Traversing with the Tudors

So, this is a long overdue post! Let’s move on to the year 1432...back to Rouen....back to Jacquetta’s life. Anne of Burgundy, Duchess Bedford has just succumbed to the deadly plague and left her husband, John, the Duke of Bedford, without an heir. Anne was married to the Duke in the year 1423 by the Treaty of Amiens between England and the Duke of Burgundy. It may be recalled that Bedford was the regent of France on behalf of his nephew, King Henry VI. The marriage, albeit childless, was a happy one. (Wikipedia) But, while the court was still in mourning for the beloved Duchess, in a move that surprised many, John, Duke of Bedford married the fifteen-year-old Jacquetta of Luxembourg! Not many records about this marriage survive so we may never know who initiated this very obvious political move.  You may recall that the Duke of Bedford was the regent of France on behalf of his nephew, King Henry VI. Now, if the King were to die without providing a heir to the thron...

Before proceeding further with Jacquetta’s journey, let us first have a look at three key people who will play a vital part in our protagonist’s life. King Henry VI inherited the throne when he was only a nine-month old infant on 1st September 1422. Being French, his mother, Catherine of Valois, was viewed with some distrust. In fact, there was another reason for her subjects’ dislike towards her but that revelation is for another day! Coming back to our sovereign, King Henry VI was anything but like his father, the extremely valiant King Henry V (yes….the role essayed by Timotheé Chalamet in The King!) who won the decisive Battle of Agincourt against the French. Shy, timid and quite averse to the idea of violence, Henry VI was also rumoured to be mentally unstable, although not as much as his French royal predecessor and maternal grandfather, Charles VI ‘Charles The Mad’. But this supposed mental illness of Henry VI has disastrous consequences on the House of Lancaster as we will s...

Let us go back a few centuries before Jacquetta. Her ancestor, Siegfried, The Count of Luxembourg, fell in love with an extraordinarily beautiful woman.Her name was Melusina. He chanced upon her on the bans of the River Alzette and it was love at first sight for the young Count. Melusina, too, was equally smitten and readily accepted his proposal for marriage. However, she had a condition. Siegfried was to leave her to herself for a day every week. So madly in love was he that he even accepted this - remember, they lived in pretty conservative times and this request, which sounds innocuous to us, was a grave matter for them in that era - without any further questions. Siegfried and Melusina were married and lived happily in their castle on Bock Rock. She bore him many children and they looked forward to a happily ever after. A fairytale romance indeed! But, as the age-old saying goes - curiosity kills the cat. Wondering the reason for his wife's weekly disappearance, Siegfried...

Year: 1430 We begin our mediaeval journey at Rouen, France. Book 1 in the series introduces us to a hitherto unknown yet an interesting person: Jacquetta of Luxembourg. Although a pivotal character in the series of events that will change the course of English history, extremely less is known about her. Resources, too, are very few and the last I checked, there are no known portraits of her. Although I encountered Jacquetta through this book, she truly came to life for me when I watched Janet McTeer portray her in the Starz miniseries 'The White Queen'. Since then, whenever I came across Jacquetta in any of the Wars of the Roses books that I have read till date, it was always McTeer's face that flashed before my eyes, thereby lending a mental portrait of the extraordinary woman. However, the series starts not with Jacquetta but with another larger than life person: Joan of Arc. Nicknamed 'La Pucelle d'Orleans' (The Maid of Orleans), Joan was a peasant girl ...

Hello all and welcome to my blog! This is my very first attempt at non-fiction and I hope to do justice to it. Through this blog, I wish to take you on a journey to Mediaeval England. We will commence our journey from the twilight years of the reign of King Henry VI 'The Mad King' and proceed on to the glory days of the three sons of York. We will then witness the rise of the Tudors and finally reflect upon the Golden Age of Queen Elizabeth I. We will also touch upon the tragic reigns of Lady Jane Grey and Mary, Queen of Scots. To make this a memorable trip down the historical lane, I have used Philippa Gregory's 'Plantagenet and Tudor' series as a reference point. Although a work of fiction, it helped me get a semblance of order in my thoughts and ideas for the posts. I will be discussing the innumerable characters and events chapter by chapter. For your convenience, I am mentioning the reading order of the books below. All the posts will be numbered so as t...