Bøger af Gemma Hollman

A magnificently illustrated oversize book that uses art to illuminate the lives of medieval women, from peasants to queens

There were two women in Edward III's life: Philippa of Hainault, his wife of forty years and bearer of twelve children, and his mistress, Alice Perrers, the twenty-year-old who took the king's fancy as his ageing wife grew sick. Both women had wealth and power but used vitally different methods to dispense it. After Philippa's death Alice began to dominate court, amassing a fortune and persuading the elderly Edward to promote her friends and punish her enemies. Holliman contrasts the pious, unpolitical, steady Philippa with the wily, charismatic, manipulative Alice. Philippa died a royal, adored, while the full force of the English court united against Alice, leaving her with nothing.

The first biography to look at the two most important women in Edward III's life, their power and influence on the court and country.

Joan of Navarre, Eleanor Cobham, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, and Elizabeth Woodville. Four royal women in 15th-century England, related in family and in court ties, who were accused of practicing witchcraft in order to kill or influence the king. Some of these women may have turned to the "dark arts" in order to divine the future or obtain healing potions, but the purpose of the accusations was purely political. Despite their status, these women were vulnerable because of their gender, as the men around them moved them like pawns for political gains. In a time when the line between science and magic was blurred, their trials offer insight into how malicious magic would be used and would later cause such mass hysteria in centuries to come.

Joan of Navarre was the richest woman in the land, at a time when war-torn England was penniless. Eleanor Cobham was the wife of a weak king's uncle - and her husband was about to fall from grace. Jacquetta Woodville was a personal enemy of Warwick the Kingmaker, who was about to take his revenge. Elizabeth Woodville was the widowed mother of a child king, fighting Richard III for her children's lives. In Royal Witches, Gemma Hollman explores the lives of these four unique women, looking at how rumours of witchcraft brought them to their knees in a time when superstition and suspicion was rife.