Christy English

Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran

Monday, February 28th, 2011 | Michelle Moran | No Comments

I am halfway through the novel MADAME TUSSAUD and I find myself completely gripped by it. Though Michelle Moran brings the horrors of the French Revolution to life, she also has given life to the courageous woman Marie Grosholtz, aka Madame Tussaud. I know from history that Marie survives the Revolution, but I am drawn into her family’s web as well, and I have no assurance that they will survive in the pages of this book. That is the wonder of fiction, isn’t it? It makes the dead live again, and it makes me care about them as if they were my neighbors or my friends.

A brilliant quote that heads chapter 23 in this novel:

“Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them.” Suzanne Necker, wife of Jacques Necker, Minister of Finance

In MADAME TUSSAUD, it is the past that is being unmasked for me, as well as the people who lived during that time, all of  whom have come to life again in the pages of this book.

Princess Alais of France

Friday, February 25th, 2011 | Princess Alais, The Queen's Pawn | 5 Comments

Most of this blog is devoted to Eleanor of Aquitaine, and for good reason. She is an amazing woman. But someone I have rarely written about makes up the other half of my novel, THE QUEEN’S PAWN: Princess Alais of France.

We actually know very little about Alais, not even what her real name was. She is known as Alais, Alix, Alys, Alice, and Alasia, just to list the versions of her name that I have seen. We know her birth date, but only because her mother died giving birth to her.

Alais is one of the many women lost in the shadows of the past, a woman known only through the men who ruled her life. Her father, King Louis VII married her mother, Constanza of Castile after his long marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine failed. And after giving birth to two daughters, Constanza, now Queen Constance, died on the day Alais was born. So Alais never knew her.

We do know that Alais’ marriage to Prince Richard of England, later Duke of Aquitaine, was arranged by treaty in 1168, and that she was sent away from home at the age of nine to be betrothed to her father’s enemy. She does not crop up again in historical record until a dispute rises between King Henry II and her father, mediated by the Pope in 1177. King Henry swore at that time that there had been no improper relationship between himself and his son’s betrothed.  Despite King Henry’s oaths to the contrary, some chroniclers of his court refer to Alais as having borne him as many as two children, though they do not bother to mention their fate.

Alais returns to history once again when her brother, King Philippe Auguste, demands that Richard the Lionhearted marry her as per their betrothal agreement.  King Richard refuses to do so, but does not release Alais and allow her to return to France. Alais continues to live in Rouen in the heart of Richard’s holdings while he fights on crusade and marries another, Berengaria of Navarre.

Finally, in 1195, at the age of thirty-five, Alais returns to France and marries her brother’s vassal, the Count of Ponthieu.  She fades completely from historical view at that point, leaving me to wonder, was her life happy once she escaped the maelstrom of politics and war? Of course, we have no way of knowing. I feel that I got to know this princess as I worked for years on the novel that gave her life.  I am happy that THE QUEEN’S PAWN brings the forgotten princess back into view.  Alais and Eleanor live on when we remember them, no matter how imperfectly.

There are no images of Princess Alais from her own time. On the cover of my novel, she is the woman in blue, crowned with fleurs de lys.

Fiction Addiction

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 | Speaking Engagements, To Be Queen | No Comments

Fiction Addiction…is that a great name for a bookstore or what? I am fortunate enough to have been invited to speak at a luncheon for this lovely store in Greenville, SC in April. I have never been to Greenville before so I am really looking forward to this trip.

I am a huge fan of inland rivers and urban greenspace…

The luncheon will be held at the Lazy Goat restaurant on April 28. See the link below for details.  And many thanks to Jill of Fiction Addiction for setting this up…

I’ll be talking about… that’s right…Eleanor!

http://bookyourlunch.com/book-your-lunch-with-christy-english/

Eleanor and Her Husband Kings

Monday, February 21st, 2011 | Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II, Louis VII | 2 Comments

At two very different times in her life, Eleanor of Aquitaine married two very different men. Her first husband, Louis VII of France, had become heir to the French throne only after his older brother fell from a horse and was killed. Louis was brought out of the cathedral school at Notre Dame de St. Denis where his mentor, Suger, had been instructing him in the ways of the Church. Louis VII was plunged, unprepared,  into the deep waters of court politics. Eleanor and Louis married when she was fifteen and he, sixteen, and their marriage lasted for fifteen years, with no son to show for it. Though Louis strove hard all his life to be a good man, and a good king, the in-fighting and politics that surrounded him were a constant burden.

This is a modern rendering of Louis VII. From what chroniclers of the time reported of him, he was a good looking man with blond hair and blue eyes.

Eleanor’s second husband, Henry, Duke of Normandy, was eighteen when she met him. Conqueror of Normandy, Henry already had his sights set on regaining the throne of England which had been taken from his family a generation before.  Henry gave lip service to the Church, and certainly used it to pursue his own ends and to shore up his power, but he was never bound by the Church’s strictures. By the time Henry first met Eleanor, he had at least one illegitimate son.  Within two years of their marriage, Henry was King in England, and he had crowned Eleanor Queen beside him. For the first fifteen years of their married life, Eleanor and Henry worked out a partnership that smoothly ruled their large empire. Their combined territory stretched from Northern England, to Wales and Ireland, to Brittany, Normandy, Anjou, Poitou, Gascony and Aquitaine. It was not until 1173, when Eleanor and her sons rebelled against Henry’s authority on the Continent that there was an open political break between them.

For her rebellion, Henry locked up Eleanor for the rest of his reign. Had she stayed married to Louis of France, Eleanor would never have been locked away, but she might have considered her life in Paris its own prison, surrounded by clergy and nobles who loathed her, with no son to call her heir in France or in Aquitaine. Better by far to take her chances with Henry, and to live with the consequences of life with her second king.

This modern rendering of Henry II no doubt does not look like him, either. A charismatic man with a towering intellect and huge temper, Henry II red hair and gray eyes.

The Joy of a Full Mailbox

Friday, February 18th, 2011 | To Be Read Pile | 5 Comments

My TBR pile just keeps growing as more wonderful books find their way into my mailbox. I am deep in the throes of reading REBEL PURITAN, the first in the series about Herodias Long and her life in the New World.

And yesterday, Michelle Moran’s MADAME TUSSAUD arrived

along with C.W. Gortner’s THE TUDOR SECRET

and Deborah Harkness’ A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES.

So my TBR pile is taking twists and turns, from Colonial New England and pre-Revolutionary France to the court of Elizabeth I and a magical world of vampires and witches. My tastes are eclectic, but I love it that way. All these wonderful books will entertain me, teach me more about my craft, and leave me ready once more to delve into the world of Eleanor.