#accepted: margarete

[fuzziiwuzzii]

⚠️gore⚠️

ABSOLUTELY SICKENING 💫

[dk-thrive]

What you can't bury give away what you can't give away you must carry with you, it is always heavier than you thought.

— Margaret Atwood, from "November", Selected Poems: 1965-1975 (Ecco, September 5, 2023)

[thatscarletflycatcher]

You see, it is right and just that I'm not allowed to be the one to translate Gaskell, because I'd look at a problem like "how to translate the Lancashire dialect and convey at least part of the meaning that Gaskell gives to it?" and offer solutions like "I'll make them speak Lunfardo", and sadly the intent would be glorious and the real effect probably closer to the Porteño dub of The Incredibles.

[wonder-worker]

The irony of people claiming that Margaret of York supported various Pretenders against Henry VII due to her alleged undying love for Richard III is that Perkin Warbeck masqueraded as Richard of Shrewsbury, aka Edward IV's second son who had been declared illegitimate by his uncle. Supporting him would literally amount to a denial of those allegations and an invalidation of Richard III's entire claim to kingship.

It's almost as though Margaret had other reasons to challenge Henry VII. Like, idk, BURGUNDIAN INTERESTS, HER OWN ECONOMIC INTERESTS AND HER LOYALTY TO HER ADOPTED FAMILY BY MARRIAGE.

(Also, Maximilian was the one deciding Burgundian foreign policy, not Margaret, but that's another matter)

[une-sanz-pluis]

I don't know Henry VI very well, so he really does nothing? Margaret of Anjou took the place of the king, and her husband was just a puppet?

The answer to this is somewhat complicated because there's a split between the historians (K. B. MacFarlane, John Watts) who see Henry VI as incapable of ever ruling in his own right and the country was governed by others (the minority council, Suffolk, Somerset, Margaret and ultimately York) and the historians (Bertram Woolf, Ralph A. Griffiths) who see Henry VI as ruling in his own right for a stretch of time, albeit as a king who was lacking in judgement though they disagree on when he began ruling on his own. Personally, I think the arguments put forward by Griffiths and Woolf are the most convincing - that there was a stretch of time where Henry was ruling in his own right.

There's also the problem of looking back at Margaret of Anjou through the layers of Yorkist and Tudor narratives that sought to denigrate Margaret and portrayed her as an ambitious woman who subverted the natural order and would not submit to her husband as she ought to, often depicting Henry as a hapless puppet or long-suffering saint. We also know that Margaret remained at liberty when Richard, Duke of York and, later, Edward IV had custody of Henry VI, and was the active threat to their regimes. It was to their benefit to present Margaret as an agent of her own will, not Henry's - especially York, who was presenting himself as a loyal subject forced to rebel to save England from the evils of Henry's bad advisors and later had probably forced Henry disinherit his son and name York and his sons as his heirs. There is some evidence that Henry and Margaret were working together. Apparently there was a special token that only she and Henry knew so she would know if the messages came from Henry himself or were an attempt by the Yorkists to trick her into returning and placing herself and their son into Yorkist hands. This hardly suggests Henry was a hapless puppet who was controlled by his wife or whoever had custody of him, but rather supported Margaret's actions and resisted Yorkist rule in one of a few ways open to him.

[palmviewfm]

welcome  to  the  palmview  grove  apartments  !  thank  you  so  much  for  applying  !  please  make  sure  to  take  a  look  at  our  checklist  and  send  in  your  account  within  24  hours  !  below  the  cut  is  also  where  you'll  find  your  apartment  assignments  !  we're  very  much  excited  to  see  you  around  town  ! also, don't  forget  to  grab  your  keys  from  the  lobby  before  you  move  in  !

welcome to palmview, GWENDOLYN “GWEN” PLATT ! MARGARET QUALLEY ( spencer hastings counterpart ) is now TAKEN. they're currently being written by SUN. when you arrive to grab your apartment assignments, please make a note that you'll be staying in HARBORVIEW RESIDENCES #4B !

*shyla everly roommate/best friend connection & maeve finnegan ex bestfriend connections are now taken*

[thebiggestfuckgiven]

do you guys think that post-Kaiju reveal (after the big homecoming dance/fight), Duncan starts to get increasingly worried about going back to school despite having saved them because what they think he’s a monster??? what if everyone hates him because of his dad? etc.

only for him to get to the school and see a shit ton of posters all over the hallways and doors about a brand new club. Everyone is talking about it, which confuses Duncan. Even more so because they talk about it alongside Duncan’s parents. Not even Duncan himself, but his parents??

The club was made over the weekend. The name? Monster Lovers Unite!

[fideidefenswhore]

Yeah I like to see some quotes please. I can't really get my head round people believing in Mary's bona fides when the law didn't even exist in England. It's like Americans obsessing over a law only Canadians have. But I guess loyalty/sentiment/status quo was a big part of it.

Well, I don't think most noblewo/men were deeply well-versed in succession/inheritance laws of England and all their precedents, unless they'd happened to also study law...the assumption was probably that what was the law in most of Christendom was for England as well, understandably. But, then, that's not even a subject that seems to be well-understood in 21c historiography:

“[Henry VIII] now argued she would would be barred by illegitimacy. This contention puzzled continental contemporaries because elsewhere in western Europe those children born to couples who in good faith believed themselves validly married were treated as legitimate. Nevertheless, Henry was right. After a period of some uncertainty, by the late fourteenth century England had opted out of the bona fides principle. As Sir John Baker notes, 'succession problems were usually debated in legal terms and in accordance with the common law canons of inheritance.’ A successful challenge to his marriage would thus automatically bastardise Mary and leave Henry no direct heir… [although] Mary could have been legitimated by statute.” - JF Hadwin, Katherine of Aragon and the Veil, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

... so that's, for the 16c, like I said, an understandable assumption. (Also, their source was probably Chapuys, who was familiar with both secular and church law, but espoused many misunderstandings of their precedents, too...so did Fisher, they're enumerated in another article by the same historian, titled Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Henry VIII, I will post those relevant quotes too, if they're of interest to you, asw).

Yeah, the bona fides element was... an interesting one, nevertheless...like, all the interrogations I mentioned, everyone says they've heard Mary was bona fides but won't really explain what it meant, they admit their ignorance on the subject, and won't name the source of where they've heard it (although, like I mentioned, they are willing to point fingers to deflect suspicion off themselves of their former friends in other regards), just assert that they all sort of mindlessly (lol) repeated what they'd heard, all, understandably, to maintain plausible deniability and get themselves out of the hot water they've landed themselves in.

For the Exeter conspiracy, I've posted one relevant in the past, I'll see what else I can scrounge up from my notes of excerpts.

It was, but I don't think courtier opportunism should be underestimated. Just one example, but I always remember that the Marquis of Exeter was one of the delegation of nobles HVIII sent to pressure CoA to relinquish her rights as Queen, tell Charles V to stop interfering in the matter, and one of the conspirators named by Chapuys in the Boleyn downfall. Granted, his wife had been one of Mary's supporters from very early on, so I think that element is there.

Elitism is probably an overestimated element, like while it's true the Boleyns were not born of royalty (neither were the Seymours, tho, so like...); I think what was going on beneath the surface was more intricate. Take Nicholas Carew, for example: originally, he'd been of the Boleyn faction, understandably, since they were cousins (he also, initially at least, seemed to favour a French alliance, so there's that). But I think what began as , well, the King needs a son, and if he's going to marry another wife, it might as well be a woman of my family as anyone else, to my benefit as much as anyone else...well, I think the shine came off this as matters unfolded. The thrust of their expectations were probably that AB was going to have as much, or less, influence as her predecessor with Henry, and her influence and power quickly outstripped those expectations. As the Boleyns gained power, wealth, and influence, and as men like Carew felt their own influence ebb in favour of say, George Boleyn (and I use him as an example, because by early 1536, it's evident many noblemen hated George, Lancelot de Carles' report of those events really crystallizes this)...well, resentment only grew, and their desire for the return of the status quo was thus kindled.

[rickybaby]

https://www.tumblr.com/f1-obsessed333/725897552533274624/longer-version-of-the-clip-i-posted-before-of-dax?source=share

Nooo I am so embaressed for him

(eff won)

I mean it is easy to find this funny and sure, Daniel’s first reaction was to be baffled and laugh, but at some point we’ve got to draw a line (especially in light of all the recent reactions to drivers and their significant others). I don’t mean to be hypocritical because I do read fanfics and indulge in them, and I am sure most celebrities are aware of fanfics being written about them, but there’s the understanding that they stay in a confined space. No fanfic writer is out there publishing their stories and promoting it on easily accessible platforms (as Miss Driver did on TikTok) and making money off it.

People forget that these people have lives beyond what they decide to share with us and a lot of the things we think we know about them are just us simply projecting onto them. Like Anita Driver finds Charles and Lance cute, so she’ll write a cutesy children storybook about them, but she finds Daniel hot and will write smut about him. Yeah, it’s funny if Daniel’s romantic partner looks the book up and reads a few things out to him, but it must be deeply embarrassing (and we all know what type of things is written in that book) if people who know him professionally or god forbid his parents (because apparently it makes a great gift for mum) come across that. Pretty sure Daniel has a strong case of unauthorised use of his name and likeness if he wants to sue, which wouldn’t be too surprising if CAA decides to do so.

Even Dax sending Daniel this doesn’t sit right with me. Like I love the tidbits that Dax shares about Daniel, but lately it’s starting to feel a bit too … exploitative. Sure he asked for Daniel’s permission when he shared the previous voicemail wishing Kristen happy birthday and even in this one, he says it’s for the podcast and by answering back, Daniel is aware this will end up on a public forum. But at some point, i can’t help but feel it’ll start to feel like he is only mining that friendship for content?

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/the-overthrow-of-reason/

The Overthrow Of Reason

When a high-speed train is barrelling down the track, a person who knows the trestle ahead has been washed away has one obligation–to run in the direction of the impending disaster in the hope of assisting survivors.  Those of us who sense our country is nearing a failed state face the same obligation. Explanations may vary about how our democracy came to this pass. One reason is fear.  Many of us feel our way of life is threatened by a growing number of strangers different from ourselves. Feeling alienated, some of us fall into a frenzy, hoping to preserve what’s familiar but ending up morphing into agents of chaos, ready to destroy the country in a misguided effort to save it. The philosopher Eric Hoffer once noted that the human psyche requires us to believe in the devil.  Hitler depended upon our dark side. If Jews didn’t exist he once said, they would have to be invented. (The True Believer, by Eric Hoffer, Harperennial, Modern Classics, 1989, pg. 91.) Hate has its purpose, Hoffer admits. It releases us from the burden of thought and narrows freedom to a one-way street that ends in tyranny.  The absolute right to bear arms, for example, absolves many from guilt when they see children murdered in their classrooms.   Those who cry, “Right to Life” are similarly infected. Religious conservatives who are willing to impose their absolutes upon believers and non-believers alike seem unmoved by the reality that antiabortion laws result in women’s deaths. Fanaticism, if allowed to grow, drives a stake through the heart of reason. What flourishes in its place are lies. Donald Trump insists the 2020  Presidential election was stolen from him.  His flock echoes the refrain until the lie gains the ring of truth. Oddly enough, there is a reason for this phenomenon. Scientists have proved that people accept lies more readily than truth. Why?  No one knows. Yet it is a fact that robots detect falsehoods better than humans. Lies are common in politics.  A majority of voters believe Democrats are spendthrifts and Republicans are better at handling the national debt. The truth is the opposite.  Reagan took the deficit from $70 billion to $175 billion. Bush 41 raised it to $300 billion. Clinton got it to zero. Bush 43 took it from zero to $1.2 trillion.  Obama halved it to $600 billion.  Trump raised it again to a trillion.     People even lie to themselves. Republican House Representative Lauren Boebert imagined she took a high moral ground when she warned Drag Queens to stay out of her district. Yet, while attending a performance of Beetlejuice, she was escorted from the theater for engaging in heavy petting with a man who owns a bar that hosts Drag Queen shows. Hypocrisy isn’t new.  It has plagued human beings since recorded time.  What’s changed is that shame no longer appends to it. A nation with no respect for truth isn’t choosey about its leaders. The line between private and public benefit gets blurred in the minds of the greedy and self-interest passes for the country’s welfare. A would-be tyrant like Donald Trump may exhort his followers to engage in insurrection under the guise of patriotism, but he makes dupes of them and vulnerable to rudderless malcontents who would destroy democracy for no other reason than they believe it’s possible.     What are we to do, those of us who see our democracy like a train hurtling down the track to its doom? We must vote, of course, in both local and national elections. Walking a precinct or making phone calls for a candidate is important. Writing a check to support a political campaign is also a good idea. But before we take these actions, let us be resolved in this.  We must choose reason and truth in the defense of our country.  …thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.  (Margaret Mead.)

[marley-manson]

As quality television, M*A*S*H produces characters with an unusually large number of traits;(22) its success has been based to an unusual extent on audience identification with such "rounded," "human," and "realistic" characters.

I'm finding this article kind of pointlessly obvious and overly cynical from my own perspective (tl;dr popular tv cannot truly be subversive), but goddamn this sentence is glorious in its sheer level of disdain.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

My old arch-nemesis, we meet again ("it's all about the sex" academia)

[wonder-worker]

"Among their complaints [in 1460, the Yorkists] specifically blamed the earls of Wiltshire and Shrewsbury and Viscount Beaumont for ‘stirring’ the king [Henry VI] to hold a parliament at Coventry that would attaint them and for keeping them from the king’s presence and likely mercy, asserting that this was done against [the king's] will. To this they added the charge that these evil counselors were also tyrannizing other true men* without the king’s knowledge. Such claims of malfeasance obliquely raised the question of Henry’s fitness as a king, for how could he be deemed competent if such things happened without his knowledge and against his wishes? They also tied in rumors circulating somewhat earlier in the southern counties and likely to have originated in Calais that Henry was really ‘good and gracious Lord to the [Yorkists] since, it was alleged, he had not known of or assented to their attainders. On 11 June the king was compelled to issue a proclamation stating that they were indeed traitors and that assertions to the contrary were to be ignored." - Helen Maurer, "Margaret of Anjou: "Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England"

Three things that we can surmise from this:

We know where the "Henry was an innocent helpless king being controlled and manipulated by his Evil™ advisors" rhetoric came from**.

The Yorkists were deliberately trying to downplay Henry VI's actual role and involvement in politics and the Wars of the Roses. They cast him as a "statue of a king", blamed all royal policies and decisions on others*** (claiming that Henry wasn't even aware of them), and framed themselves as righteous and misunderstood counselors who remained loyal to the crown. We should keep this in mind when we look at chronicles' comments of Henry's alleged passivity and the so-called "role reversal" between him and Margaret.

Henry VI's actual agency and involvement is nevertheless proven by his own actions. We know what he thought of the Yorkists, and we know he took the effort to publicly counter their claims through a proclamation of his own. That speaks louder than the politically motivated narrative of his enemies, don't you think?

*There was some truth to these criticisms. For example, Wiltshire (ie: one of the men named in the pamphlet) was reportedly involved in a horrible situation in June which included hangings and imprisonments for tax resistance in Newbury. The best propagandists always contain a degree of truth, etc. **I've seen some theories on why Margaret of Anjou wasn't mentioned in these pamphlets alongside the others even though she was clearly being vilified during that time as well, and honestly, I think those speculations are mostly unnecessary. Margaret was absent because it was regarded as very unseemly to target queens in such an officially public manner. We see a similar situation a decade later: Elizabeth Woodville was vilified and her whole family - popularly and administratively known as "the queen's kin" - was disparaged in Warwick and Clarence's pamphlets. This would have inevitably associated her with their official complaints far more than Margaret had been, but she was also not directly mentioned. It was simply not considered appropriate. ***This narrative was begun by the Duke of York & Warwick and was - demonstrably - already widespread by the end of 1460. When Edward IV came to power, there seems to have been a slight shift in how he spoke of Henry (he referred to Henry as their "great enemy and adversary"; his envoys were clearly willing to acknowledge Henry's role in Lancastrian resistance to Yorkist rule; etc), but he nevertheless continued the former narrative for the most part. I think this was because 1) it was already well-established and widespread by his father, and 2) downplaying Henry's authority would have served to emphasize Edward's own kingship, which was probably advantageous for a usurper whose deposed rival was still alive and out of reach. In some sense, the Lancastrians did the same thing with their own propaganda across the 1460s, which was clearly not as effective in terms of garnering support and is too long to get into right now, but was still very relevant when it came to emphasizing their own right to the throne while disparaging the Yorkists' claim.

[hollywoodfamerp]

“THEY NOT LIKE US…”

WELCOME TO HOLLYWOOD, NOVA! YOU’VE BEEN ACCEPTED AS MARGARET QUALLEY!

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thanks, y’all!

[une-sanz-pluis]

Is it certain that there is a conflict between Anjou's Margaret and Henry Beaufort? Did he reconcile with Edward IV because he disliked Margaret?

Short answer: no. There's very little evidence of any kind of personal dislike or conflict between them. I suspect that whoever made that kind of claim is someone who believes they "know" what Margaret of Anjou was "really like" and sees her as not only personally responsible for any and all failures on the Lancastrian side but so repulsive a personality that anyone who met her must have really hated her. Which isn't really supported by the evidence and instead speaks more to uncritical acceptance of the view of Margaret found in Yorkist and Tudor narratives and exaggerated by modern day Ricardian and Yorkist writers.

As for Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset and his relationship with Margaret, we know very little about the realities of their relationship.

We know they were allies, united in support of the Lancastrian cause headed by Henry VI and Edward of Lancaster. We know that there were rumours that Margaret would "unite with the Duke of Somerset" after convincing Henry VI to abdicate in favour of his son and giving him poison - something that our sole source for this rumour, Prospero di Camulio, Milanese Ambassador to France, reported with scepticism, saying "these are rumours in which I do not repose much confidence".

The claim Margaret was going to "unite with" Somerset might be read as evidence there were rumours that she was having an affair with Somerset. This isn't the space to go into the rumours of Margaret's adultery but we should keep in mind that such accusations were highly politically motivated, intended to attack the reputations of both Margaret and Henry, and we have some evidence that the Earl of Warwick - hardly an unbiased source - was the one spreading the rumours.* In other words: we should be very sceptical of the claim she committed adultery. None of the recorded accusations name the man (or men) that Margaret was purported to have taken as her lover, unless we read the rumour Margaret was going to kill Henry VI and "unite with" Somerset as proof of their affair which... I think could be taken as evidence of an alliance or an affair, rather than absolute truth. We know Camuilo - our sole source for this story and the one about Henry claiming the Holy Spirit had fathered Edward of Lancaster - had his doubts about the veracity of that rumour. There is no evidence that Henry ever abdicated in favour of his son or he was given poison by his wife or Somerset.

Regardless, Somerset has often been speculated to have been Margaret's lover or the father of Edward of Lancaster. So were they lovers or were they bitter enemies? While we don't know, there's a very real chance the answer was "neither". There's no way of knowing if the speculation of later commentators and modern day historians and commentators is true or not and even the idea of Margaret having an affair should be treated sceptically (as I said above).

Now, why did Somerset reconcile with Edward IV instead of continuing to support Lancaster?

We don't know. We don't have evidence that survives to tell us his side of the story. All we have is speculation about his motives.

We know that just before his defection to the Yorkists, he was arrested by Louis XI and was imprisoned for two months (this was not Margaret's fault; he had been on embassy to Charles VII when Charles died and his safe conducts expired, which Louis took advantage of) and then he spent much of the following winter and spring in Bruges. Nathen Amin suggests that this time apart from the main Lancastrian party and living in the "extravagant" Burgundian court caused Somerset to develop doubts about the chances of their cause succeeding:

Somerset was unmarried and still only thirty-five years old, and it is not unfathomable he was concerned about facing decades in exile, flitting around the coast of England without men, money or motivation to truly threaten an increasingly secure Yorkist throne. Disillusionment was understandable, even in a solider as partisan as Somerset.

The idea of Somerset as disillusioned is echoed by B. M. Cron who also sees this as partly Margaret's fault:

He was the leader of the Lancastrians after Margaret herself and yet she appeared to have no use for him. She had not invited him to accompany to France but left him to his own devices in Edinburgh, which for Somerset was not only dull but uncomfortable, after the opulence of the Burgundian court. He did not enjoy being in exile. Somerset was thirty-five and unmarried, and his title and estates and estates had escheated to the crown following his attainder in 1461. His loyalty to King Henry was strong ... but the passive king had proved a disappointment to one of Somerset's ardent temperament.

I don't buy Cron's speculation - we don't necessarily know that Margaret "had no use" for Somerset and it may well have a pragmatic choice to leave Somerset behind so that if anything happened to Margaret, there would still be someone to lead the Lancastrian resistance: both Edward of Lancaster and Henry VI remained in Scotland. It's possible that Somerset's position there was take care of both if Henry's mental health collapsed again or if Margaret was captured or drowned while on embassy.

Susan Higginbotham also points out that Somerset's younger brother, Edmund, was Edward IV's prisoner and he might have been concerned about his brother's circumstances the longer in remained in opposition to Edward IV.

There are reports, recorded in the Paston Letters, that Somerset was seeking reconcilement with Edward and Warwick in September 1462. If he was considering defection then, he still joined the Lancastrians for their attack on Northumberland a month later.

The intended attack had been imagined as "an overwhelming invasion" that would lead to forces flocking to Henry VI's banner. Instead, it was a fizzer. There are a lot of factors involved. The domestic politics of Scotland and France meant their promised support fell well-short of what was needed, the swift, aggressive approach Edward IV took the news of the French-Lancastrian alliance meant that neither Louis XI nor the Duke of Brittany were willing to support the Lancastrians further. The grand invasion became the seizure of a "handful of fortresses" in hope that supporters would rally to them. No such support materialised. Reports of a large Yorkist army convinced Henry and Margaret to leave - obstinately to pick up reinforcements, possibly they feared capture, which would be disastrous to their cause. At any rate, Somerset was left with Jasper Tudor and Sir Ralph Percy to defend of the recaptured castle of Bamburgh with 300 men against the Earl of Warwick who had possibly as high as 20,000 men with him. Lauren Johnson describes them as "not only outgunned but also out-provisioned and outnumbered", and notes that the garrisons were eating their horses to survive by Christmas. Bamburgh surrendered on Christmas Eve.

Somerset might have been able to flee into exile - Jasper Tudor and Lord Roos refused reconciliation with Edward and were permitted to return to Scotland with safe conducts. It's possible that Somerset had that option open to him and made the choice to stay but it's also possible that Edward felt Somerset was too great of a prize to let go or wasn't willing to let him, Tudor and Roos go. At any rate, Somerset had spent a gruelling few months struggling to hold Bamburgh. The looked-for support from France and Scotland failed to eventuate, Henry VI's loyal supporters failed to appear, the king and queen had deserted the field, and he had held out against siege for as long as he could. We can speculate that the siege conditions produced low morale that could have led to desertion or mutiny amongst the 300 men making up the forces at Somerset's disposal. His surrender may have been a practicality or a matter of sheer pragmatism.

We don't know how Margaret (or Henry for that matter) reacted to the news of Somerset's defection to York. We can imagine that Margaret's response was one of grief and fury, seeing it as a profound betrayal. We can just as easily imagine that Margaret found it galling but understood Somerset's position or that she took a pragmatic approach to the news. It is interesting that Johnson describes the Lancastrian reaction to Somerset's defection back to their side in the following terms:

Despite his failure to rouse the town, when Somerset reached Bamburgh he was welcomed back into the Lancastrian fold with open arms. Henry, as always, found it easy to forgive, but the fact that the comrades whom Somerset had abandoned apparently accepted his change of heart suggests it was motivated by genuine feeling.

We also don't know why Somerset defected back to Lancaster. It was unlikely to be because he believed the Lancastrians were about to regain power or that he thought he stood to gain greatly if they were restored. An incident at Northampton, where the townspeople attempted to lynch Somerset before he was rescued by Edward IV and then sent to Chirk Castle in Wales, is frequently supposed to have played a role. Michael Jones and Malcolm Underwood suggest Somerset was "deeply shaken" by the incident and it may well have exposed the fact that whatever favours he had accrued by his defection, he would never really be accepted. Cron suggests the incident showed him that his position was "ambivalent" while Johnson suggests he was "offended" by the "violent rejection". Higginbotham suggests that his stay in Chirk left him isolated and cut off from the royal favour** he had been receiving. Perhaps the stay in Chirk was the first time he felt himself free to really assess his position. For Amin, his defection is a sign of Somerset's greatness of personality:

The duke had, for all intents and purposes, chosen the life of an impoverished, nomadic rebel over that of a valued royal favourite. Perhaps Henry Beaufort, a soldier to his very core, simply yearned to be at the heart of a military movement rather than enjoying the pampered life of a wealthy magnate.

Cron, meanwhile, describes Somerset as an "impulse" that he "gradually came to regret" as he had become the "lap dog" to a man he "felt no loyalty towards". She also suggests that Edward IV's other favourites like Hastings resented Edward's intimacy with Somerset. Amin suggests that John Neville, Lord Montagu was likely to have resented Somerset's restoration given their acrimonious history.

A common theme in these historians' assessments of Somerset's loyalty to Henry VI, who was likely Somerset's godfather. Cron says his loyalties laid with Henry, Amin says "one can only assume he had struggled to truly abandon his innate fidelity" to Henry. Michael Hicks describes Somerset's motivations as such:

What motive then remains? Surely the only possibility is loyalty to the Lancastrian monarch, faith in the legitimacy of the Lancastrian title to the Crown, which was sufficient to outweigh such other considerations as life, liberty, honour, and family. [...] If Somerset broke faith to Edward, he did so not in the expectation of personal reward, but in support of a dynastic principle that he shared with other committed Lancastrians.

This loyalty could have extended to Margaret, either as an extension of his loyalty to Henry or as genuine feeling.

(You can read an ask here by @blackboar and @richmond-rex that discusses Somerset's defection back to Lancaster, which I only looked up after I wrote all this.)

* The Burgundian chronicler, Georges Chastellain, wrote that Warwick spread the rumour that Edward of Lancaster was the result of Margaret's affair with a "wandering player" while Pious II recorded that Warwick complained that Margaret "and those who defile the king's chamber" held the true power.

** Somerset's attainder was reversed and his brother released from prison. Most pointedly, he was shown special favour by Edward IV: they went hunting together, a tournament was thrown in Somerset's honour and they even shared a bed. I am personally a little sceptical of such claims: they bare striking similarities to the accounts of the royal and personal favour shown to Henry, Lord Scrope of Masham by Henry V before his role in the Southampton Plot was revealed. It may be that by exaggerating the excessive favour shown towards Somerset, chroniclers were merely using a trope to show the heinous nature of his betrayal.

Sources

Nathen Amin, The House of Beaufort: The Bastard Line That Captured The Crown (Amberley 2017)

B. M. Cron, Margaret of Anjou and the Men Around Her (History and Heritage Published 2021)

M. A. Hicks, "Edward IV, the Duke of Somerset and Lancastrian Loyalism in the North", Northern History, 20:1 (1984)

Susan Higginbotham, "Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset: Died May 15, 1464" (blog post, 2010)

Lauren Johnson, Shadow King: The Life and Death of Henry VI (Head of Zeus 2019)

Michael K. Jones and Malcolm G. Underwood, The King's Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby (Cambridge University Press 1992)

J. L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens (Oxford University Press 2004)

[readingfox2023]

In summer the car would race the road leaving a cloud of dust like a vapour trail, scattering the sparrows cavorting in their dust baths.

-Acceptance by Margaret Bruens