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Book Talk : Daughter of York
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From: Greensleeves  (Original Message)Sent: 4/7/2008 8:23 PM
Daughter of York by Anne Easter Smith is her second novel set in the Wars of the Roses timeframe (the first was A Rose for the Crown, about RIII, which I reviewed on this board someplace a couple years ago; she is currently working on one about Cicely Neville atm so nice things to come).
 
This novel follows Margaret of Burgundy from shortly after Wakefield until the close of her visit to England in 1480.  The author says she decided to end there because the next 5 years was nothing but one tragedy after another for the House of York & she wanted her book to close on a positive note.  You can tell Smith has done quite a bit of research with some of the obscure things she hurls out, so the history is fairly accurate as well.
 
There were a few plot points that I found intriguing.  The first was that Margaret & Anthony Woodville supposedly fell in love before she was sent off to wed Charles the Bold, only he was married & of course Edward IV as all kings do wanted to use his sister as a political alliance pawn, so even if he hadn't been their love was hopeless.  The author says she did this because both Margaret & Anthony were know to be avid readers & patrons of William Caxton (also a character in the book, Margaret's dwarf was his mistress PMSL), so it follows that they would have had a lot in common from the get-go.  Anthony also escorted her to Burgundy for her marriage, with Edward winking at them both & encouraging them to sow some wild oats (they didn't until much later in the book).
 
I also enjoyed how she made Edward IV a Henry VIII sort of caricature (that was his grandpa after all) with his excessive eating habits, imperious manner, & mercurial temperament.
 
Smith says she found reference in some household rolls to a "secret boy" that Margaret kept in one of her out-of-the-way Burgundian dower houses after Charles's death & raised as her own for several years.  She made this boy be George of Clarence's Flemish bastard, Jehan. 
 
Interestingly, she then had George's GF, Frieda, marry a gentleman by the name of Jehan as well, who didn't want the child to share his name because he was a bastard & not his own, so he changed the kid's name to Pierre, who was called Pierrequin as a diminuative.  Jehan's surname was Warbecque.  Pierrequin Warbecque=Perkin Warbeck?  I've always though Warbeck's pic looked a lot like EIV, so mayhap he WAS a royal bastard.  Food for thought, anyone?


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