The Letters of Margaret of Anjou

ISBN-13: 9781783274246 / Angielski / Twarda / 2019 / 317 str.

Helen Maurer;B.M. Cron

Opis

Margaret of Anjou has had a bad press. As queen of England she was on the losing side in the first phase of the Wars of the Roses, the struggle between the Houses of Lancaster and York. Yorkist propaganda vilifying Margaret was consolidated by Shakespeare: his portrait of her as a warlike and vengeful queen - "a tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" - has been accepted ever since. But Margaret's letters tell a different story. They reveal a woman who lived according to the noble standards of her time. She enjoyed the hunt, she practised her faith, and she tried to help or protect those who called upon her for assistance, as was expected of a queen and a "good lady". Her efforts were occasionally misguided, but when life dealt her a bitter hand, she persevered in what she saw as her duty to her husband and her son. Circumstances forced her to do extraordinary things, and to step outside the life she would have expected to live: that of a conventional queen. This study and edition of her letters clarifies obscure corners of her life and sheds new light on a misunderstood figure.