silenced, besmirched or consigned to the footnotes of a patriarchal worldview but they negotiated paths between the private and public spheres of medieval court life - changing history as they went.

My views on this book are conflicting. On the one hand, kudos for seeking out some of the lesser known historical women and providing something despite there being very little to go on in some instances. But on the other hand, this really has provided nothing that a good google search could not turn up. On the one hand, there is an interesting selection of mistresses; yet on the other, they are tried and true selections with a number of inclusions I found myself questioning as to their inclusion at all.

I found the subtitle not only deceiving and infuriating but rather trite - "Mischievous Women who Slept with Kings and Princes" . Where were these vamps and ingenues, these Mata Haris who plied their wares before all manner of royalty, these saucy and salacious bawds who managed to seduce and satiate royal carnal desires all for gain. Cue Sid James and the Carry-On gang - disappointingly no. If the focus was to bring these women to the fore, calling them "shameful" from the very outset does nothing to further that aim.

Beginning in the late 10th century with Canute and finishing off with the last Plantagenet King Edward IV, we are treated to not only a history lesson but also a rather dry series of biographies. Hickey repeats all the usual rumours, innuendos and scandals, providing very little by way of anything new. The selections are narrowly focused on and in the British Isles - the side trip to France seemed out of place. As I mentioned before, there were a number of inclusions that really should not have been there at all as there were no sufficient proofs, and then there were the generalisations where names were unknown.

What I was looking for and yet found lacking was any real exploration of the role of the royal mistress. Many of these women had no choice in this - women were chattels - property of first their fathers then husbands, and ultimately of their direct lord; very few were able to assert the independence of thought and action that many of us can do today. It is a shame that through a lack of any detailed accounts of many, their lives are seen only as a mere footnote in the pages of the lives of the men with whom they were associated.

This tome is not overly long, however, the material contained therein was not sufficient to keep me fully engaged. Being extremely well read on much of the content already, I was looking for that little something more - that new take, some new theory or thoughts, even some small snippet of of the promise of something new. The phrase quality not quantity comes to mind in this instance - we know you have done your due diligence, but there is no need to cram it all into one space as it shows that you really don't know what to do with it all.

I am sure that there is a market for this and there will be many who will enjoy this immensely, unfortunately, I am not to be one of them.