The Queen of Last Hopes: The Story of Margaret of Anjou
Added by: JustGoodNews | Karma: 4306.26 | Fiction literature | 28 February 2011
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The Queen of Last Hopes: The Story of Margaret of Anjou - Susan Higginbothamby Susan Higginbotham
A man other than my husband sits on England's throne today. What would happen if this king suddenly went mad? What would his queen do? Would she make the same mistakes I did, or would she learn from mine? Margaret of Anjou, queen of England, cannot give up on her husband-even when he slips into insanity. And as mother to the House of Lancaster's last hope, she cannot give up on her son-even when England turns against them. This gripping tale of a queen forced to stand strong in the face of overwhelming odds is at its heart a tender tale of love.
When Jonathan Harker goes to Transylvania to visit Count Dracula on business, he discovers that his client's motives for coming to England are rather more sinister than they first appeared.
When in 1154 A.D. Henry II of England married Eleanor of Aquitaine of France, he became at once the reigning sovereign over a vast stretch of land extending across all of England and half of France, and yet, according to the feudal hierarchy of the times, a vassal to the King of France. This situation, which placed French and English borders in such a tenuous position, solidified the precarious ground on which the Hundred Years War was to be fought 183 years later.
The book of hours is said to have been the most popular book owned by the laity in the later Middle Ages. Women were often patrons or owners of such books, which were usually illustrated: indeed, the earliest surviving exemplar made in England was designed and illustrated by William de Brailes in Oxford in the mid-thirteenth century, for an unknown young lady whom he portrayed in the book several times.
The first claim the Middle Ages makes on our interest is that of piety. We owe so much to it; the men of the Middle Ages transmitted to us both the learning of the pre-Christian ages and the civilization of Christianity. Over and above that they had their own gifts to give us, and in this country before all others it is our medieval ancestors who have made us what we are. We have never broken the living links which bind us to them; their words, their thoughts, their habits, are ours; they have set their stamp on our roads, our fields, our hedges, our districts, on our buildings and our building, on our laws and our law.