Licence - Red roses: Blanche of Gaunt to Margaret Beaufort

For Tom, Rufus and Robin

There in the flower garden

I will die.

Among the rose bushes

They will kill me.

I was on my way,

Mother, to cut some roses;

There in the flower garden

I found my love,

There in the flower garden

They will kill me.

Anonymous, Spain, c . 1400

Thanks go to Sophie Bradshaw, Naomi Reynolds and the team at The History Press for their encouragement and support, but to Sophie in particular for encouraging me to write this book and for being flexible when I overran my deadline. I have been particularly blessed to have some wonderful friends: thank you to Jonathan Howell, Magdalen Pitt, Anne Marie Bouchard, Neville Brett, Tim Byard-Jones, Geanine Teramani-Cruz, Sharon Bennett Connolly, Kyra Kramer, Karen Stone and Harry and Sara Basnett for keeping me sane during the writing of this book. There have been others. Thanks also to all my family, to my husband Tom for his love and support, to Paul Fairbrass and also the Hunts for Sues generosity and Johns supply of interesting and unusual books. Most of all, thanks to my mother for her invaluable proofreading skills and to my father for his enthusiasm and open mind: this is the result of the books they read me, the museums they took me to as a child, and the love and imagination with which they encouraged me.

A nybody who was anybody in medieval England had an impressive array of heraldic devices at their disposal. Animals and plants, colours and patterns, objects and astrological symbols; all formed a visual shorthand for the identification of rank and family, for loyalty, allegiance and service. The Lancastrian dynasty is a prime example of this: through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it was represented by the red rose, the crowned eagle or panther, the ermine (gennet) flanked by yellow broom flowers for the Plantagenet name, the columbine or aquilegia flower, the antelope, tree trunk, foxs tail or the plume of ostrich feathers adopted by the Black Prince. Marriages and alliances brought a swathe of further connections, traceable through their banners and coats of arms, embroidered upon their liveries or carved above their hearths, trickling through the branches of the family tree. The Lancastrians were patrons of poets, knights in battle, riding the wheel of fortune through its full compass, and immortalised in the plays of William Shakespeare.

The most famous of all these Lancastrian symbols is the red rose, associated with the county itself and reputedly adopted by Edmund Crouchback, the first earl, following his marriage to Blanche of Artois in 1276. This was the genus of the dynasty, although the rose symbol lay fallow for a century until John of Gaunt adopted it again on his marriage to Blanche, Edmunds great-granddaughter. Today, the red rose of Lancaster has come to possess an inviolable quality, a metonymic for an entire dynasty and its struggles to gain and retain the throne, taking on a life of its own centuries after its use. It is a cultural shorthand, an historians handle, a neat visual juxtaposition with the white rose of York. It represents the interface of fact and fiction, history and romance. Nowhere is this more clearly represented than in Henry Paynes painting Choosing the Red and White Roses in the Old Temple Gardens , now displayed in the Commons East Corridor of the Palace of Westminster and familiar from the front cover of many books dedicated to what we now refer to, anachronistically, as the Wars of the Roses. Completed around 190810 in the Arts and Crafts style, Choosing the Red and White Roses in the Old Temple Gardens infuses the flowers with a profound political significance, representing the moment hostilities broke out and allegiances were declared. But this scene comes from fiction; more specifically, from drama. It is an illustration of Act II, Scene IV in Shakespeares Henry VI Part I , in which the characters of Richard of York (Richard Plantagenet) and Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset select their colours. Yet this gentle symbol, the red damask rose, is essentially martial and masculine. While writing this book, I was searching for another symbol that could stand for the collective biographies of dozens of women, very different in role, character and fate, overlapping across a span of 150 years. I wanted something that would represent the very different way in which women experienced life as members of this famous, much-defined dynasty.

It would not be easy. The range was vast. The women in this book were born into a variety of circumstances, in a number of different countries: England, France, Castile in modern Spain, The Hague in the Netherlands and what is now the Czech Republic. Nor were their destinies clear at birth; some, such as Blanche of Lancaster, Joan, Queen of Scots and Margaret Beaufort, were daughters of Lancastrian parents, destined to become ambassadors for the family, while others joined it through marriage. Some of those marriages seemed full of promise but were cut remarkably short by rapidly changing events. French princess Catherine of Valois was Henry Vs queen for just over two years, while Margaret Beauforts marriage to Edmund Tudor lasted a brief twelve months, though both were tied closely to Lancastrian fortunes by the life of a single, precious son. Others bore no children but contributed as consorts, wives or queens, though often their status was not enough to protect them when their enemies closed in, as Eleanor Cobham and Margaret of Anjou discovered. Some were happily married, even for love, while others were selected as brides for political reasons and, like Constance of Castile, won their husbands respect if not their love. Cecily Neville was born to, and Jacquetta of Luxembourg married, a Lancastrian but both changed sides to follow the fortunes of their husbands and children. The primary contribution of a few was to reproduce, like Blanche of Gaunt and Mary de Bohun, but the distinct phases of the dynasty meant that they never saw their children live to claim the throne or reap the rewards of their labours. A handful of later Lancastrian wives did become queens. Joan of Navarre, Catherine of Valois and Margaret of Anjou all married kings, whilst one of the two Joan Beauforts gained a crown through marriage. A couple of women who were close to the throne came within a hairs breadth of becoming queen; Cecily Neville is considered by some to have been queen by rights, although such proximity proved to be the undoing of Eleanor Cobham. Later still, a few were forced to fight to defend their rights as the dynasty began to wane, taking far more political positions than they might have anticipated. Finding a suitable symbol for them all, to balance the masculine red rose, to demarcate their unique experiences from each other and from those of their men, would not be simple.

Room 40 of the British Museum is dedicated to items from medieval Europe. It houses a small white swan badge standing 3.3cm tall by 3.5cm wide, with additional length provided by a gold chain attached to a collar around the birds neck. It was made in Paris at the end of the fourteenth century, from gold overlaid with opaque white enamel, and has minute traces of pink enamel on the beak and black on the legs and feet. Known as the Dunstable Swan Jewel since its discovery at the priory of that town in 1965, it was probably a livery badge made to represent Lancaster, either owned by a member of the family or someone who wished to display their allegiance. The swan sounds very much like the one listed in Richard IIs treasure roll: item, i cigne dor amiell blanc ove i petit cheine dor pendant entour le cool, pois ii unc, pris xlvis viiid, or item, a gold swan enamelled with white with a little gold chain hanging around the neck, weighing 2oz, value 46 s 8 d . It is very likely that it found its way into the royal treasury after the goods of Richards uncle, Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, were seized in 1397, which included a book embroidered with swans from the family of his wife. The Dunstable jewel has become an important medieval symbol, a rare survival drawing the attention of the museums visitors with its delicate beauty and its mysterious past.