Show not tell by Mary Hoffman

I have never liked this piece of advice to writers. Sometimes you just need to tell. It can be something small or trivial that you don’t want to spend time developing into a full-scale scene with dialogue, just a little throwaway so you can get back to your main plot. But how does this fit when writing historical fiction?


The facts are known and can’t be changed. So you go back to “what did X think about this?” or “How did it affect Y?” “Surely, this would have thrown the whole court into an uproar?” 

Tomb of Katherine Swynford and Joan Neville, Lincoln

 

I recently discovered that another HG is writing about the same person that I am. It’s OK; this happens. And it was pretty much bound to happen with regard to this character – a significant female figure in fourteenth century England, who had been the main character in a romantic novel of the 1950s. I made sure not to read that novel until I had written the sixth draft of mine.

I was surprised when I did. Anya Seton made the woman far more of a peasant than I had, with her coming to court in London when she was already fifteen. In my version, she has been brought up there by the king and queen of the time, alongside a bevy of princes and princesses. (Can you have a “bevy” of males? Must check for future reference). 

Anyway, how do you “show not tell” the events of historical characters’ lives? And I had chosen to depict almost the whole of my main character’s life, from the age of about two to her death bed fifty-one years later. Maybe this was a bad idea? I hadn’t done it before. I needed to establish her as having been raised at the English court, with all the advantages of a noble upbringing but no fortune. So she could speak French, go hunting and hawking, do embroidery, read the popular romances of the time and behave with elegance and decorum whether dancing or singing. 

Joan Neville and her ladies

 

Put like that, it does sound a bit dull. But her life was actually full of adventures. Imagine what it must have been like to grow up as a virtual orphan, with no memory of the mother who had given birth to you and little information about your father. Your foster parents were the king and queen of England and you were raised in their lavish court settings of palaces and castles, doing as you were instructed, brought up like a little princess yourself. Your one constant was your older sister, who one day told you that she was being sent away to serve the second prince and his wife in Ireland. And you were only seven.

Then you would certainly know what it was like to be alone. I invented bedfellows for her, my little girl, and friends too. Always having to remember that the fork and handkerchief had not yet been invented. Her exquisite manners had to take this into account. Her clothes were hand-me-downs but of the greatest quality, as they had previously been worn by princesses. 

John of Gaunt feasting in Portugal

 

Her favourite prince, the king and queen’s third son, John, was ten years older than her but he said her name properly, as they had in Hainault. He lived with his oldest brother, the Prince of Wales, though my heroine didn’t know what that meant. Prince Edward was heir to the English throne and did not marry until he was thirty. And then he chose a woman older than him, his father’s cousin, who had been married twice before. Imagine! The most eligible bachelor in Europe, a great soldier and charismatic leader, eventually settled for a woman he had known since they were children. A Papal dispensation had to be sought, not for the first time in Joan’s case.

And when Prince John, at the age of nineteen, married a great heiress, he asked nine-year-old Katherine to go with him and serve his beautiful wife. Of course, she went. There were many women serving the great countess, as she was then, and my Katherine was proud to be one of them, once released from the English court, even in the lowly role of the girl who rocked the wooden cradle. 

The marriage of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster

 

An awful lot here to show and not tell and we are hardly into Katherine’s eventful life. Before long, she has the task of rocking the new princess, Philippa, named after the queen. Prince John is happy. His lovely wife has given him a healthy daughter and there would surely be more to come, male heirs among them. Against this background of court life and princely behaviour, Katherine muses about her life and destiny. As she grows older and the Lancaster nursery is filled with more boy and girl babies – not all of whom survive – Katherine becomes closer to her mistress and is given more responsibility.

You see? I am telling, not showing you. But the novel does both. Through their pregnancies, childbirths and experiences, the two women become friends. Katherine is tall and strong for a girl of fifteen and her employers think it is time for her to have a husband. She fears it might be a warty old man but it is in fact a sturdy knight, Sir Hugh Swynford, who is the same age as her lord. She goes with him to his Manor in Kettlethorpe, but is often needed back in the Lancaster household, whenever her husband has to follow Duke John overseas.

Of course, their marriage is consummated and Katherine is already pregnant when Sir Hugh has to go abroad. She and the duchess both give birth within a month, Blanche to the healthy little boy, who will one day be Henry IV and Katherine to a little girl called Blanche. Such a lot to cover by showing not telling. But the feelings of women for their children, not knowing if their babies will live or die, can’t have been a million miles away from how mothers feel now, whether in grand courts or humble cottages. 

Henry IV

 

That’s what I had to show. Women labouring to bring forth babies, who might be heirs to a great destiny, or brides to European monarchs, or simply the children of a humble knight and his lady. Katherine herself ponders on this: “Men donned armour and rode off to battle, where they might catch an arrow in their face or have an arm lopped off. They seemed extraordinarily brave to me. And yet women did something harder. How could Bess know about the pains of childbed, when she had no children of her own?”

Both genders have to face painful difficulties. To fight or to give birth, to risk marriage or enter a religious house. Of course the men could do both. And occasionally the women too. Think of Margaret Beaufort, who helped her only child become king, was married four times and yet became a “femme sole” while her last husband still lived. 

Margaret Beaufort

 

My subject, Katherine Swynford, née Roet, was a wife and a widow, a person of great piety, who bore four children out of wedlock to Prince John, while he was married to another woman. Is it a remarkable medieval love story, since the couple do marry in 1396 and their children – the Beauforts – are legitimated and go on to be the ancestors of several English monarchs? Katherine’s son by her first husband is the boon companion of Henry Bolingbroke, raised with him in the same nursery, born only a year later. He is no aristocrat but his half-brothers and half-sister are, through their father. That half-sister, Joan, gives birth to Cecily, who marries Richard of York and is mother to Edward IV and Richard III. 

 

Henry VII’s claim to the throne came from his mother Margaret (see above), whose father was descended from John and Katherine’s union. And hence Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary Tudor; the line ends with Elizabeth I. Six English monarchs is not bad for the line of a woman whose father was a humble knight at the court of Edward III.



Oh, and Katherine's sister Philippa married Geoffrey Chaucer. Thereby hangs another story, to tell or show.

Medieval Women (and a few men) by Mary Hoffman

 

 

The Middle Ages are having a bit of a moment, at least in the UK. This is a boon for me, as I am writing a "Plantagenet novel" covering the rough half century from 1352 to 1403. In January, I went to a day conference on Women of the Wars of the Roses, which is a bit after the scope of the first book but bang on the money for books two and three of what I see, somewhat ambitiously, as a trilogy. More in a couple of months when the first book should be finished.

The day conference, held in Southwark cathedral by Tudor Times consisted of six talks given by experts on six prominent women of the fifteenth century, four of whom were queen consorts of England. Since I have researched all these women, I was hoping to be surprised by one or two nuggets of information.

First up, Marguerite (Margaret) of Anjou.

From the Book of Romances 1445

 

The talk was given by Lauren Johnson, who has written books on Henry Vl, Henry Vlll, and Margaret Beaufort and she gave me what I hoped for early on. I should have known, but didn't, that among the many gifts the young Henry Vl showered on his bride, was a lion. What a wedding present! *

Next up was Cecily Neville:

Neville Book of Hours 1445

The talk was given by Joanna Laynesmith, whose book on the last medieval queens is now insanely expensive to buy on A*a**n. Fortunately, I bought it when it came out. Cecily was one of the two women discussed who did not become queen - though all Yorkists believe she should have. She had to be content that two of her sons, Edward lV and Richard lll were kings. I didn't know that she had been friendly with the Woodvilles in France, or that she had written a book of household management. She died a wealthy woman at eighty, so perhaps she was the winner in her rivalry with Margaret of Anjou, althgough the latter had the title.

Alison Weir talked about Elizabeth of York:

16th century image from Royal Collection

 

Alison told us that Elizabeth, one of the "good queens" and beloved of the people, might have had an iron deficiency. But if she told us the source, I didn't note it down. More research needed.

Elizabeth Woodville:

A copy of a portrait in Queens College

 

Melita Thomas, who wrote The King's Pearl about Henry Vlll and his daughter Mary, talked about this controversial figure. The first Wars of the Roses course I did in Oxford was taught by Lynda Pidgeon, whose subsequent book Brought up out of Nought did her best to rectify the notion that Elizabeth was a grasping, ambitious woman, out to get preferment for her numerous siblings. It is not completely baseless but more nuanced than many historians have seen it.

She was one of the most tragic of queens, losing her husband young and seeing her father, brothers and sons all put to death. Good to know that seven years after Bosworth, she was reinstated as Queen Mother.

Sarah Gristwood thought she might have drawn the short straw, being allocated to talk about Anne Neville:

Salisbury Roll 1483

 

Anne would seem to be the answer to "Who suffered most in the Wars of the Roses?" We know so little about Anne or what she thought of Richard as husband or usurping king. Their only child died and overwhelmed them both with grief, which shows a human side. As Sarah said, "Anne Neville was not a strong or powerful woman." But she is a good example of how heiresses are pawns in the hands of ambitious men.

Margaret Beaufort:

Meynart Wewyck 1510, Christ's College, Cambridge

So much has been written about this remarkable woman, both in history and fiction, that it was hard to see what was left for Elizabeth Norton to say about her. But she has written several books about Tudoe women and queens, including Margaret Beaufort. Her opening statement, that Margaret "did not kill the princes in the tower," was met with a resounding cheer that echoed round the nave of the cathedral.

She attended Richard lll's coronation gorgeously gowned in crimson, blue and gold, at odds with the image of her above, which is how she is usually thought of, as a single-minded and pious mother. She lived long enough to see her grandson crowned Henry Vlll but got food poisonming at the Coronation Feast and died.

I left the conference with sheaves of notes and too many books, energised that there was still so much to say and find out about these women.

Interlude with kings

Helen Castor, who wrote She-wolves: the Women who Ruled England before Elizabeth and has been a guest on the History Girls, has a new book out. The Eagle and the Hart is subtitled "the Tragedy of Richard ll and Henry lV." which is right on topic for what I am writing now. Before this the best book I knew about the first cousins born only months apart was Ian Mortimer's The Fears of Henry lV. It's a fascinatinmg topic: two boys, one born and raised in France, the other in England, both grandsons of Edward lll, both equal in royal blood and so different in their routes to the English crown.

 

Richard was in every way unsuited to be king, except one: he was the undisputed legal heir. His father Edward (known to later centuries as the Black Prince) predeceased Edward lll and Richard's older brother, another Edward, who never set foot in England, was also dead when Richard inherited the throne at the age of ten. Hopes were high, especially when the boy king rode out to face the rebels in what is no longer known as the Peasants' Revolt. It was probably his finest hour. But he had left his cousin Henry in the Tower to take his chances while other nobles were summarily executed by the mob. Richard did not go back for him.

Henry, on the other hand, was robust where Richard was effete, a champion jouster, a soldier, a traveller, an intellectual. He would have made a splendid king at any point before his usurpation. But he wasn't first in line. His father, the fabulously rich Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, was Edward lll's third son to reach adulthood. The brother in between, Lionel Duke of Clarence, had sired one daughter and her descendant married one of the York line, descended from Edmund, the next brother down. But could a woman inherit? There you have the crux of the Wars of the Roses, as it is still convenient to call them.

Henry was more robust in other ways too: he married Mary de Bohun when they were both young teenagers, having known each other since infancy. As soon as they were old enough to co-habit, they had a child every year, the first four boys. Richard married soon after his cousin, his wife his contemporary, Anne of Bohemia, and she never became pregnant. Both wives died in same year, 1394, Mary in giving birth to her sixth child, a second daughter. 

Was Richard gay? He certainly had "favourites," his relationship with Robert de Vere closer than friendship. When de Vere was exiled and died in France in a boar hunt some years later, Richard arranged for his embalmed body to be brought back to England. At the re-interment, the king ordered the coffin to be opened and, in one of his typically theatrical gestures, gazed upon his lost love's face and held his embalmed hand for the last time. 

But he was also very fond of his queen and had Eltham Palace razed to the ground a year after she died there of the plague. But it was different from the love between Henry and Mary, who made a new baby, every time he returned from his restless travels. It is doubtful whether the marriage was even consummated. And Richard chose as his second wife, Isabella of France, who was a five-year-old child when the marriage was first proposed. Richard's thirtieth birthday was the day after her coronation.

Was it a relief for him not to have to prove his manhood for another decade? We can't know, as he had been deposed and died long before Isabella reached puberty. She was not the grown woman Shakespeare shows us in his play. Her second marriage, to her cousin, Charles d'Orléans, showed she was fertile but she died in childbirth at the age of twenty, her daughter surviving. 

So there are women in the story of the rival cousins but mostly with sad stories. Death in childbirth was very common, even if you were the first lady in the land, with all the medical help money could provide. As Elma Brenner writes in the catalogue to the Bitish Library's Medieval Women: Voices and Visions, "Childbirth and its aftermath marked a moment of significant danger in the Middle Ages, with risks of great pain, infection and death."

She also tells us that Richard's queen in the year before her death bought plantain water, spikenard and theriac from an apothecary, These were all remedies for infertility so perhaps they had been to bed together but perhaps also she didn't at that stage know the facts of life. 

Most of the women in the exhibition, which finished last Sunday, were from periods before or after the one I am working in. But guess who turned up.

 

*The label tells us that this skull, found in the moat of the Tower of London, is that of Margaret of Anjou's lion! It has been carbon-dated to 1420-80, which is the right period. But it seems that Margaret brought the lion with her from France so it wasn't, after all, a present from her husband-to-be.  Presumably it was a lioness, rather than a male, but it lived in the Menagerie at the Tower and wasn't a pet being fed scraps from her table.

Don't worry if you missed the exhibition, as the catalogue is excellent. It covers women from from the continent of Europe, like Joan of Arc and Hildegarde of Bingen, as well as the home-grown Julian of Norwich and Margarets Beaufort and Paston.