by Alison Weir
Smith, W. J. “The Revolt of William Somerton” (English Historical Review, LXIX, 1954).
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Steane, John. The Archaeology of the Mediaeval English Monarchy (London, 1993; rev. ed., 1999).
Stone, Lawrence. Sculpture in Britain: The Middle Ages (Baltimore, 1972).
Stones, E. L. G. “The Anglo-Scottish Negotiations of 1327” (Scottish Historical Review, XXX, 1951).
Stones, E. L. G. “The Date of Roger Mortimer’s Escape from the Tower of London” (English Historical Review, LXVI, 1951).
Stones, E. L. G. “The English Mission to Edinburgh” (Scottish Historical Review, XXVIII, 1949).
Stones, E. L. G. “The Treaty of Northampton, 1328” (History, n.s., XXXVIII, 1953).
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Tanner, L. “Westminster Abbey and the Coronation Service” (History, XXI, 1936–37).
Tanquerery, F. J. “The Conspiracy of Thomas Dunheved, 1327” (English Historical Review, XXXI, 1916).
Taylor, Anna A. “The Career of Peter Gaveston” (M.A. thesis, University of London, 1939).
Taylor, John. English Historical Literature in the Fourteenth Century (Oxford, 1987).
Taylor, John. “The French Brut and the Reign of Edward II” (English Historical Review, LXXII, 1957).
Taylor, John. “The Judgement on Hugh Despenser the Younger” (Medievalia et Humanistica, XII, 1958).
Thornton-Cook, Elsie. Her Majesty: The Romance of the Queens of England, 1066–1910 (London, 1926; reprinted, New York, 1970).
Thornton-Cook, Elsie. Kings in the Making: The Princes of Wales (London, 1931).
Thynne, Francis, Lancaster herald. Lives of the Lord Treasurers (MSS, c. 1580, in the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart, at Middle Hill).
Tomkinson, A. “Retinues at the Tournament of Dunstable, 1309” (English Historical Review, LXXIV, 1959).
Tout, Thomas Frederick. “The Captivity and Death of Edward of Caernarvon” (in Collected Papers of Thomas Frederick Tout, Manchester, 1920–34, and Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, VI, 1921).
Tout, Thomas Frederick. Chapters in the Administrative History of Mediaeval England (6 vols., Manchester, 1920–33).
Tout, Thomas Frederick. “Isabella of France” (Dictionary of National Biography; see above for full details).
Tout, Thomas Frederick. The Place of the Reign of Edward II in English History (Manchester, 1914; revised by Hilda Johnstone, Manchester, 1936).
Tout, Thomas Frederick. “The Tactics of the Battles of Boroughbridge and Morlaix” (English Historical Review, XIX, 1904).
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Woolgar, C. M. The Great Household in Late Mediaeval England (New Haven and London, 1999).
FICTION
Barnes, Margaret Campbell. Isabel the Fair (London, 1957).
Druon, Maurice. The She-Wolf of France (London, 1960).
Graham, Alice Walworth. The Vows of the Peacock (London, 1956).
Holt, Emily Sarah. The Lord of the Marches, or the Story of Roger Mortimer: A Tale of the Fourteenth Century (London, 1884).
Howatch, Susan. Cashelmara (London, 1974).
Lewis, Hilda. Harlot Queen (London, 1970).
Illustration Credits
FIRST SECTION
&nbs
p; Philip IV with his children. Miniature from the Dimna va Kalila, translated by Raymond de Béziers (Bibliothèque nationale de France [MS Latin 8504, f.IV])
Jeanne, Queen of Navarre and France (Roger-Viollet/TopFoto)
Isabella of France, corbel head in Beverley Minster, Yorkshire (Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art)
Philip IV, tomb effigy in the Cathedral of St. Denis, Paris (Arch. Phot./Coll. MAP/© CMN)
Louis X, tomb effigy in the Cathedral of St. Denis, Paris (Arch. Phot./Coll. MAP/© CMN)
Philip V, tomb effigy in the Cathedral of St. Denis, Paris (Arch. Phot./Coll. MAP/© CMN)
Charles IV, tomb effigy in the Cathedral of St. Denis, Paris (Arch. Phot./Coll. MAP/© CMN)
The marriage of Isabella and Edward II, from Jean de Waurin, Chroniques d’Angleterre (The British Library [MS Royal 15 E.IV f.295V])
Edward II, profile of tomb effigy in Gloucester Cathedral (Woodmansterne/TopFoto)
Edward II, tomb effigy (Bildarchiv Foto Marburg)
Isabella, stone head from the Oxenbridge tomb, Winchelsea Church, Sussex (National Monuments Record)
Isabella, painted roof boss in Bristol Cathedral (Courtesy of the Chapter of Bristol Cathedral)
Isabella’s seal as Queen of England (The British Library [Scals XXXVI I])
Marguerite of France, statue on Lincoln Cathedral (Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art)
Charles IV welcomes Isabella to Paris, from Jean Froissart, Chroniques (Bibliothèque nationale de France [MS FR 2643, f.1])
Isabella sails with her army from Hainault, from Jean Froissart, Chroniques (Bibliothèque nationale de France [MS FR 2643, f.7V])
Isabella and Roger Mortimer ride toward Oxford (Collection of the Earl of Leicester, Holkham Hall, Norfolk/Bridgeman Art Library)
Isabella takes possession of Bristol, from Jean Froissart, Chroniques (Bibliothèque nationale de France [MS FR 2643, f.9])
SECOND SECTION
Isabella and her army before Hereford, from Jean de Waurin, Chroniques d’Angleterre (British Library, London/Bridgeman Art Library)
The execution of Hugh le Despenser, from Jean Froissart, Chroniques (Bibliothèque nationale de France [MS FR 2643, f.II])
Edward II abdicates in favor of his son, Edward III, from Piers of Langtoft, Chronicle of England (The British Library [MS Royal 20 A B, f.I0])
Fortune turning a wheel, from the Holkham Bible Picture Book (The British Library [MS Add. 47682, f.IV])
Coronation of Edward III, from Jean Froissart, Chroniques (Bibliothèque nationale de France [MS FR 2643, f.12])
Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire (Collections/Quintin Wright)
Edward’s cell, Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire (Collections/Michael Jenner)
Isabella with her son, Edward III, from an illuminated treatise by Walter de Milemete (The Governing Body of Christ Church, Oxford [MS 92, f.4V])
A Queen at Mass, from the Taymouth Hours (The British Library [MS Yates Thompson 13, f.7])
The Virgin presents a kneeling Queen to Christ, from the Taymouth Hours (The British Library [MS Yates Thompson 13, f.139])
A King and Queen kneeling, from the Taymouth Hours (The British Library [MS Yates Thompson 13, f.118V])
Castle Rising, Norfolk (Collections/John D. Beldom)
John of Eltham, tomb effigy in Westminster Abbey (Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art)
Isabella of France, weeper from the tomb of John of Eltham (Copyright Dean and Chapter of Westminster)
Philippa of Hainault, drawing by Smirko of an original wall painting (now destroyed) in St. Stephen’s Chapel in the Palace of Westminster (© Society of Antiquaries, London)
Isabella, roof boss from Exeter Cathedral, c.1350 (Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art)
The Fieschi letter (Archives Départmentale Hérault, Montpellier [MS G1123, f.86])
READING GROUP QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. How far do you think the author has succeeded in rehabilitating Isabella? Do you think she set out to write a revisionist view of her? Or did that come about as a response to the historical sources that she studied?
2. Do you think our modern moral values allow us to take a more sympathetic view of Isabella than that of her contemporaries? Do you think she deserves our sympathy for her “moral” failings?
3. How would you account for Isabella`s transition from a model queen-consort and acknowledged peacemaker to a notorious femme fatale who became known as a jezebel and a she-wolf?
4. Did you like Isabella? If you have read Eleanor of Aquitaine, did you find her as charismatic a character as Eleanor?
5. Were the author’s arguments for Edward II’s survival convincing? If so, what was the most powerful evidence in favor of that theory? If not, why not?
6. Did you find anything to like about Isabella’s husband, Edward II? Would you agree with the view that he was one of the worst kings in English history? What makes a good or a bad king?
7. Do you think that the issue of homosexuality is sensitively and objectively handled by the author? How should we allow modern politically correct views to influence the study of history?
8. It could be said that Isabella was a victim rather than a villainess. Would you agree with that view? And how far should we apply modern feminist perspectives when studying women of the past?
9. Isabella appears as a character in the film Braveheart. What is historically inaccurate about that portrayal? Should she have been in the film at all?
10. If you were asked to choose an actress to portray Isabella, who would it be? Were you convinced by the author’s theories as to what Isabella looked like? Should filmmakers always try to find actresses who look like historical characters?
11. How do you account for Roger Mortimer’s transition from a staunch supporter of the Crown to an exiled traitor, and then to a tyrant? What do you think was the true nature of the relationship between Isabella and Mortimer? Who was the dominant partner?
12. Did Isabella have blood on her hands? If so, whose?
13. What was Edward III’s attitude toward his parents? Do you think the troubles between them caused him great anguish? And was he caught up in a conflict of loyalties?
14. Contrast Piers Gaveston and Hugh le Despenser the Younger. Were both villains? Whose was the worst influence on Edward II, and why? Are you convinced that his relationships with both were homosexual? Did both deserve to be put to death? Was Despenser`s execution unnecessarily cruel?
15. Would you agree that Isabella`s reputation had been restored by the time she died? To what extent was Edward III responsible for this? Why do you think Isabella was so concerned about penitence and redemption in her last years?
Read on for an excerpt from Alison Weir’s
Mary Boleyn
1
The Eldest Daughter
Blickling Hall, one of England’s greatest Jacobean showpiece mansions, lies not two miles northwest of Aylsham in Norfolk. It is a beautiful place, surrounded by woods, farms, sweeping parkland and gardens—gardens that were old in the fifteenth century, and which once surrounded the fifteenth century moated manor house of the Boleyn family, the predecessor of the present building. That house is long gone, but it was in its day the cradle of a remarkable dynasty; and here, in those ancient gardens, and within the mellow, red-brick gabled house, in the dawning years of the sixteenth century, the three children who were its brightest scions once played in the spacious and halcyon summers of their early childhood, long before they made their dramatic debut on the stage of history: Anne Boleyn, who would one day become Queen of England; her brother George Boleyn, who would also court fame and glory, but who would ultimately share his sister’s tragic and brutal fate; and their sister Mary Boleyn, who would become the mistress of kings, and gain a notoriety that is almost certainly undeserved.
Blickling was where the Boleyn siblings’ lives probably began, the protective setting for their infant years, nestling in the broad, rolling landscap
e of Norfolk, circled by a wilderness of woodland sprinkled with myriad flowers such as bluebells, meadowsweet, loosestrife, and marsh orchids, and swept by the eastern winds. Norfolk was the land that shaped them, that remote corner of England that had grown prosperous through the wool-cloth trade, its chief city, Norwich—which lay just a few miles to the south—being second in size only to London in the Boleyns’ time. Norfolk also boasted more churches than any other English shire, miles of beautiful coastline and a countryside and waterways teeming with a wealth of wildlife. Here, at Blickling, nine miles from the sea, the Boleyn children took their first steps, learned early on that they had been born into an important and rising family, and began their first lessons.
Anne and George Boleyn were to take center-stage roles in the play of England’s history. By comparison, Mary was left in the wings, with fame and fortune always eluding her. Instead, she is remembered as an infamous whore. And yet, of those three Boleyn siblings, she was ultimately the luckiest, and the most happy.
This is Mary’s story.
Mary Boleyn has aptly been described as “a young lady of both breeding and lineage.”1 She was born of a prosperous landed Norfolk family of the knightly class. The Boleyns, whom Anne Boleyn claimed were originally of French extraction, were settled at Salle, near Aylsham, before 1283, when the register of Walsingham Abbey records a John Boleyne living there,2 but the family can be traced in Norfolk back to the reign of Henry II (1154–89).3 The earliest Boleyn inscription in the Salle church is to John’s great-great-grandson, Thomas Boleyn, who died in 1411; he was the son of another John Boleyn and related to Ralph Boleyn, who was living in 1402. Several other early members of the family, including Mary’s great-great-grandparents, Geoffrey and Alice Boleyn, were buried in the Salle church, which is like a small cathedral, rising tall and stately in its perpendicular splendor in the flat Norfolk landscape. The prosperous village it once served, which thrived upon the profitable wool trade with the Low Countries, has mostly disappeared.