Book 14: Royal Witches Witchcraft and the Nobility in Fifteenth-Century England by Gemma Hollman

I found this book through a library search for Elizabeth Woodville. Hollman examines the stores of four English royal women suspected of witchcraft.

The first woman is Joan of Navarre, who came to England as the second wife to Henry IV. After Henry IV's death, Joan was accused of plotting the death of  King Henry V.  This gave Henry V the excuse to confine Joan in order to access her riches to finance his ongoing battles with the French. Joan was never tried and Henry V ensured that Joan was comfortable in her confinement. Before he died, he released Joan and returned her property.

The next woman Hollman studies is Eleanor Cobham. She had been living a fairy tale life. She and husband Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester were a true love match. Gloucester was the uncle to the boy king Henry VI, and  heir to the English throne. But Humphrey's great power brought him strong enemies. It was easy to accuse Eleanor of witchcraft. Eleanor was imprisoned, her marriage to Humphrey was annulled, and Humphrey was ruined. They never saw each other again.

The last section of the book focuses on mother-daughter Jacquetta of Luxembourg and Elizabeth Woodville. I only heard of Jacquetta as Elizabeth's mother. How did I miss that she was part of the royal family in Luxembourg. She married John, Duke of Bedford, brother to Humphrey. Duke of Gloucester (Eleanor Cobham's husband) and uncle to the young King Henry VI. 

Within a year of the Duke of Bedford's death, Jacquetta scandalized England by marrying the lowly knight Richard Woodville. Despite some lean years, Richard became a respected soldier and Jacquetta eventually grew close to Henry VI's wife, Margaret of Anjou. 

When Elizabeth Woodville married King Edward IV, the Woodvilles flipped from supporting the Lancaster cause to supporting the Yorkists. The Kingmaker, Richard Neville, had been disgraced by the marriage; he had been negotiating marriage for Edward to a French princess. Neville's rebellion ended in failure, but not before he murdered Queen Elizabeth's father and brother and had Jacquetta accused of witchcraft. After the triumphal return of Edward IV, Jacquetta ensured that a judgement of innocent against witchcraft was entered into the records. 

As Queen, Elizabeth Woodville was never officially accused of witchcraft, but rumors swirled around her ever since she secretly married Edward IV. The rumors live in the literature; I'm thinking specifically of Philippa Gregory.

All  four women were related and have interacted with other. Eleanor and Jacquetta married Joan's stepsons.  Each experienced accusations of witchcraft and worse for Eleanor. It was too easy to make accusations of  witchcraft against women; they were vulnerable despite her social status. Cynical men counted on that.

Book 13: The Kingmaker's Daughter by Philippa Gregory

I really enjoyed this book until the last 50 pages or so. I became interested in Anne Neville after reading other Philippa Gregory novels and watching television adaptations of her work. Last year I read a biography about Anne.

This book begins when Anne is 11 and she is presented to the Edward IV's new queen, Elizabeth Woodville. Their marriage is an embarrassment and an affront to Anne's father, the Earl of Warwick who was negotiating a marriage between Edward and a French princess.

Gregory captures the thoughts of a young girl as she plays as being queen with her sister Isabel. Anne also calls Margaret of Anjou and Henry VI the bad queen and sleeping king.  

But Anne has to grow up fast when her father decides to support another candidate as king and uses Anne and Isabel as his tools to make new alliances. 

I disliked the emphasis on witchcraft especially at the end of the novel. Even after she is crowned queen to Richard III,  Anne is haunted by fear of Elizabeth Woodville's curses. 

I still enjoyed this book. 

Celebrating the 86 Mets

Before the start of the Mets game today, the team honored the second (and unfortunately last) Mets World Series winners. They showed clips of games, introduced the staff and players (or family members of those who had died) and ended with the "Let's Go Mets!" video. 

I only became a baseball and Mets fan in 1985 and didn't appreciate how incredible the 86 run was. This morning I put on my Mets shorts and my favorite Mets t-shirt:1995 World Series Destiny (the NY in destiny was the Mets log) in preparation for the celebration.. 

1986 was the year I met Jeff and the year we got engaged. Like most fans, I particularly remember Game Six of the World Series. I had gone to a Billy Joel concert with friends Annette, Marge, and Elaine. We went primarily because Marge's friend George was singing back up that night. It was a great concert. Billy is a big Mets fan and one of the guitarists was a big Red Sox fan. The concert was in New Haven and the crowd a mix of Mets and Sox fans. Billy updated us on the scores during the concert. 

We listened to the end of the game on the ride home. I remember punching the passenger seat in excitement at some of the plays. Elaine had recorded the game and we watched it over and over. 

The Mets played in two World Series since then and fell short in both. 

What can I say? Other than wait till next year.

Book 11: In the Garden of Beasts Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson

Another selection from the Little Free Library. I picked this up because I recognized Erik Larson's name and enjoyed The Devil in the White City. 

This book begins 1933 when William E. Dodd becomes the first United States Ambassador to Hitler's Germany. Dodd is the stereotypical mild-mannered professor. He accepts the position hoping to have time to work on his book about the American South. 

Dodd is an outlier, a man trying to live on his salary, among the wealthy, high society-type ambassadors. He is mocked for bringing the family Chevrolet to Berlin. Dodd's daughter Martha generates a lot of gossip with her partying and love affairs.

While other diplomats and isolationists in the United States didn't approve of Dodd, those in Berlin who saw Hitler's oppression firsthand appreciated him. Dodd understood the political and moral implications of Hitler's rule. After Hitler's army invaded Poland, Dodd wrote to Roosevelt that democracies in Europe could have acted together to stop Hitler as he had urged. Too bad few had listened. 

First Re-read: The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

I don't remember when I read this book maybe 20 or 30 year ago? I don't know what led me to pick it up. I do remember that I really liked it. It convinced me of Richard III's innocence in the deaths of his two nephews--the princes in the tower.. I began to doubt that conclusion after I read Weir's book on the subject. 

I loved revisiting The Daughter of Time after reading The Princes in the Tower Both books focused on police procedures to investigate the ultimate cold case of the princes.

In The Daughter to Time, Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant is stuck in a hospital bed with a broken leg. He becomes fascinated by a painting of Richard III and investigates if Richard is really responsible for the death of his nephews. 

Grant concludes that the children survived Richard's reign and suspects Henry VII. Of course, he didn't have access to the records that Langley did.

Book Seven: The Princes in the Tower Solving History's Greatest Cold Case by Philippa Langley

This book was fascinating. The author Philippa Langley was the historian who led the Looking for Richard Project and discovered the grave of Richard III. That discovery upended accepted historical dogma as myths. 

In this book, Langley turns her attention to what traditionalists consider Richard's most horrific crime--the disappearance and presumed murder of the Princes in the Tower (King Edward V and Richard Duke of York.) The Missing Princes Project treats it as a cold case missing persons investigation. 

Looking beyond English sources (under the control of Richard's successor Henry VII) in the Netherlands, Ireland, and elsewhere, the Project uncovered evidence that both Edward and Richard survived their time in the Tower and attempted to regain the throne from the Tudors. 

Langley and her team aren't done. Phase Two of The Missing Princes Project will continue its original research and search of international and private archives. I can't wait to read what it finds. 

Book One: The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel

I read most of this book last year, but just finished it this morning. I had mixed feelings about the other two books in this trilogy but enjoyed this book more. 

The Mirror & the Light begins literally seconds after the execution of Anne Boleyn and ends as Thomas Cromwell is executed. 

Despite her death at the opening, Anne's presence is felt throughout this novel. At one point, while reading verses about the men convicted of adultery with Anne, Cromwell's nephew remarks, "You see there is no mention of the lady." Cromwell thinks that none is needed: "Anne is always in the room." I felt the same way.  

I was intrigued by a description of Edward IV, Henry VIII's grandfather. 

"...King Edward grew soft in middle age, his eye always rolling in the direction of any woman at             court, wife or maid under the age of thirty. He lolled on a daybed with supple flesh, while his own         brothers plotted against him..." 

While many assume Henry was a lusty playboy, he was more like a choir boy compared to some of the other royals. His appetites for good food and drink didn't decrease--think of Henry's popular image of a fat man lustily eating a large turkey leg.

I think about Edward's decision to marry Elizabeth Woodville and how that threatened his reign, and compare that to Henry's obsession with Anne Boleyn and all that he was willing to risk to marry her. Of course, I knew Edward was Henry's grandfather but I never really thought of their similarities.

Book 16: Mothers of Invention Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust

It took me a long time to finish this book. I'm not sure exactly when I started, but it in the middle of packing and it stayed with me through moving. I didn't do a lot of reading then.

This is a scholarly work; another reason for me to read it slowly. I never thought much about what Southern women went through during the Civil War, though I did read Gone with the Wind several times. I was intrigued by Faust's use of diaries, letters. memoirs, and poetry as sources. 

Women, especially among the Southern elite, found that their traditional role of ladylike subservience ill-prepared them for managing plantations and slaves and for providing for their families. Faust records how their patriotic fervor gave way to feelings of abandonment, fatigue, and frustration as the war dragged on. 

I enjoyed reading about battles on women's home front rather than men's battlefront.

Book 14: Anne Neville Queen to Richard III by Michael Hicks

This was a recent library book sale purchase. I didn't care for Hicks's style. I found myself often rereading a sentence or two because I needed clarification. 

Most information I had about Anne Neville was based on The White Queen--especially the TV series. This history helped, but didn't fill in many details because Anne's life was poorly documented. Hicks did a good job explaining the various obstacles in canon law regarding Anne's marriage to Richard III. He concludes that they were never actually legally married. 

I have a major issue with the book. In discussing court gossip that Richard planned to divorce Anne, Hicks refers to "the comfortable single life after marriage of Katherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves". Katherine experienced nothing close to a comfortable single life. I was appalled at this mistake, and it made me a bit distrustful of Hicks's gifts as a historian. 

Book 13: Catherine of Aragon by Garrett Mattingly

I've read a few novels about Catherine of Aragon before, but this is the first history. I realized that while I knew the broad outlines of Catherine's life, I didn't know many details. For example, I wrote about her uncertain future after Arthur's death and deprivations and embarrassment she experienced, but it was worse than I realized. In addition to being a pawn of Henry VII and Ferdinand of Aragon, she was also hurt by conflicts between her servants, clergymen, and ambassadors. In many ways, she stood alone as she did years later after Henry VIII dissolved their marriage. Her strength never failed her in either struggle. 

I sometimes thought it was only stubbornness that kept her from retiring to a nunnery when Henry made it clear their life together was over. But it was her strong determination to save her soul, her daughter's, her husband's, and even the souls of her adopted countrymen. I hadn't realized that it was Catherine that kept England from another civil war. 

I didn't care for Mattingly's writing style; I found it awkward and sometimes melodramatic and overwrought. It was still a worthwhile book to read. 

Book 12: Green Darkness by Anya Seton

This is a tale of romance and reincarnation. This story begins in 1968. Recently married Celia Marsdon is unhappily hosting weekend guests at her husband Richard's ancestral estate. During a tour at a haunted manor house, Celia faints and later falls into a coma.

The second part of the book takes place from 1552 to 1559 through the reigns of Tudor Monarchs Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. Young Celia Bohun lives with her aunt at her family's former estate now owned by Sir Anthony Browne. Celia falls in love with Brother Stephen, a young monk who serves the Browne family.

In the 16th Century, Celia and Stephen's love ends in tragedy, as will Celia and Richard's in the 20th Century unless Celia and Richard can relive the events of their previous lifetimes.

I was intrigued by the book's description as a reincarnation story set in Tudor England. I had previously read two Anya Seton books, and decided to give this a try. The 1968 portion of the book wasn't particularly interesting; the Tudor portion was much better, especially the portions that dealt with the upheavals caused by the official religion changing from Protestantism to Catholicism and back again. 

Another Reread: The Concubine by Norah Lofts

One night recently I wanted to read a book, but nothing from my dwindling TBR pile appealed to me. I picked up The Concubine by Norah Lofts. I  have fond memories of this book. I think I first read it when I was 17, and stole its format for my term paper on Anne Boleyn. 

I don't know if I would still rank it as one of my favorite books, but it's still a good book. 

Book Six: The Autobiography of Henry VIII, With Notes by his Fool, Will Somers by Margaret George

I really enjoyed this book; I'm glad I didn't pass it up as I had previously. 

In the Prologue, Henry VIII's fool is writing to Catherine Carey Knollys, the daughter of Henry VIII and Mary Boleyn to send her the journal that Henry wrote. (Note: it's unclear if Henry VIII really was Catherine's father.)

The journal begins with Henry recalling his first memory of becoming a Knight of the Bath at age 3. This rang true because I had recently watched a program that described how important this ceremony would be--one of the few times Henry would even see his father Henry VII. 

George does a good job of showing how Henry rationalizes his beliefs and decisions. Does he really believe only he knows the true thoughts of God? It reminded me of Henry's grandmother Margaret Beaufort as described by Philippa Gregory in The Red Queen. 

Near the end of the book, Henry is seeking the love of his children. I wonder how any of his children could truly love such a rash and dangerous man. Especially Mary, who suffered horribly through Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and the reign of Anne Boleyn. 

Book Five: The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr

I enjoyed reading The Alienist, and this follow-up is even better. A year following the events in The Alienist, Dr. Laszlo Kreizler and his team are working on a new case--the infant daughter of a Spanish diplomat has been kidnapped. The investigation leads to a woman suspected to be a serial killer of children. 

The Angel of Darkness is narrated by Stevie Taggert who was saved from the streets by Kreizler and worked as his carriage driver. Stevie is a great choice to show us the street life that he escaped. His habit of hinting of bad things to come at the end of chapters helped build suspense. 

I liked the interactions of the characters with historical figures Theodore Roosevelt, Clarence Darrow, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Darrow in the courtroom scenes was fascinating.

Book Three: Henry VIII and his Court by Neville Williams

Full disclosure: I discovered this book in my high school library and read the parts about Anne Boleyn. This book was a major source of my senior year term paper. It's only 260 pages with several photographs, but there are a lot of facts, names, and dates in a small amount of text. 

I was able to identify the book by the language, "Playful bandinage, perhaps, but exceedingly dangerous." It was a description of an conversation between Anne Boleyn and Henry Norris. I had never heard of that word before, and I never heard it since. Note: I just checked the dictionary, and it only lists badinage, meaning banter. 

Overall, a good background book on Henry VIII with lovely photographs. 

Rails to Whistlestops

Tonight I attended a slide show presentation, Rails to Whistlestops about railroad stations in Southern Connecticut and what happened to them by Sue Del Bianco. Here's a flyer. 

Sue had a good selection of photographs and stories. She asked me to speak about Merwinsville. 

It was a horrible night to be out, bitterly cold. But at least it was still light as we were driving up to Bridgeport. That really helped. 

It was nice to get back to thinking about 19th century railroads and have a new contact with similar interests.

Book Two: Anne Boleyn A King's Obsession by Alison Weir

I enjoyed this book. Weir writes both historical and fictional treatments; her fiction works are rooted in historical facts.

Here, the story is told from Anne's point of view. Anne didn't love Henry but after his relentless pursuit started to include a proposal of marriage and a queenship, Anne decided why not? I like this interpretation because it matches my own view.

Weir adds a love between Anne and Henry Norris, which is never consummated. I had imagined that Anne and Harry Percy remained in love throughout their lives.  

While Weir had said that feminism was unknown in Tudor England, she recognized that Anne spent years in the households of  Margaret of Austria and Marquerite of Valois. There Anne was exposed to an intellectual movement that questioned traditional concepts of women. She may have even met Leonardo da Vinci 

A King's Obsession is the second of the Six Tudor Queens series. I previously read the first and enjoyed that too. I've started another book about the Tudors--they are fascinating. 

Book One: Five Points The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum by Tyler Anbinder

Last year I read two books, Angel of Vengeance and The Alienist, that took place primarily in Five Points as well as The Cabinet of Dr. Leng in 2023. I wanted to learn more about the setting of these books. Then I saw this book at a library sale. 

The book details the background of the neighborhood, the people who lived there, how they lived and worked, their politics, play, crime, and religion. Anbinder also details the different ethnicities that called Five Points home focusing on the Irish, Italians, and Chinese.

I like the structure of the book. Each chapter has a prologue with an individual story that relates to the larger story in the chapter. 

It took me awhile to read this book because I tend to read history more slowly than fiction. My time was well worth it. 

More About 2024 Books

I was dozing off as I finished my list last night, so I just posted it without comment.

I read 27 books in 2024. For the second consecutive year, I read fewer books than I had the previous year. I didn't reach my goal, but I'm not concerned about that. 

I was surprised that I only read three histories and two historical fiction, much less than earlier years. I read nine fiction, five mystery/suspense, four memoir, two pop culture, two short story collections.

My favorites of the year are The Blind Assassin and Angel of Vengeance. Education and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn were also good.

Book 25: The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory

The Red Queen is Margaret Beaufort, mother to Henry VII. A bride at 12, a mother and widow at 13, Margaret devoted the rest of her life to her son, doing whatever she could to advance his claim to the English throne. In this novel, that included ordering the murders of two innocent boys (the princes in the tower.)

Gregory portrays Margaret as a religious hypocrite: constantly asserting that her ambition is God's will--including the dubious interpretation that since there was no sign, it must be God's will to kill the two princes. 

I'd be interested in reading a more scholarly approach to Margaret Beaufort's life.

I've actually read seven of Gregory's Plantagenet and Tudor Novels. I read The White Queen is about Queen Elizabeth Woodville, the mother of Elizabeth of York, several years ago. In a suggested reading order and historical timeline, I should have read The Red Queen before The While Princess. Too late to remedy that now.

I won't seek out Gregory's novels, but I would like to read more about Anne Neville, The Kingmaker's Daughter.