Tag Archives: Elizabeth I

The Sunday Review: Getting Up to Speed on the Tudor Court

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After Friday’s Travel Diary post, I’ve had several requests for the quintessential book about the Tudor Court. Clearly, I cannot name just one. Impossible. I can, however, give you a glimpse into a reader’s history and how I developed a passion for Anne Boleyn’s story.

Yes, that’s me inserted into the Queen Elizabeth I painting. My son gave me this for my birthday last year!

I came into my obsession through a couple of different avenues, but we’ll start with my childhood reading. As a precocious reader, my parents let me run amok in my hometown library, and I devoured everything I could find about the Tudor Court. I was fascinated with how a man, even if he was a king, could somehow get away with having six wives and killing two of them — remember the old saying, Divorced Beheaded Died Divorced Beheaded Lived? I was entranced with how Elizabeth I got to the throne and at some point, I figured out why the current Queen of England was Elizabeth II. I was hooked.

When I began to teach American history, I realized that my students had no idea why the early English colonists left to start over in what they called the New World. The idea of religious freedom had little meaning if not compared to the religious situation the colonists left. Teaching my students about settlements in what we now call the United States made me want to know more at an adult level about the English Civil Wars and the Reformation in Europe.

Click into this family tree for more resources on the War of the Roses between the Lancasters and the Yorks and how a Tudor got to be king!

Learning about how the Tudors got to the throne made me finally realize why Henry VIII was willing to do just about anything to get a legitimate male heir. After all that his ancestors went through to get that throne, he was pretty determined to keep it — and why Elizabeth I was just as determined to not let marriage undermine her authority.

Click into this family tree to find out even more information about what happened to the Tudor line.

Enter current historical fiction and its magic. Most historical fiction being produced today is well-researched and written by fine writers who do a great job of creating compelling stories that are reasonably accurate. There are myriad resources available to the HF writer today; primary sources are collected and shared in great libraries and on the internet. The body of “domestic” documents (diaries, recipe books, household accounts written by women) that have been collected give the authors a much better view into their characters’ lives and it shows in the books they write. I read historical fiction with my internet browser at the ready so that I can either verify or expand on the material presented. It’s a good time to be a writer of historical fiction and an even better time to be a reader. There truly is magic in these books for the adventurous reader.

So what do I recommend? Let’s start with three female writers who are well-known for their work in historical fiction about this time period. I’ve read “quite a bit” of their work . 🙂

Phillipa Gregory is a well-regarded historian and author who has written many novels about the York/Lancaster/Tudor saga and her books are probably the most accessible of the three authors I have chosen for this post.  Her web site has a nice feature with her books set against a historical timeline. Personally, if I were starting my reading today, I would follow her timeline and start with The White Queen, the story of Elizabeth Woodville. This book helps set the stage for the rivalries to follow. Next is  The Kingmaker’s Daughters, which is followed by her newest and unreleased book about Elizabeth of York, who married Henry VII, thus starting the Tudor line. The Constant Princess depicts a fictionalized version of the life of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife. The Other Boleyn Girl is loosely based on the life of Mary Boleyn, Anne’s sister, who was Henry VIII’s mistress and that relationship was one of the reasons used to declare the marriage between Anne and Henry null and void. The Other Boleyn Girl was also made into a movie starring Scarlett Johanssen. The Boleyn Inheritance covers the time period of Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard, with Jane Boleyn finally getting consequences for her actions. The Queen’s Fool takes the reader into the problem of Mary Tudor, the forgotten heir to the Tudor throne. The Virgin’s Lover features Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley, and finally, The Other Queen is the story of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Hilary Mantel is the author of two highly-acclaimed novels about the Tudor Court, written from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell. Both Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies have won the Man Booker Prize in England and are extraordinary extensions for people who already know something about Henry VIII and the political shenanigans that went on during his reign. The third book in the Cromwell trilogy is due to be published in 2015. I loved both of these books and am eagerly awaiting the third of the set.

Last but certainly not least is Alison Weir, also a renowned historian and novelist. She has written so many books about this period that I have just linked up the Alison Weir book list on amazon.com for you to look at. In checking out her online personna, I discovered that she actually leads British history tours. I AM INTRIGUED.

Although none of these ladies wrote a book about Henry’s last wife, Catherine Parr, there are a number of authors that have. I read one of them and was not impressed, but just in case, here’s a link that gives you some options.

More than you wanted to know? I hope not. After all, writers are readers and readers make better writers. I hope you will read some of these books and let me know how you liked them. Want to recommend something else? Go for it — I’m always ready for something new in this genre, and thanks for spending time with my great obsession today!

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31 Days in Europe: In Honor of Elizabeth

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Today is my niece’s third birthday and she is named after my mother, Elizabeth. I couldn’t resist posting the Globe Theater’s costume for Elizabeth I in their honor.

Image credit: Got My Reservations

Although Elizabeth I didn’t start out very happily and didn’t actually have much of a happy life either, I have always respected her. She held strong in the face of the challenges to her reign and didn’t cave in and marry someone she didn’t love in order to provide a Tudor heir. Granted, as a result a clear chain of Tudor rulers died with her and plunged England into a chaotic power struggle.

Image credit: Got My Reservations

I’m not sure where my grandmother got the name Elizabeth — I don’t think it was a family name — but her heirs have certainly used it. We named our daughter after her grandmother Elizabeth for her middle name and her first name came from her great-grandmother on my husband’s side. My brother’s daughter and her husband also named their daughter Elizabeth, and she is known by her nickname, Libbie, as my mother was by her family and close friends. Libbie is a very common topic at my niece’s blog, Vanderbilt Wife, so I’ll let you go there on your own to meet little Libbie. Sadly, you won’t get to meet my mom, as she passed away in June. I wrote about her here and here, if you would like to know more about my valiant heroine.

Happy birthday, sweet Libbie. And Mom, I still miss you every day.

31 Days in Europe: Knole

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Image credit: Got My Reservations

Okay, so the story of Knole is pretty juicy, but it starts way back during the mid-1400s, when it was first built. It is one of the largest houses in England, and its state rooms are largely preserved the way they were in the early 1600s. In this section, the juicy part is in the way Henry VIII forced Thomas Cranmer, his Archbishop of Canterbury, to hand it to him in 1538, just cause Henry liked it, and we now know that you don’t fight with good ole Hal. The Sackville family got control of the house during the reign of Elizabeth I in 1566 by being loyal courtiers, and Sackvilles have lived there ever since.

Image via onelondonone.blogspot.com

Many acres of park are still owned by the Sackville-West family and they live in over half of the house, but the National Trust owns the house and 43 acres of park. Its medieval deer park is comprised of 1ooo acres, and the deer that inhabit it are well-used to constant visitors, as Knole has been shown to the public for 500 years. Watching these very tame deer, it was sad to think that their original purpose on this property was to provide sport for the noblemen to hunt.

Image credit: Got My Reservations

Knole is so big and beautiful and full of ancient artifacts that it’s kind of hard to wrap your arms around its magnificence.  We weren’t able to take photos inside because the furnishings and art are so old that they are on the verge of crumbling into dust.

“In the early 17th century, Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, transformed the late medieval archbishop’s palace into a Renaissance mansion. Towards the end of the 17th century, his great-great-grandson, the 6th Earl, acquired Knole’s unique collection of Stuart furniture and textiles through his office as Lord Chamberlain. And then, towards the end of the 18th century the 6th Earl’s great-grandson, the 3rd Duke, added Old Masters bought on the Grand Tour to Italy and portraits commissioned from contemporary English artists such as Reynolds and Gainsborough” (http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-knole/w-knole-history.htm).

The Stuart furniture and bed linens are in the process of being copied and hermetically sealed to protect them from further deterioration. It was really interesting to see the posters showing the original pieces prior to restoration and or duplication.

Now we get to the really juicy part. Thanks for waiting so patiently as the historian in me made her presentation.

Image via Wikipedia Commons

Enter The Honorable Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson,  the only daughter of the 3rd Baron Sackville. Vita, as she was called,  grew up at Knole and talked about  how living in Knole was like living in a museum. The family actually occupied a small part of the immense house and left the state rooms and ancient furnishings intact. Our guide told the story that once Vita snuck into one of the Stuart bedrooms and tried to use a hairbrush. Her mother about flipped out over this silly childish curiosity, but you can image mom’s horror to find her daughter playing with these priceless heirlooms!

Image via bookdepository.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By 1913, Vita had become the wife of Harold George Nicolson, a British writer and politician. Vita already had quite a history of having affairs with female lovers before her marriage, and although she and Harold were devoted to each other, their open marriage allowed them to experiment outside their marital vows. Their letters to each other were edited and published by their son, Nigel Nicolson, after their deaths, and show a couple deeply in love and committed to similar goals and values in life.

Although not officially a member of the Bloomsbury Group, Vita was a friend of the collective of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists who lived and worked together in the London neighborhood of Bloomsbury. They were political and social liberals who believed passionately in the importance of art, and also of personal relationships and individual pleasure.

Image via hunter.cuny.edu

Among the many now-famous members of this group was Virginia Woolf, who began a lovers’ relationship with Vita Sackville-West in 1922. Although Vita claims that the affair was only twice consummated, the relationship lasted until the late 1920s and Woolf’s novel, Orlando, is set at Knole and is said to tell the story of Vita’s affair with a previous female lover.  Orlando explores the nature of gender difference and sexual identity because its main character goes back and forth in gender over its 400 years, and Woolf may have used Vita and her husband Harold, both openly bisexual, as the inspiration for Orlando.

Given the memories she had of Knole and her personal social agenda, you can imagine how difficult it was for Vita to be forced to leave it and renounce all claims to Knole simply because she was female. She was heartbroken when her father died and her male cousin inherited Knole and the hereditary title.

Image via telegraph.co.uk

Vita and Harold purchased Sissinghurst in 1930 and began to revive the ruined property, which in the 15th century was owned by the Baker family, who were related by marriage to the Sackvilles. She ended up owning a piece of her own history and making new history with the gardens that she and Harold created together.

This post  linked up with hundreds of other 31 Day-ers. Join the fun and visit other bloggers as they share a piece of themselves. I’m still number 568, by the way.

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