She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth (77 page)

BOOK: She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth
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Windsor: court (1126),
1
;

Christmas court (1184),
1
,
2
;

meeting of barons,
1
;

castle surrendered by John,
1
;

birth of Edward III,
1
;

Isabella at,
1
;

Henry VI’s household,
1
,
2
,
3
;

Margaret’s imprisonment,
1

Worcester,
1

Wroth, Sir Thomas,
1

Wyatt, Sir Thomas,
1
,
2
,
3

Yolanda of Aragon,
1
,
2
,
3
,
4
,
5

Yolande of Anjou,
1

York, Edward Plantagenet, duke of, see Edward IV

York, Richard Plantagenet, duke of: ancestry,
1
,
2
,
3
;

career,
1
;

claim to lead government of Henry VI,
1
;

rivalry with Somerset,
1
,
2
;

heir presumptive,
1
;

control of royal council,
1
;

imprisonment of Somerset,
1
,
2
;

protector of the realm,
1
;

government,
1
;

king’s recovery,
1
;

exclusion from government,
1
;

St Albans victory,
1
,
2
,
3
;

Henry VI receives crown from his hands,
1
;

Margaret’s attitude to,
1
,
2
,
3
,
4
,
5
,
6
;

ascendancy,
1
;

resignation as protector,
1
;

at Sandal,
1
;

Coventry council,
1
;

oath of loyalty,
1
;

refusal to attend second Coventry council,
1
;

defence of Scottish border,
1
;

loveday (1458),
1
,
2
;

failure to attend Coventry council (1459),
1
;

Blore Heath,
1
;

Ludford Bridge,
1
,
2
;

flight to Ireland,
1
;

declared guilty of treason,
1
;

invasion preparations,
1
;

arrival in London,
1
;

claims throne,
1
;

Westminster settlement (1460),
1
;

Wakefield battle,
1
;

death,
1
,
2

Zengi, Imad ad–Din,
1

About the Author
 
 

Helen Castor is a historian of medieval England, and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Her last book,
Blood & Roses
, a biography of the fifteenth-century Paston family, was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2005 and won the English Association’s Beatrice White Prize in 2006. She lives in London with her husband and son.

By the Same Author
 
 

BLOOD & ROSES

Copyright
 
 

First published in 2010
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA

 

This ebook edition first published in 2010 

 

All rights reserved
© Helen Castor, 2010

 

The right of Helen Castor to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

 

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

 

ISBN 978–0–571–27172–6

 
 

A thirteenth-century illustration of the first four Norman kings: William the Conqueror (top left), his sons William Rufus (top right) and Henry I (bottom left), and Henry’s nephew Stephen (bottom right). Stephen holds a sword to show that he was forced to fight for his throne against the claim of Henry’s daughter Matilda.

 

Eleven-year-old Matilda (second from right behind the table) sits beside her first husband, the German Emperor Heinrich V, at their wedding feast in 1114. It was eleven years before she returned to England as the widowed ‘Empress Matilda’ to be named her father’s heir. 

 
 

The effigy of Eleanor of Aquitaine lies beside that of her second husband, Matilda’s son Henry II of England, in the calm of Fontevraud Abbey – a striking contrast to the turbulence of their marriage.

 

Images of power: the two sides of royal seals show the king with sceptre and sword as judge and warrior – key functions of kingship that a woman could not easily fulfil. On the left is Philippe II of France, son of Eleanor’s first husband Louis VII; on the right, John, youngest son of Eleanor and Henry. 

 
 

Edward II’s queen, Isabella of France, in armour at the head of her troops at Hereford in 1326 – a fourteenth-century image that echoes contemporary depictions of the Amazonian queens of classical myth. In the background her husband’s favourite, Hugh Despenser the younger, meets a grisly end on the scaffold.

 

The effigy of Edward II, carved in English alabaster, on his tomb in Gloucester Cathedral. 

 

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