Riskies Tuesday

Over at the Riskies, talking about famous dogs in history! (I won't let Abigail and Victoria see it, though--they might gets ideas and think they need thrones and silver water bowls. Kwana you should keep Jack away, too...)

Heroine of the Weekend

When I was searching for a heroine to look at this weekend, I found out that today is the anniversary of the death of Madeleine De Vercheres (March 3, 1678--August 8, 1747), a woman I had never heard of but who was known as a great heroine of New France. Her story was very intriguing!

Madeleine was the daughter of Francois Jarret and Marie Perrot, prosperous seigneurs at a fort in New France, or Quebec, Canada. The fort was nicknamed Le Chateau Dangereux due to its distant location (Montreal was a day's journey away). In the 1680s, hostilities broke out between the French and the Iriquois tribe, after the French built strong trading alliances with the Alqonquins and the Iriquois found themselves losing out on the lucrative fur trade. The English were also at war with the French (as they so often were), so the Iriquois formed an alliance with them. Madeleine's parents knew their outpost at Vercheres, Queben would be a target, so they made fortifications and preparations. When Madeleine was 12, the attack came, and her mother was alone with only 4 men to defend the fort and her family, but Marie De Vercheres held off the attack for 2 days before reinforcements arrived (and excellent example for her daughter!)

In 1691, the Iriquois attacks resumed. In the fall of that year, Madeleine's parents left the fort to gather winter supplies during a lull in the fighting, leaving Madeleine and her siblings. Now 14, and the eldest, Madeleine was in charge, with one old man and 2 soldiers to help her. One morning (the story goes) Madeleine and some of the settlers left the fort to tend the fields. She was in a cabbage patch, near the walls of the fort, when the Iriquois descended on them. She ran into the fort, barely ahead of a warrior chasing her, shouting "Aux armes! Aux armes!"

She dashed up to the walkways, firing a musket and making as much noise as she could to make the attackers think there were more soldiers defending the fort. Then she fired off the cannon to summon reinforcements from other forts not too far away. The Iriquois, their plans for an easy sneak attack thwarted, retreated into the forest with a few prisoners. During the siege, Madeleine noticed a canoe approaching the fort landing witha settler family aboard. The soldiers refused to leave the walls, so Madeleine ran to the dock herself and led the family inside, pretending they were reinforcements. Later that evening, the fort's cattle returned home, and she suspected another sneak attack, which she also held off.

Troops from Montreal arrived soon after, catching the attackers and returning the captives. Madeleine's heroic actions were soon the talk of the colony, and she became a heroic symbol of the rise of French Canada.

Her father died in 1700, and his pension was transfered to Madeleine in honor of her bravery. She managed the fort until her marriage to Pierre Le Tarrieu in 1706, and they moved to his seigneury at Ste. Anne de la Perade, Quebec, where she died in 1747 and was buried beneath her pew in the church there.

A couple of good sources I found while reading up on her life:
Colin Coates and Cecilia Morgan, Heroines and History: Representations of Madeleine de Verchers and Laura Secord

Robert Leckie, A Few Acres of Snow: The Saga of the French and Indian Wars

(I also heard there was a silent film from 1922, Madeleine de Vercheres, but couldn't find much info about it. The statue of her was erected near Vercheres Point near Montreal in 1911)

Portrait Friday

Lady Jane Dudley, nee Grey (1590s? A recent acquisition of the National Portrait Gallery in London)

What I've Been Watching

If you're as tired as I am of the usual run-of-the-mill "romantic comedy," then run out and see this movie! Srsly, it is awesome. (see, I'm even reduced to Twitter-speak)

See Roger Ebert's review here
And the NY Times review here

What I'm Reading Today

A great book on the fascinating life of Lucie de la Tour Du Pin (who lived through the court of Louis XVI, the Revolution, escaping to a farm in New York, Napoleon, and various other battles, insurrections, and family dramas)! I can't put it down.

Riskies Tuesday

At Risky Regencies today, talking about romance (of course!)

Lost Cities

A lost Venetian city! One more reason to dream of visiting Italy soon. I love archaeology!

Heroine of the Weekend

Next week, August 4 marks the birthday of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, so she is our heroine of the weekend!

Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (August 4, 1900--March 30, 2002) was the youngest daughter and 9th of 10 children of Claude George Bowes-Lyon, Lord Glamis (later 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne) and Cecilia Nina Cavendish-Bentinck (who was descended from Prime Minister William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, and also of Governor-General of India Richard Wellesly, 1st Marquess of Wellesley, elder brother of the Duke of Wellington). She was christened at the church near her family's country home, St. Paul's Walden Bury, in Hertfordshire on September 23, 1900. Much of her idyllic childhood, filled with ponies, dogs, field sports, and playing with her siblings, was spent at St. Paul's and at Glamis Castle, the Earl's ancestral home in Scotland (famous from Macbeth). She was educated at home by a governess until the age of 8, when she started school in London, but after a few years she went back to home-schooling, and passed the Oxford Local Examination at age 13 with distinction.

On her 14th birthday, England declared war on Germany. Her brother Fergus was killed in action in France in 1915, and her brother Michael was captured after being wounded in 1917 and spent the rest of the war in a German camp. Glamis was turned into a convalescent home for wounded soldiers, where Elizabeth helped with the nursing and was very popular with the patients, receiving many proposals of marriage.

Prince Albert, Duke of York (Bertie) was the 2nd son of King George V and Queen Mary, and as soon as he met Elizabeth the shy young man was hopelessly smitten. She liked him, as well, yet she turned him down the first time he proposed. She said she was "afraid never, never again to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to." But Bertie declared he would never marry another, and his third proposal met with success. They married on April 26, 1923 at Westminster Abbey, and Elizabeth started a tradition among royal brides of leaving their bouquets at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. They honeymooned at Polesden Lacey, a country house in Surrey, and then went on to Scotland. Seemingly mismatched in some ways, the gregarious Elizabeth and shy, stammering Bertie proved to have an enduring, loving marriage and were devoted to each other.

In 1926, their first child Princess Elizabeth was born, followed 4 years later by Princess Margaret. The young family was highly popular, and lived a contented, fairly normal life (despite royal duties, like a tour of Australia in 1927). Until 1936.

On January 20, 1936, George V died and Bertie's brother, Edward, Prince of Wales, became King Edward VIII. George V declared, "I pray God that my eldest son will never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lillibet and the throne." His prayer came swiftly true. Edward abdicated to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, and Bertie most reluctantly became King George VI. He and Elizabeth were crowned at Westminster Abbey on May 12, 1937 (the date already set for Edward's coronation--the souvenirs had to be hastily reconfigured!). Elizabeth's new crown contained the Koh-i-Noor diamond, said to be bad luck for a man to wear but fine for a woman (the crown can now be seen at the Tower). The royal couple was still extremely popular, and Elizabeth wowed the world with her charm and wardrobe on tours of France and Canada.

Their hardest hour came with the outbreak of World War II, when they became potent symbols of British resistance. Elizabeth refused to leave London or send her daughters to Canada during the Blitz, despite the advice of the Cabinet to do so. "The children won't go without me," she declared. "I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave." She often made visits to parts of London targeted in the Blitz, such as the East End near the docks, always wearing her finest clothes, high heels, and hats. When Buckingham Palace was hit, she said "I'm glad we've been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face." They spent their working days at Buckingham Palace, traveling back to Windsor Castle at night to stay with the princesses.

After the war, they had only a few years of domestic happiness before George VI died of lung cancer on February 6, 1952, making their 25-year-old daughter Queen Elizabeth II. The new Queen Mother retired in grief to Scotland, intending at first to stay there. After a visit from Winston Churchill, urging her to come back to public life, she returned to London. In July 1953 she took her first overseas visit since her husband's funeral, laying the foundation stone at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Until Princess Diana, she was by far the most popular member of the royal family.

Along with official duties, she oversaw the restoration of the Castle of Mey on the Caithness coast of Scotland, which she used as her own private getaway. She developed a passionate interest in horse racing, owning the winners of over 500 races. She had a great love of art, collecting pieces by (among many others) Monet, Augustus John, and Faberge.

Her 100th birthday in 2000 was celebrated by a joyous parade, a new 20 pound note with her image, and a lunch at the Guildhall in London. In 2001, she suffered a fall and fractured her pevis, despite which she insisted on standing for the National Anthem at a memorial service for her husband on February 6, 2002. Just 3 days later, her younger daughter Princess Margaret died, and Elizabeth's famous spirit at last started to flag. She fell and cut her arm on February 13, but again insisted on going to the funeral at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, making a journey from Norfolk to Windsor despite the concerns of her family.

On March 30, the Queen Mother died at Royal Lodge, Windsor, with her daughter Elizabeth by her side. She was 101 years old, and at that time the longest-lived member of the royal family (her sister-in-law, Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, died in 2004 at 102). Her favorite flowers were camellias, which she grew in all her gardens, and her own camellias were laid atop her flag-draped coffin as it lay in state at Westminster Hall. More than 200,000 people filed past as she lay guarded by members of the Household Cavalry. At one point, her 4 grandsons mounted the guard in what is known as the Vigil of the Princes, only bestowed once before, at the funeral of her father-in-law George V. On the day of her funeral, more than a million people filled the area outside the Abbey and along the 23-mile route of her procession to her resting place at Windsor beside her husband and daughter. After her funeral, the wreath atop her coffin was laid at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, just as her bridal bouquet was.

Sir Hugh Casson described her as "a wave breaking on a rock, because although she is sweet and pretty and charming, she also has a basic streak of toughness and tenacity...when a wave breaks on a rock, it showers and sparkles witha brilliant play of foam and droplets in the sun, yet beneath is really hard, tough rock, fused in her case from strong principles, physical courage, and a sense of duty." (This memorial statue was erected on the Mall in London in 2009)

A few good sources on her life are:
Sarah Bradford, The Reluctant King: The Life and Reign of George VI (1989)
Elizabeth Longford, The Queen Mother (1981)
Hugo Vickers, Elizabeth: The Queen Mother (2006)
Major Colin Burgess, Behind Palace Doors: My Service as the Queen Mother's Equerry (2006)

Portrait Friday

Georgia O'Keefe and Alfred Steiglitz, 1944, by Arnold Newman

Riskies Tuesday

Over at the Riskies today, talking about conference clothes...

Heroine of the Weekend

Next week, July 28 marks the anniversary of the day Henry VIII married his 5th wife, Catherine Howard (ca. 1521--February 13, 1442), so we continue the saga of the Tudor women this week with that poor, naive young woman.

Catherine was the fourth of 10 children born to Lord Edmund Howard (a younger son of the Duke of Norfolk) and his wife Joyce. She had an aristocratic lineage (Norfolk was the leading Catholic peer of the realm), but her father's low birth order and large family meant he was always short of funds and had to beg from his better-off relations. His niece, Anne Boleyn, got him a government job working for the King in Calais in 1531, but that lasted only as long as Anne's tragic reign. When he took the job, Catherine was sent to live in the household of her step-grandmother, Agnes Tilney, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk.

At Lambeth, the Dowager Duchess ran a very large household including many female wards, usually the offspring of poor relatives. The Duchess was usually at Court, and took little interest in the upbringing of these wards, so life at Lambeth was wild and lax. Catherine was not very well-educated, especially compared with some of Henry's intellectual wives such as Anne Boleyn and Catherine Parr (though she could read and write), and she ran wild. She started a sexual relationship with her music teacher, Henry Manox, when she was between the ages of 12 and 16. At her later trial, she stated, "At the flattering and fair persuasions of Manox, being but a young girl, I suffered him at sundry times to handle and touch the secret parts of my body which neither became me with honesty to permit nor him to require."

This youthful affair came to an end in 1538, when Catherine fell for a secretary of the household, Francis Dereham. They often addressed each other as "husband" and "wife," and other people in the household took notice of them. It ended the next year, when the Duchess finally figured out what was going on, but they may have parted with vows to marry (which would have constituted a pre-contract and invalidated her marriage to the King).

Catherine's uncle the Duke found her a place at Court as lady-in-waiting to Henry's new queen Anne of Cleves. The young, vivacious beauty quickly caught the king's eye, as he had never cared for Anne at all. Though her family wondered if she had the maturity and intelligence to handle the position of King's mistress, it was most advantageous to them and thus they encouraged it. Within months of her arrival at Court, the King was showering Catherine with expensive gifts and calling her his "rose without a thorn."

The Cleves marriage was annulled on July 9, 1540 and Catherine and Henry married a few weeks later on July 28. Henry, now near 50 and constantly expanding in girth (definitely no longer the golden prince of the early days of his reign!) was infatuated with his teenaged bride, and gave her expensive jewelry, gowns, and gifts of land. Her motto, "No other will but his," seemed to signify a devotion to her new husband that was deceptive. Despite her newfound wealth and power, she was a young, lusty woman who found her marital relations--unappealing. (The King weighed around 300 pounds at this time, and had a bad-smelling, festering ulcer on his leg that had to be drained every day). Early in 1541 she met the handsome young courtier Thomas Culpeper, and started meeting him in secret with the help of her lady-in-waiting Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford (widow of Anne Boleyn's beheaded brother, so she should have known better!).

In 1541, Henry and Catherine embarked on a popular progress of the north of England. But people who had witnessed her wild behavior at Lambeth began contacting her for favors, and in order to buy their silence she appointed many of them to her household, including her first lover Henry Manox as musician and Francis Dereham as her secretary. John Lascelles, a Protestant reformer who resented the Norfolks' continued Catholicism, and his sister Mary Hall, who served the Dowager Duchess and witnessed Catherine's liaisons, contacted Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, with what they they knew of the Queen's scandalous past. Cranmer, well aware that any pre-contract with Dereham would invalidate the royal marriage, gave Henry a letter with accusations against his wife at an All Souls Day Mass on November 2, 1541. Henry at first refused to believe the claims, and ordered Cranmer to investigate further. Within days more proof was found, including the confessions of Dereham and Culpeper after they were taken to the Tower, and a love letter to Culpeper in Catherine's handwriting (the only letter from her still surviving. She signs off as "Yours as long as life endures"). Catherine was charged with treason, but she never confessed (even to her confessor just before her death) to infidelity, only that her behavior was unbecoming a lady of her rank.

Cranmer and a delegation went to question her at Hampton Court on November 7, and even the stern Archbishop found her tearful, paniced state pitiable, saying, "I found her in such lamentation and heavyness as I never saw no creature, so that it would have pitied any man's heart to have looked upon her." A pre-contract would have terminated the marriage and allowed Henry to banish her from Court. She would have been disgraced and impoverished, but not dead as her cousin Anne Boleyn was. But she denied any pre-contract, stating that Dereham had forced himself on her.

She was stripped of the the title of Queen on November 23 and sent to live at Syon House through the winter of 1541. Culpeper and Dereham were executed on December 10, and bill of attainder passed against Catherin on January 21, 1542. She was taken to the Tower on February 10, and executed on the 13th. The night before her death, she is said to have ordered the block brought to her room so she could practice making a good death. If so, it worked--though she was pale and had to be helped up the steps to the scaffold, she died with dignity and composure. She made a speech declaring her punishment "worthy and just" and asked for mercy for her family and prayers for her soul. She was buried in the nearby Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, near her cousin Anne Boleyn.

A few good sources for Catherine's short, sad life are:
Antonia Fraser, The Six Wives of Henry VIII
Karen Lindsey, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII
Lacey Baldwin Smith, A Tudor Tragedy: The Life and Times of Catherine Howard
Joanna Denny, Katherine Howard: A Tudor Conspiracy

Portrait Friday

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and Her Daughter Lady Georgiana Cavendish, Reynolds, 1784-86

RWA '09 Pics Saturday Night

The Saturday RITA Awards after-party!

RWA '09 Pics Harlequin Party

Saturday at the big Harlequin bash! (With Elizabeth Mahon, Michelle W. and her hubby dancing it up, with Alex Logan my Grand Central/Laurel McKee editor, and with Andrea Pickens, my Welbourne Manor buddies Diane Gaston and Deb Marlowe, Liz, and Michelle). It's the best party of the year!

RWA '09 Pics Beau Monde Soiree

Photos from last Wednesday's Beau Monde soiree! The costumes were gorgeous, and the dancing looked fun (though my shoes were too pointy-toed for dancing this year...)

With my lovely Harlequin editor Joanne Carr:
With Keira Soleore and Michelle Willingham:

With Megan!
A million thanks to my mother, Couturier Extraordinaire, for my gown!

Gone to Conference!

I'm off in Washington DC for the RWA conference--back next week, with pics and news!

Heroine(s) of the Weekend

In honor of Tuesday's Bastille Day holiday, women who played a role (no matter how reluctantly!) in the French Revolution...



Marie Antoinette
Madame du Barry
Rose Bertin
Manon Roland
Therese de Tallien
Germaine de Staal
Theroigne de Mericourt
Princesse de Lamballe
Marie Therese, Madame Royale

Portrait Friday

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret by Charles Edmund Brock, ca. 1936

Shoes!

I LOVE these shoes! They're perfect for Fall. Too bad they cost $380 and don't even have my size...

(But if they have your size, you can get them at Piper Lime)

What I'm Reading Today

I love the history of botany (even though I can't seem to keep flowers alive in my own yard!)