Anne Neville article

I've just been shopping and see that the March edition of the BBC History
Magazine has an article on Anne Neville by Joanna Laynesmith.

Anyone else seen it?

Marie

Marie wrote: I've just been shopping and see that the
March edition of the BBC History
Magazine has an article on Anne Neville by Joanna
Laynesmith.

Anyone else seen it?

***

I checked the BBC History Magazine website, but I was
disappointed to find that they haven't made her
article available online.

I'm guessing that this article comes from her book,
"The last medieval queens."

I can borrow the book from the library, and I'm
looking forward to reading it.

Marion

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--- In , marion davis
<phaecilia@y...> wrote:
> Marie wrote: I've just been shopping and see that the
> March edition of the BBC History
> Magazine has an article on Anne Neville by Joanna
> Laynesmith.
>
> Anyone else seen it?
>
> ***
>
> I checked the BBC History Magazine website, but I was
> disappointed to find that they haven't made her
> article available online.
>
> I'm guessing that this article comes from her book,
> "The last medieval queens."
>
> I can borrow the book from the library, and I'm
> looking forward to reading it.
>
> Marion

I would say it's more to make up a deficiency in the book, which
deals with the four queens by themes rather than giving each a bio,
and has hardly anything on Anne.
Also,in the book Laynesmith pooh-poohs any romantic notions about
Anne & Richard's marriage by quoting the Milanese ambassador in
France saying Anne's second husband the "Duke of Lancaster" had taken
her by force. The whole passage seem to me to have come from a
Clarence source, and I question whether it meant taking Anne against
her own will or against that of her guardian. Also, the writer was
clearly confused between Edward of Lancaster and Richard of
Gloucester. Laynesmith also at one point alludes to Anne being always
under the shadow of her husband. And I'm not halfway through yet!

Anyway, she gives a much more favourable (to Richard) account of
Anne's marriage in the article, and seems to argue against her own
slant in the book saying Anne only appears downtrodden and passive
because she was Queen for too short a space of time to have left
much in the way of extant records, and arguing that she was actually
much more active in Richard's regime than is usually supposed. I very
much agree with her.
I think the book is basically a publication of her doctorate thesis
or something (or was it MA dissertation?), so was maybe written with
an eye to pleasing superiors.

It's not a very long article, but well worth getting as an addition
to the book.

Marie
>
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Marie wrote: I would say it's more to make up a
deficiency in the book, which deals with the four
queens by themes rather than giving each a bio, and
has hardly anything on Anne.

It's not a very long article, but well worth getting
as an addition to the book.

***

It's disappointing that her book doesn't have much
about Anne. I still want to read it, but now I want
to read the article, too. I'll probably order it from
the website, because I doubt if BBC History is sold
around here, and the libraries don't have it.

***

Also, in the book Laynesmith pooh-poohs any romantic
notions about Anne & Richard's marriage

***

They married because Richard wanted a share in the
Neville inheritance.

But don't some *non-fiction* writers say that the
financial and practical aspects of Anne's marriage to
Richard were balanced by the affection and respect
they showed each other? I remember reading that they
spent an unusual amount of time together and seemed to
get along well, at least in public. To me, that's not
romantic, it's just good sense to make the best of
what the system demanded of her.

***

by quoting the Milanese ambassador in France saying
Anne's second husband the "Duke of Lancaster" had
taken her by force. The whole passage seem to me to
have come from a Clarence source, and I question
whether it meant taking Anne against her own will or
against that of her guardian.

***

It sounds as if it could be interpreted either way,
depending on whose side the interpreter wants to take.

***

Also, the writer was clearly confused between Edward
of Lancaster and Richard of Gloucester. Laynesmith
also at one point alludes to Anne being always
under the shadow of her husband. And I'm not halfway
through yet!

***

Weren't most 15th century wives overshadowed by their
husbands? Wasn't that the ideal the 15th century
system wanted to impose? Weren't most women who
stepped beyond their husbands' shadows criticized or
punished?

***

Anyway, she gives a much more favourable (to Richard)
account of Anne's marriage in the article, and seems
to argue against her own slant in the book saying Anne
only appears downtrodden and passive because she was
Queen for too short a space of time to have left
much in the way of extant records, and arguing that
she was actually much more active in Richard's regime
than is usually supposed. I very much agree with her.

***

She may have left records that were destroyed. We
have no way of knowing how many records of the Yorkist
period were destroyed.

***

I think the book is basically a publication of her
doctorate thesis or something (or was it MA
dissertation?), so was maybe written with
an eye to pleasing superiors.

***

In his chapter notes for Bosworth 1485, Jones says
that he hopes Joanna L. Chamberlayne will publish her
MA dissertation, "Cecily Neville, Dutchess of York,
King's Mother; the roles of an English noblewoman
1415-1495" as a full biography.

When I saw that her new book didn't include Cecily, I
was disappointed. But I'm still hoping she'll publish
a book about Cecily's life.

Marion

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--- In , marion davis
<phaecilia@y...> wrote:
> Marie wrote: I would say it's more to make up a
> deficiency in the book, which deals with the four
> queens by themes rather than giving each a bio, and
> has hardly anything on Anne.
>
> It's not a very long article, but well worth getting
> as an addition to the book.
>
> ***
>
> It's disappointing that her book doesn't have much
> about Anne. I still want to read it, but now I want
> to read the article, too. I'll probably order it from
> the website, because I doubt if BBC History is sold
> around here, and the libraries don't have it.

The title is "The Lost Queen".

>
> ***
>
> Also, in the book Laynesmith pooh-poohs any romantic
> notions about Anne & Richard's marriage
>
> ***
>
> They married because Richard wanted a share in the
> Neville inheritance.
>
> But don't some *non-fiction* writers say that the
> financial and practical aspects of Anne's marriage to
> Richard were balanced by the affection and respect
> they showed each other? I remember reading that they
> spent an unusual amount of time together and seemed to
> get along well, at least in public. To me, that's not
> romantic, it's just good sense to make the best of
> what the system demanded of her.

Evidence is limited, of course, but it does seem to me that Anne
chose to be with Richard quite a lot. Unlike Buckingham's wife, she
joined Richard in London during the Protectorate. When Richard went
to Greenwich immediately after the coronation I imagine Anne went too
as this was normally the Queen's own palace. She accompanied him to
Windsor, then joined him at Warwick for the rest of the progress.
She was with Richard on his travels in the spring of 1484 and
according to tradition she was also with him at Scarborough that
summer. Etc.

However, I suppose to be fair we should bear in mind that Richard and
Anne would have been anxious to have further legitimate children, so
that there may have been practical reasons why they would have chosen
to be together. However, reading between the lines of the little
evidence we have, I should say Anne was also 100 % behind Richard's
becoming king; nor can I see Richard having won over the old Neville
following so well if there were any hint that Anne was an unwilling
partner; at the very least they seem to have formed a good working
team.

>
> ***
>
> by quoting the Milanese ambassador in France saying
> Anne's second husband the "Duke of Lancaster" had
> taken her by force. The whole passage seem to me to
> have come from a Clarence source, and I question
> whether it meant taking Anne against her own will or
> against that of her guardian.
>
> ***
>
> It sounds as if it could be interpreted either way,
> depending on whose side the interpreter wants to take.

The full quotation is:
"the Duke of Lancaster, who by force had taken to wife the daughter
of the late Earl of Warwick, who had been married to the Prince of
Wales, was constantly preparing for war with the Duke of Clarence.
The latter, because his brother King Edward had promised him
Warwick's country, did not want the former to have it by reason of
his marriage with the Earl's second daughter."

You see now why I say this sounds like an explanation of the problem
from Clarence's viewpoint? This was written in February 1474, just
three months after John Paston remarked that Clarence was "making him
big" to deal with Gloucester, but that there was a suspicion that he
was really arming for some "treason intended" - it has been surmised
that Oxford's attempted landing at about the same time may have been
connected. So I find it interesting to hear what sounds like Clarence
propaganda coming out of France at the same time.
One interesting point that comes from this document, which Laynesmith
didn't draw attetnion to, is that it shows that Richard and Anne were
married by this date. The only English source which gives a date for
the marriage says 1475, leading to supposition that Richard didn't
marry her until after the final settlement with Clarence that year.
Seems he did.

My remark about what was meant by "by force" is based on a general
observation that "abduction" and even "rape" didn't mean quite the
same in the Middle Ages as they do now. Many brides were apparently
willing partners in their "abductions", and the word seems to have
been used in the sense of abduction from guardians rather than
against the girl's will. Indeed, there is a whole branch of classic
Irish stories called Abductions, all of which, to my knowledge, are
about girls who conspired to be spirited away by their lovers.
Similarly, I have read in a biography of Sir Thomas Malory that
legally having sex, even consensual, with a married woman against her
husband's wishes counted as rape.
It seems to me that Clarence regarded himself as standing in loco
parentis vis a vis Anne Neville.
>
> ***
>
> Also, the writer was clearly confused between Edward
> of Lancaster and Richard of Gloucester. Laynesmith
> also at one point alludes to Anne being always
> under the shadow of her husband. And I'm not halfway
> through yet!
>
> ***
>
> Weren't most 15th century wives overshadowed by their
> husbands? Wasn't that the ideal the 15th century
> system wanted to impose? Weren't most women who
> stepped beyond their husbands' shadows criticized or
> punished?

I don't think that's entirely fair. Terry Jones, however, was I think
right in his programme on Monday in arguing that things were better
for women at the beginning of the century than at the end. On the
subject of queens, Laynesmith's take is actually that they were
regarded as far far more than the mere breeders of the King's heirs
other historians have seen them as, and had a very serious role. Her
remark about Anne being under Richard's shadow was in the context of
the sparsity of documntation on her compared with the other queens in
the study, which however in her article she states clearly to be
almost certainly due to the briefness of her reign rather than
marital oppression.

>
> ***
>
> Anyway, she gives a much more favourable (to Richard)
> account of Anne's marriage in the article, and seems
> to argue against her own slant in the book saying Anne
> only appears downtrodden and passive because she was
> Queen for too short a space of time to have left
> much in the way of extant records, and arguing that
> she was actually much more active in Richard's regime
> than is usually supposed. I very much agree with her.
>
> ***
>
> She may have left records that were destroyed. We
> have no way of knowing how many records of the Yorkist
> period were destroyed.

Yes, I don't think any historian would come out with that in public
for fear of being tarnished with the brush of Ricardian paranoia, but
it has struck me in the section I've just read, on queens' funerals,
that the loss of the records on Anne's funeral is perhaps suspicious.
Occasions like this were conducted according to strict, but evolving,
precedent, and so it would be sensible for court officials, and the
heralds, would keep the records of these things. Put together with
the lack of a tomb for Anne, I can't help wondering about the
attitude of the Tudor regime to the memory of Richard's queen.
>
> ***
>
> I think the book is basically a publication of her
> doctorate thesis or something (or was it MA
> dissertation?), so was maybe written with
> an eye to pleasing superiors.
>
> ***
>
> In his chapter notes for Bosworth 1485, Jones says
> that he hopes Joanna L. Chamberlayne will publish her
> MA dissertation, "Cecily Neville, Dutchess of York,
> King's Mother; the roles of an English noblewoman
> 1415-1495" as a full biography.
>
> When I saw that her new book didn't include Cecily, I
> was disappointed. But I'm still hoping she'll publish
> a book about Cecily's life.

I heard a talk by her two years ago, which we were also told was
based on her dissertation, which covered the women of the House of
York in general - in practice mainly Cecily & Anne Neville. Surely
there's at least one more book there?

Marie
>


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