Book Forty-Six - Katherine - Part Three

Anya Seaton

When I finished this book, I was overwhelmed with sadness. I'd previously read about daily life in the middle ages (spoiler alert: it sucked) so I wasn't surprised by the setting. I won't spoil it, but Katherine did not have an easy life. Part of this was the matter of her birth, part was the time and culture into which she was born, and part of it was her choices. Couldn't the same be said of each of us?

Okay, so  I understand a bit more about the Wars of the Roses. (There were a bunch of battles, so it's plural.) John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, (key in this book) was a rose. Well, the symbol of the House (i.e., family/heritage/direct line) of Lancaster was a red rose. John was a prince, son of King Edward III. Okay, I may be getting some of this wrong; the thing about British history is that there's so much of it. But basically, the Lancasters ruled from 1399 until they (the red roses, John's descendents) fought with John's brothers' descendents, the House of York (symbolized by a white rose) for the crown, i.e., power, control, and all the usual stuff wars are fought for. It all equals money, doesn't it? Finally, the Lancaster Henry Tudor defeated the York King Richard III* (the one whose body was found in 2012 beneath a parking lot in Leicester, England) at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. Then--get this--Henry, who became King Henry VII, married a York! Talk about consolidation of power. So Much Drama. Reminds me of those feuding families back in Mayberry.

House of Lancaster

Here's a link to a site detailing the familial relationship between Katherine and Queen Elizabeth II.

*If you've read or seen Shakespeare's Richard III, he's the one with the line, "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" You may also know this line if you've ever seen The Goodbye Girl.