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Loading... She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth (2010)by Helen Castor
   No current Talk conversations about this book.  VivienneR | Mar 20, 2024 |    ) Fortunesdearest | Feb 2, 2024 | I really liked this one but it's gonna take me a bit to write a decent review. (  ) xaverie | Apr 3, 2023 | Honestly, the writing style is pretty boring, but the info is good, so i'll let it pass... (  ) thereadingpal | Jun 14, 2022 |  ) Danean | May 10, 2021 |
 Another problem is the changing social position of noblewomen over these centuries, which is left unexamined. Could women lead armies? Some did. In this book the matter is confused: on page 102 Matilda is prevented by her sex from military leadership but on page 105 her rival, Stephen's queen, ordered her troops to attack the area around London.  Castor shrewdly weighs up the legend versus the evidence. It is said that Edward was murdered with a poker up the fundament, but Castor sensibly concludes that this story originated at a much later date. She is convinced that he was murdered, and firmly discounts the myth that he became a wandering hermit. Castor lards her skip-hop-and-jump narrative with lively quotes from contemporaries and has a sure sense of when to settle in detail on a startlingly pictorial event and when to summarise. She dives into chronicles, diplomatic correspondence, parliamentary rolls and biographies old and new to come up with apposite quotes and pearls of description. Maps and family trees for each reign firmly place the reader geographically and genetically. The stiff doll-like images of medieval queens dissolve; we wonder what we would have done in their place. Has the adaptationNotable Lists
When Edward VI died in 1553, the extraordinary fact was that there was no one left to claim the title of king of England. For the first time, England would have a reigning queen, but the question was which one: Katherine of Aragon's daughter, Mary; Anne Boleyn's daughter, Elizabeth; or one of their cousins, Lady Jane Grey or Mary, Queen of Scots. But female rule in England also had a past. Four hundred years before Edward's death, Matilda, daughter of Henry I and granddaughter of William the Conqueror, came tantalizingly close to securing the crown for herself. And between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries three more exceptional women -- Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou -- discovered how much was possible if pre-sumptions of male rule were not confronted so explicitly, and just how quickly they might be vilified as "she-wolves" for their pains. The stories of these women, told here in all their vivid detail, expose the paradox that female heirs to the Tudor throne had no choice but to negotiate. Man was the head of woman, and the king was the head of all. How, then, could royal power lie in female hands? - Publisher. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)942.009History and Geography Europe England and Wales EnglandLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.98)
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Wikipedia in English
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The book opens with the death of Henry VIII’s young son King Edward VI in 1553 when all potential heirs were female meaning England would have a female reigning monarch for the first time. Then Castor goes back to provide biographies of Empress Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou who were all queens in the names of their husbands or sons. And although Matilda reigned briefly, “Bloody” Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon was the first queen to rule in her own right.
Outstanding! Highly recommended. (