Women the Power Behind the Crown of England

Women the Power behind the Crown of England

ISBN 978-1-326-91999-3

Index

Dedications

Preface

Chapter 1Women who influenced the Crown

Chapter 2Boudica or Boudicca

Chapter 3The 11th Century

Chapter 4Emma of Normandy

Chapter 5Summary of the 11th century

Chapter 6The first part of the 12th century

Chapter 7The Second half of the 12th century

Chapter 8Empress Matilda

Chapter 9Eleanor of Aquitaine

Chapter 10Summary of the 12th century

Chapter 11The first two thirds of the 13th century

Chapter 12The second Third of the 13th century

Chapter 13Eleanor of Castile

Chapter 14Summary of the 13th century

Chapter 15The first half of the 14th century

Chapter 16The second half of the 14th century

Chapter 17The Hundred Year War

Chapter 18Isabella of France

Chapter 19Philippa of Hainault

Chapter 20Summary of the Fourteenth Century

Chapter 21The 15th century

Chapter 22Cecily Neville the early years

Chapter 23The War of the Roses

Chapter 24Cecily Neville

Chapter 25Elizabeth Woodville

Chapter 26Margaret Beaufort

Chapter 27Summary of the Fifteenth Century

Chapter 28The 16th century

Chapter 29History of the 1st half of the 16th century

Chapter 30History of the 2nd half of the 16th century

Chapter 31Mary Tudor (Bloody Mary)

Chapter 32Ann Boleyn

Chapter 33Elizabeth Tudor

Chapter 34Mary Tudor (Mary Queen of Scots)

Chapter 35Summary of the 16th century

Chapter 36The 17th century (The first 25 years)

Chapter 37The 17th century (1625 to 1649)

Chapter 3817th century (The Republican years)

Chapter 3917th century (Charles I’s offspring)

Chapter 40Mary Stuart

Chapter 41Summary of the 17th century

Chapter 4218th century (The first half)

Chapter 4318th century (The last 40 years)

Chapter 44Anne Stuart

Chapter 45Sophia Dorothea of Celle

Chapter 46Sophia of Hanover

Chapter 47 Caroline of Ansbach

Chapter 48Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Chapter 4919th century (George III’s remaining reign)

Chapter 50Summary of the 18th century

Chapter 51The 19th century George IV and his bother William IV

Chapter 52 Queen Victoria

Chapter 53Summary of the 19th century

Chapter 5420th century Edward VII

Chapter 55George V

Chapter 56Edward VIII

Chapter 57George VI

Chapter 58Elizabeth II

Chapter 59Wallis Simpson

Chapter 60Mary of Teck

Chapter 61Elizabeth Bowes Lyon

Chapter 62Elizabeth Windsor

Chapter 63Summary of the 20th century

Chapter 64The 21st century. The future

Bibliography

AppendixOther Books by the same Author

Dedications

I dedicate this book to the 50% of the population that is the weaker sex (tongue in cheek). I for one would not like to come up against some of the women that I have written about in this history book.

I truly hope that in the future the balance is evened out to make a level playing field. That is what all people deserve, to be treated equally no matter what their sexual orientation, their sex, the colour of their skin or their religion. Or indeed if there is no religion at all for that matter, as that is the fastest growing group of people, those that don’t believe in any Supreme Being looking out for them.

I also dedicate this and indeed all my books to those that have difficulties with reading and writing. I do, and it’s because I am dyslexia (a word that most dyslexia’s can’t spell so it’s appropriate). I still have a reading and writing age of about a 12 year old even at 70 plus. That is not as bad as it sounds as complete literacy is at the age of 15 so I’m only a bit behind. I have reasonable intelligence so its no big deal and I have had no real problem that I didn’t overcome throughout my working life.  I am what some people call word blind at times and see what I think is there, not what is actually there. An example is that my wife is very good at English and I normally get her to check the drafts of my books. Between us, our kids had plenty of help with school work, I with science and maths and my wife with English and literature. When she was checking this book she suddenly burst out laughing and said Do you know what you have written here? I looked and said So he was guillotined, what’s wrong with that? You have written he was gelatined, did he drown or something. This can be embarrassing at times, but who cares? It’s just me, and I, and indeed any other dyslexia have no way of improving the situation. So stop taking the piss please because it can hurt! (Not when my wife does it to me). If my wife has missed the odd spelling or grammatical error then please forgive her as she is not a professional editor or proof reader.

Preface

I was born in 1946 and went to school predominantly in the 50’s. I left school in 1961 at the age of 15 with no qualifications which wasn’t that unusual in those days. I absolutely hated history at school and it was mainly of cause how it was taught at that time. It was all dates with no flesh on the bones. It was dry and boring and even the teacher would just come into the classroom with his cane in his hand ready to force the knowledge into us whether we liked it or not. Yes I was educated near the end of corporal punishment being the norm. It only probably worked when the knowledge was of a repetitive nature and I hated being caned for not being able to spell or read well (I was dyslexic and still am, thank goodness for spell check). The school system was so inflexible that as I was in the top class for science, maths etc, I was therefore expected to be in the top class for English and so in that subject I was completely out of my depth. On the point of non-politically-correct teachers the wood work teacher, when we first went into his workshop / classroom, thrust a chisel into the wooden bench to demonstrate how sharp it was. With the chisel still vibrating he said "If I see any of you misbehaving with the tools you can expect no mercy".

The science teacher could hit a boy’s ear at 20 paces with the board rubber or a piece of chalk. My maths teacher Mr Chopra (he was an Indian and I’ve probably spelt his name wrong) was one of the only teachers that didn’t need to maintain order by fear and I learnt a lot from him. We were not educated to pass exams then as the children are now so the teachers had a pretty free reign. Good teachers like my maths teacher could therefore bring out the best in us. I was being taught and doing calculus at the age of 14 by him whereas other teachers taught me nothing much. Despite being a disciplinarian the science teacher was good but very rigid and anything more advanced than Newtonian mechanics was considered impossible (he was quite old and close to retirement). He stated categorically that energy beam weapons were something out of Sci-Fi and not possible (we would often quote the future from Dan Dare and the Eagle comic etc). He however did give me a very good grounding in classical science. I would like to go back and just show him an industrial laser cutter and micro wave cookers etc. I would think that most of my teachers are now dead and some were good while others were mediocre at best. I would however like to know where my headmaster is buried so that I can go and "Piss on his grave" (sorry about the crudeness). He was a sadist and enjoyed inflicting pain on around a dozen or so young boys (between the ages of 11 and 15) every day he was at school, sometimes including me;

When I left school I served a 5 year apprenticeship as an electrician and at the end of that apprenticeship I obtained a Higher National Certificate in Electrical Engineering (For the American readers that’s roughly equal to an under graduate degree). Later in my 30’s I obtained a full Bachelors degree and I even eventually got over the fact that I’m still a bad speller and slow reader. This is my 10th book and I have published about a million words so you could say I was educated despite my education.

I was therefore a teenager and in my early twenties throughout the 60’s and yes I do remember it (as the saying goes if you remember the 60’s then you weren’t there, but I was there). The "Who" would play at one of the local social clubs that I regularly went to on a Friday and Saturday night. So did several other pop groups who would also play there before they were famous. I was a little naive and was amazed at how hyper active Keith Moon (the drummer for the Who) was, not realising that he was stoned out of his mind on drugs all the time. After I left school I soon realised that I had been subtly educated in an institutionalised sexist way. Women were expected to be secretaries at best and if not then while they were working they were expected to be factory fodder at worst. After that they were expected to get married have kids and be the dutiful housewife, cooking, cleaning, and generally doing whatever their husband (the boss of the household) wanted them to do.

Once I started to go out with girls I soon realised that they had a brain (among other things) and was every bit as clever as men. There was a glass ceiling with regards to what I could possibly hope to obtain in my chosen profession because I came from the lower classes (not the so called working classes as this term annoys me intensely. Most people have to work to survive. Even a commodity trader works probably 16 / 18 hours a day to make the deals, so the term working class is a misnomer and meaningless. I came from the poor classes or the lower classes which ever you want to use). This glass ceiling was especially true for the female of the species who would have to work twice as hard to get on. However even that wouldn’t matter because if a man was going for the same position in the company that they both worked for and they had equal qualifications then the man would always get it, because he was expected to be the bread winner of the family (have the main salary coming in). Now at 70+ I suppose you can’t teach an old dog new tricks so my attitude was formed early on in life. Everybody should have equal opportunity to succeed no matter what their sex, whether male or female or any type in between. Everybody should be treated the same whether black or white or indeed any shade in between.

I have deliberately avoided religion at this stage because it is only a belief system and not a proven fact therefore you have a choice of whether to believe and worship or not and anyone can change their mind at any time throughout their life. Religion should not be treated as a special case; blasphemy laws are wrong and should be reformed. Someone who is religious can with impunity make jokes or criticise an atheist or someone from another religion with impunity. If it’s the other way around however, in some countries they could be executed for blasphemy. That is simply wrong, wrong, wrong! I’m sure there are some of you saying of course you can prove there’s a God just look around at the wonders in the country side. All of these wonders can be explained scientifically and yes they can be just accidents because with literally trillions upon trillions of possible worlds in the universe then the odds are that we could exist by accident. No matter how improbable it is and that it is purely a random set of circumstances coming together then with googllions of situations that compounds can come together, then the laws of probability are on the side of science (yes a Google is a very large number and makes a billion look like chump-change  a Google is 10¹⁰⁰. In decimal notation, or rather can be written as the digit 1 followed by one hundred 0s: or rather its, 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).

There are billions of galaxies and in those there are billions of stars. Most stars have planets and it’s not possible that compounds couldn’t possibly come together randomly in the correct way on at least one of those planets. You could obviously argue that this random coming together of compounds was designed to do just that by the Creator or Architect of the Universe who ever he, she or it is (If God doesn’t have a gender). I have therefore possibly proven that there is a God (or that there couldn’t be a God who knows) but either way it’s your opinion against mine. Those at the head of religions normally have the power of persuasion or are just feared. If we are indeed alone then so be it (I don’t think so but as the stars are so far apart then we will probably never meet each other).

So religion shouldn’t be a reason to exclude or include someone, it’s irrelevant like a persons colour or gender. Throughout the book I have often criticised monarchs or governments for doing the wrong thing and creating the situation that they find themselves in. By the same token I reserve the right to criticise religions for sticking their heads in the sand and either not moving with the times or simply refusing to accept what is plain common sense. If God made everything then why would he, she or it single out one type of his own creation for hatred by others? If a religion includes hatred then it doesn’t come from God but comes from the sick mind of Man. God didn’t need to invent evil, man did that for itself (I include women in the term Man but to be fair it’s normally men that are evil however not exclusively).

Getting back to the book and women in a man’s world, I know what its like to be profiled as when I was in my early twenties I joined an airline as an electrician and had cheap air travel. I had longish hair as was the fashion in those days so every time I went through custom (no matter what country) I would be stopped and searched. I was lumped together with all the other long haired pop star, drug addicts (even though I wasn’t one). I could however change that and when I got married and had my hair cut I was respectable and never ever got stopped. I could have walked though customs with a suitcase full of contraband and never be suspected (especially when I had kids in tow). I say this because in the past women had to survive in a man’s world. There was nothing that they could do to improve their lot in life except to be strong willed and live by their wits. I could obviously change things simply by cutting my hair but they couldn’t because they were born female. If they dressed as a man then they were perceived to be Lesbians which probably made their prospects of a good future even worse.

I have three real loves with regards to reading and that is Scientific Text books, Sci-Fi books and History books. With regards to history books they must be of what I call real history and not romantic history. What I mean by romantic history is books on such people as Robin Hood (who never existed but is good for tourism in Nottingham). King Arthur who again never existed but was a legend that was later converted into a best seller in the twelfth century. I like real history, warts and all. If someone was born the wrong side of the bed sheets then I want to know it. There are really three books within this book. The main book is obviously about the women behind the power of the crown but you can’t write about these in isolation of not knowing anything of the circumstances and history that they operated in. Therefore the second part of the book is a relatively complete history of all the monarchs that ruled Britain. This could be used as a text book in its own right. It has as much information that I could cram into a short book. The third part of the book is a bit of frivolity and to lighten the mood of the reader. History can be a very dry subject (as I know from my history teacher at school). I have tried to include these trivia in roughly the century that they apply to. I am pretty confident that many, if not most of this trivia will be new to you (unless you have the capacity like me to retain useless bits of information which is also unusual).

One of the concepts that I feel I need to clarify is the definition of Cousins. Your first cousin shares your grandparents and your second cousins share your great-grandparents and therefore your third cousin shares your great-great-grandparents, it’s as simple as that.  However it gets complicated as the cousins get further from you on the family tree. Now if your first cousin has a sibling then that sibling is also your first cousin (because they share your grandparents) as is their children but they are once or twice removed. So the Removed bit just means that they are of a different generation. Why does it matter? Well if two people marry and they are too closely related then there is a chance of birth defects or the continuation of a genetic problem (Haemophilia etc). With the gene pool for the royal families in Europe being fairly small, it’s inevitable that closely related cousins could end up married and inbreeding could therefore happen with disastrous results. Throughout this book, I often relate the closeness of kings and queens with respect to their genetics to their husband’s or wife’s. This could often matter and in the past the Pope had to give dispensation to marry. So to reiterate if your first cousin had a child then that child would still be your first cousin but once removed because you both share your grandparents but that child would consider you as their second cousin because to that child you share their great-grandparents, simple isn’t it?

This book celebrates strong women who through their resourcefulness changed history in England and possibly the world. I have concentrated on those women that manipulated those around them and controlled who the Crown of England went to. It’s a series of stories of how the weaker sex used what they had to get what they wanted for both themselves and their offspring’s. It’s on such women as Eleanor of Aquitaine who was the mother of both Richard the Lionheart and King John. She ruled England in every way except that she wasn’t crowned queen. She ruled England on behalf of her son all the time that Richard was away on Crusades, in France and in captivity. This was most of the time that Richard the King of England was the king (he only spent less than 6 months in England during his reign). She even lead her own army into battle when she was in her mid 70’s to defend her property that is now in France, so she was a remarkable woman and a force to be reckoned with. Another woman that I have written of is Margaret Beaufort, who at the age of 13 gave birth to her only son and she then became a widow (at 13 years old) as her second husband had just died. The birth was so traumatic that she couldn’t ever again get pregnant but she went on to be the Grandmother of Henry VIII. Her only son was Henry VII who defeated Richard III and she is an ancestor of every monarch in England since then. She was the mother and start of the Tudor dynasty.

They often had to grow up very quickly and some were often raped (sometimes statute rape and were pregnant at 12 years old because they were legally married off). Some were sexually abused as early teenagers such as the future Queen Elizabeth I of England (yes I was surprised by this fact when I first started to research this book but it’s true). All of them had to live by their wits as they were helpless weak females who couldn’t defend themselves with a weapon if attacked. Their defence was often to marry just for protection and not for love. They often had no say in who they were married to so they had to make the best of it. Some used their sexuality to advance themselves, while others used it to devastating effect on others. They may have been from the so called weaker sex but they all were very strong willed and would scheme, lie and cheat if necessary their way to the best position that they could. Wherever possible I have included a portrait of them but only if in my opinion it was a good likeness. Some of the early portraits were quite frankly terrible and my grandchildren could draw better so they have not been included. Some of the 20th century women did not seem to have portraits so I have had to settle on the new fangled photographs (sometimes only black and white ones).

This book by necessity must include a relatively brief but thorough history of the monarchs of England / Britain / United Kingdom as without it the chapters on each of the women would be disjoined and meaningless. The statement (England / Britain / United Kingdom) will be explained throughout the history of the monarchy bits of the book. However to briefly explain, the present queen of England is Queen Elizabeth II but in Scotland she technically is Queen Elizabeth I because Scotland wasn’t part of the kingdom in Elizabethan (16th century) times. I don’t recommend it but if you could remember the history parts of this book you would have almost an encyclopaedic knowledge of the monarchy of England of the second millennium.

If I had been writing the same book for say the French then it would have been very different. For a start the English would have been the villains almost all of the time throughout history. Thinking about such a book it would be possibly even longer because of the early history of France with king Charlemagne who was born 2nd April either 742 or 747 or 748 and died 28th January 814 and of course the Merovingian dynasty in the first millennium.

.So I give you

Women the REAL power behind the Crown of England

Trivia

Throughout the book, normally in the Summary at the end of each century I will try to include a bit of trivia (something that the reader can outstand their friends in a pub quiz). I will try to include trivia that has not been widely known and also I will put it in the relevant century wherever possible. This hopefully will break up what can be a rather dry subject with some interest and humour. I am pretty sure that at least one or two of these trivia will not be known by you, maybe even most of them.

Trivia Mathematics

The first trivia will be here at the end of the Preface and as we have been talking about very large numbers (the numbers of Galaxies etc), the largest number know is called "Grahams Number. It is so large that if each digit is written on a single atom, then there are not enough atoms in the Universe to accomplish this task. A Google as I said before is a very large number but Grahams Number is bigger than a Google multiplied by a Google multiplied by a Google. A mathematician that I once knew! As a mental exercise he tried to calculate the last digit of Grahams Number. It apparently took him several weeks on and off but he came up with the number 7. The last digit of Grahams Number is therefore 7. I then asked him What’s the one before that? and he said I have no idea and it would probably take me a year or so to calculate it, so I’m not going to bother to calculate it".

Trivia Art

Why did Leonardo Da Vinci’s portrait of the Mona Lisa have such a weird smile? Why did the Laughing Cavalier smile but not show his teeth at the same time? I should get this out of the way in the first part of the books trivia because it does not really relate to any modern century but is for old paintings only. The answer is they were all on Cannabis. "What you say" and believe me I could have used any painting to throw you off the answer however technically what I have just stated is true. The same statement can be said of every portrait that is painted on canvas (oil on canvas). The word canvas comes originally from the Latin and Greek words for cannabis. The word "canvas" is believed to be derived from the 13th century Anglo-French canevaz and the Old French word canevas. Both of these words may be derivatives of the Vulgar (slang) Latin word cannapaceus or "made of hemp," which was originally from the Greek word κάνναβις meaning cannabis. Modern canvas is not made of hemp but cotton therefore you couldn’t say this of modern paintings but all old painting are on canvas made from a hemp type plant material and the word canvas in derived from the word for cannabis (a hemp type plant).

Chapter 1

Women who influenced the Crown

Apart from Boudica who is described in the next chapter there are 24 women who in my opinion have influenced the crown in the last 1000 years or rather throughout the second millennium. Someone else could possibly come up with a different list and different number of women. Some might think that just producing the next monarch is enough to get on the list, but on my list they would have had to do far more. They have to by their own actions have changed the future or to maintain the course of history if there was danger of it changing. In some cases they were the monarch themselves but they faced great threats and again by their own actions over came those threats. The following is a separate index that includes just the chapters that exclusively tells the story of the women who influenced the crown of first England then Britain and finally the United Kingdom.

1st century.

Chapter 2

Boudica or Boudicca date of birth and death unknown.

11th century

Chapter 4

Emma of Normandy was born in 985 and died 6th March 1052.

12th century

Chapter 8

Empress Matilda was born 7th February 1102 and died 10th September 1167.

Chapter 9

Eleanor of Aquitaine was born sometime between 1122 and 1124 and died on 6th July 1189

13th century

Chapter 13

Eleanor of Castile was born sometime in 1241 and died on 28th November 1290

14th century

Chapter 18

Isabella of France was born between May and November 1295 and died some time in 1358

Chapter 19

Philippa of Hainault was born 24th June 1314 and died on the 15th August 1369

15th century

Chapter 22 and Chapter 24

Cecily Neville was born on the 3rd of May 1415 and died 31st May 1495

Chapter 25

Elizabeth Woodville was born some time in 1437 and died 8th June 1492

Chapter 26

Margaret Beaufort was born on 31st May either 1441 or 1443 and died 29th June 1509

16th century

Chapter 31

Mary Tudor (Bloody Mary) was born 18th February 1516 and died 17th November 1558

Chapter 32

Anne Boleyn was born either 1501 or 1507 and died 17th May 1536

Chapter 33

Queen Elizabeth (Tudor) was born 7th September 1533 and died 24th March 1603

Chapter 34

Mary Tudor (Mary Queen of Scots) was born 8th December 1542 and died 8th February 1587

17th century

Chapter 40

Mary Stuart was born 30th April 1662 and died 28th December 1694

18th century

Chapter 44

Queen Anne (Stuart) was born 6th February 1665 and died 1st August 1714

Chapter 45

Sophie Dorothea of Celle was born 15th September 1666 and died 13th November 1726

Chapter 46

Sophia of Hanover was born 14th October 1630 and died 8th January 1711

Chapter 47

Caroline of Ansbach was born 1st March 1783 and died 20th November 1737

Chapter 48

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was born 19th May 1744 and died 17th November 1818

19th century

Chapter 52

Queen Victoria (The house of Hanover) was born 24th May 1819 and died 22nd January 1901

20th century

Chapter 59

Wallis Simpson was born 19th June 1896 and died 24 April 1986

Chapter 60

Mary of Teck was born 26th May 1867 and died 24th March 1953

Chapter 61

Elizabeth Bowes Lyon was born 4th August 1900 and died 30th March 2002

Chapter 58 & 62

Elizabeth Windsor was born 21st April 1926 at the time of writing she is still the ruler of the United Kingdom and very much alive.

Chapter 2

Boudica or Boudicca

I originally wanted to write a book showing famous or even infamous women in each century that had made a difference to history with regards to the crown of England. This proved to be more difficult than I at first thought it would be the further back in time I went. Firstly I soon realised that famous women often were just that famous and didn’t really change history much. It was very often women who were not that famous that was the real movers and shakers of the crown. Secondly the crown in England didn’t really exist much before about the ninth century when Egbert king of Wessex (808-836) was around. Yes I could trace it back further through to Ina king of West Sussex (688-726) or even Cerdic king of the West Saxons, who died about 534, but we are well into the dark ages and there were no real chroniclers then.

The dark ages are not called that because it was always cloudy and the sun never shone. It was the fact that most people were not educated with regards to reading and writing, not even the nobility. There were few books and those that were around were very expensive (mainly because they were hand written and illuminated and could take years to copy). For that reason and also that most books of the time were religious books held in monasteries, there wasn’t the incentive to learn to read and write. It would be pointless writing a news magazine or a novel because no one would read it or indeed could read it apart from monks (they didn’t get out much so Lady Chatterley’s Lover would be wasted on them (Or maybe not!!!)). There are no real records of daily life and therefore if for example there was a power struggle for the Crown of England it was very unlikely to have been chronicled. The people of that time were still educated and produced many stunning artefacts, but education was more orientated towards crafts. So although they didn’t record their events they were still sophisticated and had a very complicated life style and hierarchy.

I therefore decided to limit my book to start at the eleventh century (AD 1000 onwards). Most people then still didn’t learn to read and write but there were at least enough of them, other than the clergy that were, mainly in the aristocracy who were rich enough to have been taught and perhaps also they owned one or two books. There were some chroniclers of the time so I at least had a fighting