63 thoughts on “INTERVIEW WITH MARGARET GEORGE”

1. I totally loved all your questions, Sharon, and the answers were witty and fun to read! My favorites Q & A were the last two. I have read MG’s Autobiography of Henry III and very much enjoyed it. I have Mary Q of Scotland which is waiting for me to be read, and but I’ll look forward to reading Elizabeth I as well. Btw, I love the book cover 🙂

2. My friends are often bemused by my interest in history. To them it is a foreign place with no relevance to modern times. But, so many parallels can be drawn between the past and now as you mention in the second question. Another book to add to my wish list!

3. I think Elizabeth I led quite the interesting life. I read a bio about her a long time ago (can’t remember the author), have read fiction where she is a character, and seen movies and TV stories about this queen. I would love to read this book! And I too would love to know the answer you would ask her 🙂

4. Very interesting. I quite enjoyed this interview. In other matters, Robert Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, Lord High Steward of England and Justiciar to Henry II died today.

5. I’ve read her Cleopatra book and purchased the Henry VIII a few weeks ago. I’m not sure I’ll buy this one anytime soon as I bought and read Legacy recently and I tend to not be an Elizabeth (or Tudors in general) fan. However, it will still go on my wish list because of who the author is! Thanks for the interview Sharon, like the people listed above, I enjoyed it! I would be curious to know what Ms. George has on her radar for the next book (if she is even thinking about that given this book was just released).

6. Heard she revewied-her fleet after the Armarda,At perfleet on the Thames, Saying “My Per Fleet”…..Hence the Name of this Little Town, in Essex.

7. Thank you for doing this interview, Sharon! I’ve got all of Margaret’s other books, though I’ve only got round to reading her “Autobiography of Henry VIII” so far, and I’m excited about this one. I love her writing style in Henry VIII, particular the attention and detail to the early years, and his many years of marriage with Katherine of Aragon (which normally gets compressed and skimmed over in retellings)… the one thing that niggled for me was the portrayal of Anne Boleyn as a genuine witch and really not a very nice person at all – I don’t like magic in my historical fiction, and also I believe that characters shouldn’t be black and white, at least not when you’re writing about real people from the past. But apart from that, which was my one big peeve, I actually really liked it, and I’ve marked up the new book on Elizabeth on my wishlist!

8. I do believe that today, Richard ‘Couer-de-Lion’ I finally died of the festering wound he received at Chalus.

9. Here is today’s post for my non-Facebook friends and readers.
   Well, on April 6, 1199, Richard Coeur de Lion finally paid his mortal debt, dying that evening from the crossbow wound he’d suffered eleven days ago. His mother Eleanor was with him. Berengaria was not; she was apparently not even invited to his funeral or else she chose not to go. The only time in her entire life that we get a glimpse of the woman herself comes from the Bishop of Lincoln, who reported that he’d stopped at Beaufort en Vallee to comfort Berengaria “for the death of her husband. His words went straight to the soul of the sorrowing and almost broken-hearted widow and calmed her grief in a wonderful way.” Was she grieving for Richard? For what might have been? The children they’d never have? Or the bleak future that lay ahead of her now that she’d lost Richard’s protection? We don’t know, of course, for she guarded her heart well and took her secrets to the grave. She was not even thirty, but she never remarried, fighting a determined but dignified battle with John over her dower; not surprisingly, he treated her very shabbily, and Eleanor must bear some small measure of blame, too, for there is no evidence that she ever spoke up for her daughter-in-law. Berengaria would end her days as the Lady of Le Mans, buried in the beautiful abbey that she’d founded at l’Epau.
   It had to have been a terrible ordeal for Eleanor, watching helplessly as her favorite son died in agony, and less than five months later, she was present at her daughter’s deathbed, too. But she was a queen as well as a grieving mother, and she did all she could to secure the crown for her sole surviving son, John.
   In accordance with that odd medieval practice, Richard’s body was divied up, according to his instructions. His brain and entrails were buried at Charroux, the abbey founded by Charlemagne. His heart was buried at Rouen Cathedral and it can be seen today in Rouen’s city museum! The rest of him was buried in his coronation regalia at Fontervrault Abbey, at the feet of his father, Henry, as he’d requested. A deathbed expression of regret, perhaps? It is widely believed that he’d spared the life of the man who shot him for a particularly grim fate, but once he realized he was dying, he magnanimously forgave the man, deathbed generosity being easy and wise. But once he was dead, his loyal routier captain, Mercadier, had that unlucky soul flayed alive. Mercadier himself would fall to an assassin’s dagger in little more than a year, but his association with Richard has given him a certain murky notoriety. How many medieval mercenaries are still remembered?
   Moving on from a king’s death to a poet’s obsessive love, on this date in 1327 in an Avignon church, Petrarch first saw his beloved Laura, the woman who would haunt him for the next 20 years and inspire some truly remarkable poetry, And no, I did not remember that on my own! Credit where due to the website, This Day in Medieval History.

10. I can understand not being a Tudor fan in general, but Elizabeth Tudor was England’s best monarch by far. England was a far stronger and more confident country after her reign of 45 years than it was when she succeeded Bloody Mary. She outwitted all the other European monarchs of her time and even had the very-reluctant admiration of the pope, who considered her a heretic. In England she had the respect and loyalty of the brilliant men who surrounded her like Dudley, Cecil, Walsingham, Drake etc and the commoners as well.. She was the only female monarch at the time and she got the best of the good ol’ boys. Scarlett O’Hara would have loved her!

11. I agree, Jim. If we manage to blot out the Tudors in an alternate universe, we’d have to find a way to still keep Elizabeth, turning her into a Plantagenet. Imagine what she could have done had she not been so warped by her precarious childhood and young adult years.
    I am happy to report that Time and Chance is finally back on Kindle. Only it does not show up if you type in my name. You have to search for it.
    And I will be disappearing for a while, as I just got the galley proofs (now called page proofs) for Lionheart.

12. Best wishes with the proofing Sharon! Thanks for a fun interview – I had just picked up Elizabeth I at the library yesterday and am already well underway with it. What I love about Elizabeth’s story is that after all the uproar her father set into place for his MALE son, it was his second daughter who turned out to be the great Tudor monarch. Lovely irony with this from a gender perspective!

13. i agree, Cindy. I think it is also a nice irony that Louis Capet divorced Eleanor for failing to give him a male heir and she gave Henry five, especially since we now know it is the male, not the female, who determines the sex of the child.

14. Well, on this date in 1413, Henry V was crowned; thanks to Nan Hawthorne’s website for that bit of esoteric knowledge. More importantly, at least to a Yorkist, Edward IV died on April 9, 1483 after a brief illness, several weeks short of his 41st birthday. We often have fun with our What If scenarios, but this is one I haven’t seen mentioned here before. What if Edward had not died so prematurely and lived out another 20 years or so? A completely different ball game, no? Better? Worse? Better in that there’d be no Tudors. Worse in that there’d be no Elizabeth. Better for Richard, most likely, in that he’d not have gone down in history as one of England’s most notorious kings. Worse in that we’d not have had Shakespeare’s “bottled spider” play or–gasp– Sunne in Splendour. Better for England, for that would mean 20 more years of prosperity under Edward. Worse in that we don’t know what sort of king his son would have been? Impossible to say, of course, though I personally would not like to see the Woodvilles wielding so much power. That assumes, though, that young Edward would not have had a mind of his own. We do not know enough about him to render a judgment. If he came to the kingship as a grown man, would he have still felt threatened by his uncle, the Lord of the North? Or in those 20 years, would they have reached an accommodation? For what it is worth, I don’t think England would have fared well under a long reign by Edward VI, for I think his religious zealotry would have led him to persecute Catholiics the way his sister Mary persecuted Protestants. I think England was better served by the more pragmatic Elizabeth, who did not crack down on her Catholic subjects until after the Pope excommunicated her. But as little as the evidence is for Edward VI, we have even less for the future Edward V. But hey, if Edward IV had lived another 20 years, maybe his firstborn would have died before him and we’d still have had a Richard III on the throne, after all?
    On the home front, I have gotten as far as Lodi in Italy, where Eleanor has a tense and unexpected encounter with her son’s nemesis, Heinrich, on his way to Rome to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor. Naturally our Eleanor holds her own. As for me, I am so thoroughly sick of this book by now, on my 1000th re-read, that I don’t care if Richard rots in Germany. Fading away now, back to the 12th century and those interminable galley proofs.

15. Indeed, Sharon, I cannot but agree to all you wrote (except maybe the last part). I’ve taken so long because my compute crashed, and I’ve spent Friday and Saturday night restoring it. In any case, you forgot to mention that Tudor propaganda has this as the date Edward of Middleham, Richard and Anne’s son died, and history has it as the day when William X, Duke of Aquitaine and Eleanor’s father died.

16. Today’s Facebook post below.
    Working on the galley proofs is essential, but tiresome at this point in the process, and it definitely makes me cranky. For example, I was royally ticked off to hear that Rutgers (My university, I’m so sorry to admit) has paid Snookie of Jersey Shore $32,000 to give an inspirational speech to students there. To add insult to injury, this was $2,000 more than they paid to Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning author, Toni Morrison. Nice to know they have their priorities in order.
    And then I read about a story–that I fervently hope is not true–in which an English woman spent 20, 0000 pounds (about $32,000) to hold a wedding for her dog. According to the news item, she paid said sum for her Yorkshire terrier to tie the knot with a Chinese Crested in Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex. Yes, I know it is her money and she has the right to spend it as she pleases, but…ye gads, people.
    Okay, end of rantings. Before I disappear into the mists again, I want to thank my medieval Merlin, Koby, for reminding me that it was the Tudors who claimed Richard III’s son died on April 9th, the anniversary of Edward IV’s death. I was puzzled that I could have forgotten something like that even if it has been 30 years since I researched Sunne. But Koby’s reminder brought it back to me. Now I suppose it is conceivable that evidence has surfaced since Sunne came out that does confirm the death date of young Edward of Middleham. Does anyone know of that? Probably the person to ask would be Joan Szechtman, author of an imaginative novel about Richard III, This Time, in which Richard is snatched from Bosworth Field just before the moment of death and transported to the 21st century, where he becomes obsessed with using this technology to save his son. (He learns, to his sorrow, that Anne cannot be saved, for her tuberculosis was too advanced ever for modern medicine, but “Ned” died of a ruptured appendix, so he could be saved if only he could be brought into our time.) Joan, with all the research you did about young Ned’s death, did you come across any evidence other than Tudor propaganda for his exact date of death?

17. For some reason, Joan wasn’t able to post her response, so I am doing it for her. I knew she was the right person to ask!
    Sharon, from my research, both the birth date (and year) and Edward of Middleham’s death date remain enigmas. In writing THIS TIME, I came to realize that I had to pick specific dates for his birth and death, although I found nothing definitive.
    The least vague date I could find for Edward’s birth was from Hull (http://www3.dcs.hull.ac.uk/cgi-bin/gedlkup/n=royal?royal00986) as December, 1473. In his little booklet, EDWARD OF MIDDLEHAM: PRINCE OF WALES (pub 1973), P. W. Hammond says that Edward was born some time in 1475 or early 1476. For my book, I chose the Hull date as being the more likely because I reckoned that he and Anne would have certainly wanted heirs and because they only had Edward, I thought that maybe something like an RH incompatibility could have prevented further births.
    The uncertain date of Edward’s death is much less vague, and as far as I could find, ranged from March 31, 1484 to April 9, 1484. Here, at least, I could find a primary source for the “date” having been recorded in the Croyland Cronicles (third continuation). The American Branch of the Richard III Society has reproduced this chronicle and can be found on the their website here (http://www.r3.org/bookcase/croyland/croy8.html). On Edward’s death, Croyland mentions early April: “However, in a short time after, it was fully seen how vain are the thoughts of a man who desires to establish his interests without the aid of God. For, in the following month of April, on a day not very far distant from the anniversary of king Edward, this only son of his, in whom all the hopes of the royal succession, fortified with so many oaths, were centred, was seized with an illness of but short duration, and died at Middleham Castle, in the year of our Lord, 1484, being the first of the reign of the said king Richard. On hearing the news of this, at Nottingham, where they were then residing, you might have seen his father and mother in a state almost bordering on madness, by reason of their sudden grief.” From the way Croyland phrases it, I would say that Edward died within a few days of April 9, but not on that date.
    Based on this research, I had Richard say that he learned of his son’s death on April 4th and that he had died two days earlier. For Edward’s birth, I went with Hull, but I didn’t mention a specific date. I know that I’ll have to do it for the third book.
    Joan

18. And today, Llywelyn Fawr. Prince of Gwynedd and eventually of Wales, died.

19. A sad day for Wales, Koby, and for me; Llywelyn Fawr is my own favorite of all my characters.

20. Dear me! Why do so many people here dislike the Tudors?!
    I made a “what if” study of Edward VI by the way, and I thought he’d be hardline with Catholics. I think the signs were already there before his death,that he would have been fairly staunch on the matter. I think he would have been more hardline than Elizabeth… but I’m not convinced that he would have been as bad as Mary was with Protestants. And in the end I hesitated to predict whether Edward would have been as much of a tyrant as Henry – that was too big a question to predict really, and not fair as we simply have no idea how he might have turned out.
    Thank you for posting the information about Richard’s son, Sharon, it’s all so very interesting!
    Good luck with the galley proofs! Don’t let the tedium of the umpteenth reading get you down!

21. Here is today’s Facebook Note; what I said about my Facebook readers obviously applies to all of my blog readers, too. I am so very grateful for the feedback you provide.
    I was away yesterday (yes, escaped the galley proofs till the evening!) as I had to go to Philadelphia to meet the travel agency people, so I have not had a chance yet to read all of yesterday’s postings about Llywelyn Fawr. But I did read enough to see that there were some lovely compliments for Here Be Dragons mixed in with the honors paid to the remarkable Llywelyn. Thank you all so much for being so generous, for taking the time and trouble to let me know how much you enjoy my books. Writers rarely get this sort of feedback, at least not in such volume. Editors tend to focus upon what writers get wrong! (Though I am fortunate again, for my editor does let me know if she really likes a particular scene or chapter.) I’d say 99.9% of the reader letters and e-mails I’ve gotten over the years have been very positive, with the exception of a handful of really weird ones, like the guy who confessed he liked to fantasize about me walking about Mont St Michel wearing only a pair of high heel shoes. And about 3 years ago, I had some e-mails from a man in the Midwest that had me actually thinking I was glad I had a hundred pound German shepherd as my roommate. But those are the anomalies. Even when readers write to point out mistakes (for which I am always grateful, so do keep doing that), they are invariably very polite and still find good things to say about the rest of the book. But Facebook is even more immediate than e-mails, and so I am given a rare opportunity–readers often mention how much they care for a particular character or a specific scene or that they like the book’s humor or that I never go into Texas Chainsaw Massacre sort of gore in describing battles, etc. Best of all, these testamonials are all unsolicited! In mentioning the anniversary of Llywelyn’s death, I hadn’t been thinking about Dragons at all, so it was a lovely surprise to find so many favorable comments about it. Writing is a wonderful profession–light years away from practicing law. But it does have two drawbacks; it is solitary and so subjective that a writer sometimes cannot see the forest for all the trees. Sometimes we just “know” if a scene works and don’t need other validation, though that is always nice, of course; for example, I had that feeling about Henry’s penance scene before Becket’s tomb at Canterbury Cathedral. But more often than not, we can only hope that we’ve hit the target. So for those days when I am convinced I could not write a shopping list, much less another novel, it really does help to remember all the good things readers have said about past books. So please keep letting me know what you think, and do it, too, for other writers whose books you enjoy. It means more than we can ever say, and as a woman who writes 800 page books, you all know I’m rarely at a loss for words.
    Thanks to Nan Hawthorne’s Today in Medieval History, I can tell you that on this date in 1204, occurredd the second most shameful event in crusader history–the first being the massacre of the Jews and Saracens when the crusaders seized Jerusalem during the First Crusade. This time the members of the Fourth Crusade never even got to the Holy Land, and unleashed all of their crusading zeal upon the very rich (and Christian) city of Constantinople. We all know how dangerous religious fervor can be, whatever the religion, but we must never underestimate the primal power of plain, old-fashioned greed. Oddly, the sacking of Constaninople is the one time that Simon de Montfort, senior (the father of “my” Simon in Falls the Shadow) showed himself in a good light; Simon would later earn infamy for the brutal way he conducted the war against the Cathars in southern France. But he was genuinely horrified by his fellow crusaders’ attack upon Constantinople and would take no part in it, continuing on his own to the Holy Land.
    There is an interesting footnote about this sad episode involving a French princess. We’ve often talked here about how it was not always fun to be a royal princess; certainly the unfortunate Alys and Geoffrey and Constance’s daughter and Llywelyn and Ellen’s Gwenllian could testify to that. But one of the most appalling histories was that of Philippe Capet’s younger sister, Agnes, who’d been sent off to Constantinople as a child to wed the son of the Byzantine emperor. She would indeed be crowned as empress at the age of nine, but three years later, her young husband was deposed and murdered by a cousin, and Agnes (name changed to Anna by now) was forced to marry her husband’s murderer, Andronicles. He proved to be a monster, and when the people rose up against him, he fled, taking Agnes and his favorite concubine. They were captured and brought back to Constantinople, where he was brutally tortured and put to death. After all she’d been through, Agnes finally had some luck and was not harmed by the mob, who saw her as a victim, too. She disappeared from history, then, for some years, and did not appear until 1204, when Boniface of Montferrat, a leader of the Fourth Crusade and the brother of Conrad, an important character in Lionheart, found her hiding at the royal palace; he was shocked to find that she no longer understood French. She never returned to France, taking a Byzantine general as her lover and then husband, and giving birth to a daughter. So I like to think she did find some personal happiness in a life of unbelievable turmoil and horror.

22. Hi, Beth,
    I tend to agree with your assessment of Edward. I was surprised recently to learn that he was as precociously gifted with languages as sister Elizabeth. So he was obviously a very bright boy. But, as you point out, he was already showing signs of religious zealotry before he died. Hard to say what sort of king he would have made, but I doubt he could have surpassed Elizabeth.

23. I tried very hard in the study that I wrote of Edward to enlighten readers about the fact that Edward actually seemed to have inherited the same precocity as his sister Elizabeth, and also to try and dispell that myth that he was a sickly boy! I too doubt that he would have surpassed Elizabeth as a monarch though. He shared her intelligence but I don’t think he shared her wisdom, and also she was a moderate and he I think was not so. I’ve often found through my study of history, that on the whole moderation and temperance is often the best path – so the patterns and cycles that I read in the history has shown me.
    If I haven’t said it already – Dragons has always been my favourite book, with When Christ a very close second. And Llewellyn! Lol I think I fell half in love with Llewellyn myself whilst reading it, and was devastated that his son with Joanna died so young! I adore Ranulf too, even though he’s fictional, he has such a life of his own! One scene I will never forget from the Eleanor and Henry trilogy is that garden scene between Eleanor and Henry… oh and the scene from that little girl’s perspective where Geoffrey of Anjou turns up, hehehe, I loved him for that even though mainly throughout I was rooting for Maud. I think my favourite princesses from the books are Gwenllian and Elen.
    Interestingly given your exhortation of us to continue telling you and other authors we love just what we think, I recently sent a letter to another author whose work I simply adore, letting them know what I thought. I have to say though… those weird letters you received… eeek!
    I really MUST spend more time studying the Medieval Byzantine empire. It’s so overlooked but must be fascinating!

24. Beth, you asked why people so dislike the Tudors. It isn’t them, or their history. Its the fact that for most people, its all they know of English history. Publishers seemed to think that thats all they wanted to read about, so we have a wealth of books on the subject, whereas other time periods, until recently, have been left in the dust. So its not so much a dislike, as much as being bored to death with them and long for something else (like Sharon’s books 🙂 That being said, I recently read Legacy and Wolf Hall after saying I wouldn’t read anymore Tudor, and was glad I did. The authors of those two books managed to make the age new again.
    Speaking of Byzantium, I am reading a fascinating book based on the Empire , called Sailing to Sarantium. Its Historical Fantasy, so while his base is Byzantium under Justinian and Theodora, its a whole different world all together. But well worth the look.
    I still remember our 6th grade teacher telling us about the fall of Constantinople, as if it happened just that year. Obviously someone in love with history, wanting to share that love. Not sure why I remember it so well, but it certainly started a love affair for the medieval.

25. Thank you cindyash for saying it perfectly! It’s not that I don’t like the Tudors (they are the reason I became so interested in historical fiction afterall). It was just such a brief time and sometimes it feels like if you have read Tudor book, you’ve read them all. That being said, I also read Legacy and loved it (I have Wolfall on my TBR pile). There are just so many different kings and time periods that I am interested in to stay focused on just this time period. As I mentioned on the historical fiction forum, I have created a King Arthur-Queen Elizabeth II reading challenge for myself. I am reading both HF and NF about every ruler, challenger, etc from the 5th century to present day. It is quite a feat I dare say!

26. Nice challenge, Brenna! I set myself a similar challenge, except from the Stone Age to present day and about pretty much every culture in the history of the world… what can I say, over the years I’ve collected a miniature library’s worth of books on history and historical fiction, and I thought it was about time to set to those unread books on the shelf!
    6th grade? How old is that, cindyash? In this country I never learnt about Byzantium as a child. For primary school history we did ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, Roman Britain, Anglo-Saxon Britain, Viking Britain, Medieval Britain, then the Tudors, WW2, and the Victorians. It was slightly different at senior school because I took three history related subjects all at once – History, Classics, and Latin – but we still never did the Byzantines. We did a LOT of WW2. Throughout my school life we must have repeated WW2 at least five times in history classes. It was such a relief to get to degree level and finally choose what I was studying and learn about all those times and places which normally the school curriculum in this country would never cover.
    About our discussion of the Tudors… when you say “most people”… do you mean Americans? Because, well as mentioned above, here in Britain we get a pretty extensive overview of British history. Although… even then, yeah, history still carries that stigma of being “boring” and most people couldn’t tell you a thing about history. Isn’t that sad? I feel sorry for all those people who think history is boring. I guess I got into history because I always loved a good story, and then I learned that there were so many amazing true life stories in history that I fell in love with it.

27. Just to let everyone know, Sharon is having computer troubles, and this time it’s not her computer but Comcast at fault. So, if you’ve written to her privately, it might take a bit for her to get back to you.
    I agree with Cindyash-the author of Sailing to Sarantium is Guy Gavriel Kay. He writes the most amazing historically based fantasy novels. Well worh the read.

28. On Beth’s point above: Based on what we know of his rule in Brittany, Geoffrey was probably the most moderate and temperate (and diplomatic) of the four adult brothers. As I have said before, if he had ruled effectively in England, we would likely not have Magna Carta. Such are the vagaries of history: a bad king can lead to a positive legacy, whether he likes it or not. In some ways, Eleanor of Brittany may have been the most fortunate of the princesses Sharon mentioned. Her captivity was likely not harsh, especially under Henry III. Spared the dangers of medieval childbirth, she lived into her late 50s.

29. Indeed, I cannot agree more. Today, the Battle of Barnet took place, where Edward IV defeated the Lancastrians under Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. Both Richard Neville and his brother John were killed in the battle, along with an assumed 1,500 casualties.

30. Ah, but Gwenllian and Elen are my favourites from Sharon’s books – I don’t think they were the most fortunate by any means.
    A strange thing happened today. An author who I wrote a review for contacted me to let me know that someone had plagiarised my review almost word for word and posted it as their own!

31. Beth, in 6th grade I would have been 11 going on 12. And no, it was unusual – just happened to have a social studies teacher who was a history buff, and probably got my own interest started. She didn’t talk about Byzantium so much, but it must have been after talking about Rome,and that Constantinople was the new Rome. I remember she had a bunch of travel posters in the room (including one of Viet Nam from the 50s, this was at the height of the war so it gave us all a laugh). I suspect she traveled in all those places she talked to us about. Always wished I had known her as adult, I bet she was fascinating.
    Oh and yes I was talking about American’s knowledge of Brit history. Heck, they have enough trouble with their own, it shouldn’t be a surprise! 🙂
    Valerie, did you read the second book, Lord of Emperors? Is it as good?

32. To be fair, as a Brit, my knowledge of American history is pretty poor. We do almost nothing on it, besides you of course come into our studies of WW1 and 2, and Korea and Vietnam… and I have a vague idea about the early colonies and explorations because that sort of ties in with British history. I have an even vaguer idea about the two wars; independence and civil, and virtually nothing else. I’m more interested in finding out about the ancient history of your continent. To me it’s strange that people unconsciously restrict themselves to the modern state when they talk about American history, but I’d love to find out more about the centuries and millennia pre-Columbus… but in this country there are virtually no courses about that time period in America, even at university level, I know cause I searched high and low for one to do as an optional element for my final year of my undergrad degree. I’m hoping to maybe do an internship with an American museum in the next couple of years and learn more.

33. Today, Godwin, Earl of Wessex, father of Harold II of England who may have usurped the throne of Edward the Confessor died.

34. Cindyash – I have the 2nd book but haven’t read it yet. I have WAY too many books to be read and too many good ones get lost in the shuffle.

35. Here is my latest Facebook note.
    Comcast came out yesterday and restored my lifeline to the world, for that is how I think of my connection to the internet, for better or worse. It was a busy week, too, so I have a lot of catching up to do. As Jim mentioned, April 13, 1275 was the date of death for Eleanor, Countess of Leicester, sister to Henry III and wife to Simon de Montfort. I’ve always had a soft spot for Eleanor (my Nell in Falls the Shadow) for she was one of the rare medieval women who was able to chart her own destiny by daring to wed Simon de Montfort, despite her vow of chastity and her brother’s opposition. Maybe she had inherited a bit of her grandmother and namesake’s spirit? Coincidentally, I happened upon a chronicler’s description of Simon last night while researching the Holy Roman Emperor, Heinrich.
    Simon de Montfort, the Parliamentarian, Earl of Leicester, son of Simon IV de Montfort and Alix de Montmorency, husband of Eleanor of England (1208-1265)
    “He was a vigorous soldier, in body tall and beautifully formed in appearance.”
    From the Lanercost chronicle
    April 13th was also the birthdate of Catherine de Medici, who was born in Florience in 1519. For any one interested in this controversial queen, I recommend C. W. Gortner’s novel about her; this was the first time I’ve read a three-dimensional portrait of the woman.
    Yesterday, April 14th, was the anniversary of the Battle of Barnet in 1471. The victory went to Edward of York, and the Earl of Warwick and his brother John both were slain on the field. I’ve often been asked if it was true that John went into battle against York wearing the colors of York, and sadly, the answer is yes. I found him to be a very sympathetic character, much more so than Warwick, caught between irreconcilable loyalties and too honorable to save himself as the third brother, George Neville did, by abandoning his principles. Barnet was a fun battle to write about, as odd as that may sound. Writers look for a “hook,” a way to distinguish one battle from another, for otherwise they tend to blur, one into the other. Barnet had that marvelous fog enveloping the field, which resulted in the Earl of Oxford’s fatal error in attacking his own side, and John Neville’s men then mistook his banner for Edward’s sunne in splendour. I believe it was Napoleon who said he preferred generals who were lucky to those who were capable? Edward was blessed with both–he was a first-rate battle commander and one of Fortune’s favorites. The Battle of Tewkesbury was “fun” to write about, too, with Somerset’s surprise flank attack on Edward’s center and then, of course, his dramatic reaction to what he saw as Wenlock’s betrayal. This is my day for quotes; I think it was Mark Twain who said that truth is always stranger than fiction? Certainly true about the Plantagenets.
    And while it is not medieval, it is impossible not to mention that this is the day that the greatest American president, IMHO, Abraham Lincoln, died after being shot the night before by John Wilkes Booth. I recently came across an astonishing story in Reader’s Digest, claiming that Edwin Booth, the celebrated actor and brother of the infamous assassin, saved a young man who’d been accidentally pushed off a train platform in Jersey City in early 1865, reaching down and pulling him to safey in the nick of time. The young man was….wait for it….Abraham Lincoln’s son, Robert. Now I’ve never heard this before, but then I’m not a Lincoln scholar. Assuming it is true (is the Reader’s Digest a reliable source?) this has to be one of history’s eeriest coincidences, no?

36. I read that same story a few weeks ago on the internet. It seems to be true – Robert Lincoln himself gave an account of the event some years after it happened.

37. Beth, Im not surprised you won’t find much in Brit on Native American history – unless you looked at archaology departments instead of history depts. You might have better luck there. I’ve been pleased by how much has come out here in the last few decades; you might be interested in our local museum The Heard for there exhibits of the SW indians. I tend not to be interested in American history tho, my love affair on this hemisphere is with the Mayan. But thats just me
    Sharon, a wonderful HF about Lincoln by way of his wife Mary is The Emancipator’s Wife by Barbara Hambly. Mary is not the insane lady she’s made out to be, the portrayal of Lincoln is very interesting, and Robert is put in a very different light. Fascinating (and sad)

38. cindyash – My degree is in archaeology, and the archaeology department at my uni is rated best in the country (though believe me I looked in archaeology and history departments up and down the country for a course about pre-Columbus North Americas). Thanks for the tip about the museum. If I ever make it out to the US again I’ll give it a go.

39. Beth,
    Sadly, your experience with plagiarism may not be as uncommon as one would think. My dh teaches grad/undergrad courses and regularly pulls his hair out over the amount of plagiarism taking place. Students have a “why bother” attitude about proper citations and giving credit where they source info from.
    Thanks to all who are sharing info here on other books of interest! As we have a few months to go until Lionheart makes his appearance, I’m always on the lookout for worthwhile additions to my TBR stack.
    Elizabeth was a wonderful read – wound up loving the time period that Margaret George selected.

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