Sunday, January 29, 2023
The Writer's Goals~~Then and Now
Monday, August 29, 2022
The Fall of the House of York
Amazon's kindle version:
Reviewers say:
"Juliet Waldron's grasp of time and period history is superb and detailed. Her characters were well developed and sympathetic."
"One of the better Richard III books..."
On a sunny late summer morning in August, 1485, near Leicester, two armies faced one another. The King of England, Richard III, arose at dawn. Tradition, and Shakespeare, claim that he had had a bad night, although this can never be known now, 537 years later. The King often traveled with his own bed. One night earlier, he had slept in his royal bed, for he had brought it along with his baggage train from Nottingham Castle. Perhaps too large and bulky to be used in a battlefield tent, the royal bed had been left behind at an Inn in Leicester. Richard was known as a man who "slept ill in strange beds" and so preferred to maintain regularity in his sleeping arrangements.
Chaplains probably said Mass for the King on that fatal morning, as this too was standard practice on Medieval Battlefields, before he broke his fast with watered wine and bread. His esquires would have begun to armor him. His open crown, set with jewels, was set upon his helm, and then, mounted upon his favorite white charger, Whyte Syrie,* he began to direct the disposition of his army.
According to John Ashdown-Hill, Historian and member of the Royal Historical Society: ..."When John de Vere, one of Henry Tudors most experienced commanders, saw the royal army advancing to oppose them, he swiftly ordered his men to hold back and maintain close contact with their standard bearers. In consequence the rebel advance ...ground to a halt..." This manuever drew the rebel forces into close formation, with the French mercenary pikemen held in reserve. Ashdown-Hill speculates on why, at this point, the sight of his hated distant cousin sent him charging to destruction.
"Perhaps out of bravado, or from a sense of noblesse oblige, or possibly because he was suffering from a fever and not in full possession of his faculties, Richard called his men around him and then set off with them at a gallop to settle Henry's fate once and for all."
http://amzn.to/2nEVWbC
The Amazon Kindle version
Ashdown-Hill (The Last Days of Richard III) speculates on why, at this point, the sight of his cousin sent the king charging to destruction. (Certainly, Richard did not know what Henry looked like, but he would have seen his standard and known he surely stood nearby.)
"Perhaps out of bravado, or from a sense of noblesse oblige, or possibly because he was suffering from a fever and not in full possession of his facaulties, Richard called his men around him and then set off with them at a gallop to settle Henry's fate once and for all."
It was a risky move. In chess, this would be the same as sending one's king across the board to directly attack the rival king.
Richard's legendary charge came near to succeeding. Richard himself slew Tudor's imposing standard bearer, William Brandon, but this is the moment when the wily foreign mercenaries Henry had brought with him drew together in a phalanx, protecting Henry and keeping him out of harm's way. Richard's cavalry hurled themselves into the pike wall so created. Many, including Richard, were unhorsed. At the same time, the remainder of the King's cavalry came crashing in behind. The Yorkist army was now in dissarray.
John de Vere and Lord Stanley, both still hanging back--de Vere because he was an experienced soldier, Stanley, waiting to see which way the battle would go--now seized their opportunity. Stanley's men fell upon the milling mass of the royal cavalry. They caught the King on foot and he was soon overwhelmed and slain by a pack of enemy soldiers.
Richard's bravery has never been questioned, even by the Tudor chroniclers.
"King Richard was slain, fighting manfully in the midst of his enemies." - The Croyland Chronicle.
When Richard fell, de Vere wheeled and attacked the Duke of Norfolk. During the initial clash, Norfolk lost his helmet and caught an arrow in the eye. The Yorkist side had now lost both captains. The leaderless army began to collapse.
Michael Jones, whose 2016 military history, Bosworth, 1485, believes that Richard's charge, while a throw of the dice, was in fact "the final act of Richard's ritual affirmation of himself as rightful king." Ashdown-Hill says that Richard "acted in full accord with the late medieval literary tradition."
After his accession, Henry Tudor would soon confirm this first impression, as the kind of man who preferred judicial murder to a face-to-face duel. While there would soon be a host of Yorkist family members executed on various trumped up charges by him, there is no record of Henry VII even lifting his sword at the battle which would establish his famous dynasty.
What can I make of my own long fascination with this still controversial character, this long dead English King? In many ways, Richard was the last of his kind. His brief reign marked the end of the Plantagenet Kings, and from this time forward, historians habitually date the beginning of modern times. Richard's pagentory charge was a medieval aristocrat's decision to play the role of king--a leader of his men--in the most heroic fashion possible.
Henry was indeed a modern man, cut from different cloth, a man who had far less right to the throne than most of the people he exececuted, a man who had been poor and on the run, but who now intended to become rich by taking everything he could take from anyone who opposed him. The personal tale of Henry VII is a classic picture of a paranoid miser. This fruits of this monarch's gold hunger would--as is so often the case--be blown by his equally paranoid and indulged, vainglorious son, Henry VIII.
I read the Daughter of Time (by popular mystery writer Josephine Tey) when I was eleven. Richard's story as she told it--here was a man "framed" by his enemies and maligned forever after--became an overriding obsession. I can still pick up my tattered Penguin paperback and find the bedraggled white rose I dried between the pages, oh, so many years ago! Today I can still remember all the kids at summer camp whose ears I talked off on a subject most of them had never heard of. Tilting at windmills in my own nerd way, I guess.
Now, of course, I look at history--especially the kind of western history which I was taught in school--in a very different. In the great scheme of things, the innocence or guilt of an otherwise obscure English king doesn't matter much, but to this day it remains a heck of a great story.
Roan Rose is my proud contribution to the Richardian genre. Here we hear the tale of the servant Rose, one who was privy to so much, yet still survived to tell it.
Dear Rose! She is one of my favorite creations. I hope readers love her as much as I do.
~~Juliet Waldron
All my novels at Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0089F5X3C
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
My Burford Ghost Story
Amazon
As a kid, I was traveling with Mom in UK, and staying in one of her favorite places, Burford, Oxfordshire. This is, BTW, 1961. She always stayed in black and white Tudor hotels if at all possible. We hadn't been in England for many days when we entered the interior courtyard of just such a place, driving in our green Morris wagon through the narrow made-for-carriages entryway.
There was no double room available. After a bit of discussion, they put me upstairs on the 3rd floor which was right under the eaves of this venerable building. A steep stairway went up, and on the way the porter said they only put the young and spry up here.
Then as now, I was history mad, so I scouted around, really
enjoying the feel of the place, the dark beams, the crooked walls, the
off-kilter floors, the heavy dark antiques which filled the hallways and public
rooms. All this carved, blackened antiquity was new and delightful, the stuff of travel books, and now--I was actually here! After supper, I went up to bed to read, leaving Mom in the salon bar downstairs talking to other guests.
The roof, with beams bare, slanted down over the bed, which was a formidable four poster with carved posts and broad box feet. It, my mother had said was "probably Jacobean." Even if it wasn't, it was making a credible effort to look even older. I remember the smell, too, of polish, of damp and of the ages since the house had been built. Clearly, this room wasn't used often. I finally fell asleep listening to footsteps below coming and going and a blurry mumbling sometimes interrupted by laughter seeping up from the floor below.
I didn't have the suitcase which contained my bathrobe with me. Dressed only in a flannel nightgown, I didn't want anyone to see me, but when
I opened the door, it was now entirely dark in the hallway. That pitiful dim light, I
thought, must have gone out.
Then, just as I finished locking the door behind me, I turned and saw the ghost. I knew enough English History to know this was a cavalier, a fine one, too, with long locks and a trimmed beard which came to a nice Charles I point. He had high leather gloves and a hat with a red plume. His collar was of lace, and he had on a long waist coat, but no outer jacket.
Since we'd begun to travel in the UK, if a thing wasn't medieval, well, it was barely worth looking at. In fact, I had been anticipating the next day, when Mom and I were to drive to see what remained of the home of Lord Lovell, who'd been King Richard’s dearest friend. His home was now a ruin beside the nearby River Windrush.
The ghost put one hand on his hip. His lips
moved and I understood what he said, although there was no actual auditory
sensation involved. He said he was an ancestor of mine, who
had come here to raise a company to fight for the King, and that he had been waiting for me for a
very long time. The oddest thing about him was that he appeared
to be almost up to his knees in the floor, no boots were visible.
We leaned heads together over the table and continued the conversation quietly. Our host went on to explain that he’d had a parapsychologist visit, an investigator who’d also, after staying upstairs for a few days, had had an encounter with the third floor ghost, though it hadn't spoken to him. Our host said that the investigator had explained that we only saw the ghost down to the knees because “he is standing on the old floor—the way it was before remodeling,” an event which had apparently taken place just after the last war.
Juliet Waldron
All my historical novels:
Monday, September 28, 2020
Comfrey, Cat Warfare, and Green Tomato Sauce
(Crawling out from under the bed to write this.)
I grew Comfrey in my garden this year and the resulting plants are enormous tall spiky things with leaves that are reminiscent of tobacco. Comfrey was once used in teas, but no more. This is because we've learned that it is toxic when taken orally. Herbalists no longer recommend it either as tea, or to be used as a wash on an open wound.
Why did I plant it? Well, I'd heard that it serves as an activating ingredient for compost piles or simply as a beneficial mulch dug into the garden at the end of the season. Starting it from seed on a windowsill was an early COVID project for me. The seeds must be stratified (chilled) for several weeks before planting in order for them to grow.
Comfrey has pretty purple flowers which I'm enjoying here at the end of the season. The late season pollinators are big fans too and for that reason alone I'm glad I planted it. I will chop it and dig it into both compost and garden after the first frost and and then hope for a flourishing garden next year.
After a few minutes of my typing away, Tony jumps down and slinks away, heading to the other side of the living room in order to mess with Kimi who was enjoying a sunbeam and minding her own business. Inspiring a PTSD attack in one of your emotionally vulnerable housemates and initiating a running battle is a sure-fire way to get my attention away from the keyboard and back to him—the place where it clearly ought to be.
This is negative attention-getting, according to a long ago child psych course. A decade ago after this kind of inter-pussy cat escalation, I would have put Tony outside so he could test himself against the semi-urban jungle for a few hours daily. That can tone down the rambunctions of a boy cat, but I don’t want to risk losing him.
Let's stare at Kimi until she freaks
With three cats, I could write buckets on the hausfrau trials with multiple cat boxes, but I will spare you the gory details.
What we house-bound humans are learning is that we must continuously work on integrating this three cat family. These particular cat-onalities continue to evolve and change, just as do the behaviors of the COVID-bound humans who reside here with them.
And, last but not least: Green tomato pasta sauce! Yes, this is delicious. I'd never seen a recipe before, but decided I'd try when it stopped raining here about five weeks ago. I was sick of lugging water to the large tomato pots at the end of tour lot and decided to quit. (A week after I took the plants down, it rained--naturally.)
But as I stripped the vines I knew that some of these fine large green tomatoes would ripen but others would never get there. I used the smaller fruits in the following eyeball-it-as-you go sauce recipe.
Green tomatoes chopped--the recipe I based this upon used 4 lbs.
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
garlic cloves--I used 5, but we like garlic
one medium finely chopped onion
red pepper flakes or red pepper to give it a bit of heat
basil--I would say 20 leaves because it's another seasoning we like
You may bake it at 400 degrees in the oven until it reduces--about an hour--or d0 as I did, and throw it all in the crock pot and let it cook down together.
Serve with pasta (linguini is a nice base) topped with
pecorino romano cheese
More basil leaves
and, if you are independently wealthy--a handful of pine nuts.
We ate ours without the pine nuts and it was still delicious. This was one of those "plan-over" concoctions, where there was plenty left over for the next day.
~~Juliet Waldron
Popular Posts
-
Deadly Undertaking Click here to purchase ‘Tis the season of the year when the transformation occurs from the darkness of winter to th...
-
Goodbye winter. Hello spring. Another round of setting clocks ahead is behind us as well as all the rant on social media about why we co...
-
Click this link for Purchase information In Sunrise Interrupted Dr. Beau Remington is a country veterinarian with of course an abiding ...
-
Click here to get your copy! Even as a kid growing up in Detroit Lakes, MN, I have always loved a rainy day. I loved the smells the rain b...
-
Those Who Watched Murder She Wrote ( television), As Good As It Gets ( 1997 movie), or Misery (1990) Discovered how exciting, unpredict...
-
Please click this link for book and author information While researching 1918 fashion for my hist...
-
Click here for purchase options for this award-winning series. https://www.bookswelove.net/kavanagh-j-c/ In last month's blog, I told ...
-
https://bookswelove.net/stover-karla/ BY THE SAME AUTHOR: Available through BWL Publishing Parlor Girls Wynter's Way Murder, When...
-
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004HIX4GS Amazon Kobo Barnes & Noble Smashwords European fishermen had long traveled to the west ...
-
Vanessa Hawkins Author Page Yes! You see correctly! I have finally included another cover amongst my books! Twice Hung i...