Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

From the beginning Marguerite of Anjou was a controversial queen. Few queens of England have so divided opinion; few have suffered more from the propaganda spread by their enemies.   Historians over the years have portrayed her as vengeful and ambitious.   In Shakespeare’s trilogy, she is the she-wolf of France, vilifying her as an adulteress and warmonger.   In Richard III, she is depicted as a one-woman Greek chorus.   Marguerite’s marriage was supposed to bring peace with France, but instead England dissolved into civil war during her husband’s reign, due to his mental illness and general unfitness to rule.   She acted with the best of all possible motives, to support first her husband, and then her son. Marguerite has borne the brunt of the responsibility for what went wrong during Henry’s reign. Like Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella, she is seen as an unnatural woman for meddling in affairs of state. Marguerite was born on March 23, 1430, t...

One could say that the story of Elizabeth Woodville is a Cinderella story.   Young widow meets handsome King; they marry despite opposition and live happily ever after.   Well as happy as one can be when the handsome king cheats on you constantly and eventually runs to fat after a life of indolence, and your brother-in-law is an asshole who keeps trying to depose your husband, and then your other brother-in-law steals the throne from your son and you have to hide in sanctuary until finally another handsome prince rescues you and marries your daughter.   It’s a different kind of fairy-tale, one that could only take place in Medieval England during the reign of the Plantagenets, the world’s most dysfunctional royal family. Let’s start from the beginning shall we? Elizabeth Woodville was born sometime in 1437, possibly in October, the eldest daughter of Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the Dowager Duchess of Bedford and Sir Richard Woodville.   Her parents’ marriage ha...

Title:  QUEEN BY RIGHT Author:  Anne Easter Smith Paperback: 528 pages Publisher: Touchstone; Original edition (May 10, 2011) Language: English Received copy from Publisher From the back cover: From the award-winning author of A Rose for the Crown, Daughter of York, and The King’s Grace comes another masterful historical novel—the story of Cecily of York, mother of two kings and the heroine of one of history’s greatest love stories.  In Cecily Neville, duchess of York and ancestor of every English monarch to the present day, Anne Easter Smith has found her most engrossing character yet. History remembers Cecily of York standing on the steps of the Market Cross at Ludlow, facing an attacking army while holding the hands of her two young sons. Queen by Right reveals how she came to step into her destiny, beginning with her marriage to Richard, duke of York, whom she meets when she is nine and he is thirteen. Raised together in her father’s household, they bec...