Medieval justice was a quaint thing. Frederick PollockI am reading Ash ~ a Secret History, which is quite simply enormous & hard on the wrists...& not recommended for the faint of heart. Apart from anything else the language is realistically mercenary foul, the battles gruesome & the characters morally questionable. I have a hard time imagining any sort of woman running round in hose & codpiece in Medieval Europe but a suspension of reality is my forte & I am managing ~ at least some of the time. The second character posing as a man is a little too much...
On the other hand there is Eleanor of Aquitaine to consider ~ who caused so much trouble over a good part of the known world. Even Henry II, much as he tried & despite his numerous mistresses, wasn't able to ditch Eleanor but after all, she ruled Aquitaine from the time she was 15. She was one tough biddy & in an age when the average person was lucky to live to 40 she passed her 82nd birthday. She also produced a litter of cubs that was all teeth & claws, yet still managed to outlive all but John & Joan.
Eleanor I like. She amuses me & I was corrupted young by seeing Katherine Hepburne portray her in The Lion in Winter. [Glorious film!] I am far less taken with her sons who seemed to inherit all their father's filthy temper & none of their mother's refinement. She was a patron of the arty~farty's so my biased little heart warms to her on those grounds alone.
They were an incredibly arrogant lot though I do remind myself, the times, the times. Times or not it's a sad king who can't even speak the language of the kingdom he rules. Alright, alright, Richard was meant to rule Aquitaine; England was for Henry but Henry died of dysentery & Geoffrey died in a tournament so Richard got England & not only could he not speak English & never learnt, in the 10 years he ruled he was in England for something like just 6 months ~ & he spent those 6 months raising funds for his crusade! No, I don't like him much despite the glorious title, Cour de Lion. He didn't like England much, refering to it as "cold & always raining". Ok, so it's true but going round saying " If I could have found a buyer I would have sold London itself" is a bit much from London's king.
4 comments:
Your mind is so full of trivia I dont see how you even exist among mere mortals! LOL
You like her as an historical figure, but I doubt you'd get along very well in real life. From what I hear she wasn't very helpful, turning her sons against each other and their father. Most princes did that enough without such encouragement!
Richard's problem is he got too much press. There were worse kings, but no one's ever heard of them so they let them alone. And then those of us who don't know much history expect a lot from him because of the Robin Hood movies, so when truth comes out it's a let down.
but you know more about it than I do, even though medieval is more my time period than it is yours. :-/ One of these days I'll have time to read again. ANyway, I'm in no state or mind to argue.
MrsD: the internet is a wonderful thing. I don't need to keep all that trivia at my fingertips ~ which is probably a good thing. ☺
MamaO: Oh, she wasn't a *nice* person ~ & she definitely played politics. I mean Henry locked her up & wanted to divorce her & she was waaay out of control but an interesting lady just the same.
As for Richard, I've always known his *sexual orientation* & that was enough for me. I would have cared less if the history texts I was exposed to hadn't held him up as such a paragon of virtue. Irked me. I had more sympathy for John who was just weak & power hungry & a bit of an idiot politically ~ but as you say, not really my area & the stakes were very high. John lost a lot of the French holdings I think & he wasn't a very good soldier, which Richard was, but as a Quaker that tends not to impress me either. lol ☺
Eleanor of Aquitaine! One of the more interesting figures in history, for sure. Have you read Sharon Kay Penman's books? She is one of my favorite writers. I have not read the ones on Henry and Eleanor yet, although they are on my shelves just waiting for me!
Take a look at http://www.sharonkaypenman.com/
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