wonder-worker

[wonder-worker]

"[Louis IV of West Francia died while in Rheims after a lengthy illness following a fall from his horse. Acting quickly, the widowed queen Gerberga of Saxony met with Duke Hugh the Great]. It seems Gerberga’s chief aim was to ensure her son, Lothair, succeeded to the throne of France. In return for supporting the boy (then around thirteen years old), Hugh received lands in Burgundy and Aquitaine. Once more, as had happened with Lothair’s father in 936, Hugh got to play kingmaker, albeit this time with Gerberga as an important part of the succession plan. Both seem to have maintained the alliance. Hugh hosted the queen mother and her son for Easter in 955. The duke and young king then campaigned together briefly in Aquitaine. [...] In 956, Hugh the Great died.

After the deaths of Louis and Hugh, the rest of Gerberga’s life is not well documented, but a few pieces of information are quite clear. Her familial-political ties seem to have increased. Not only was she ruling the kingdom closely with Lothair but she took part in endeavors with and on behalf of her siblings. For example, in 957, Gerberga accompanied her son and her sister Hedwig on a campaign to assist her brother Bruno, the archbishop of Cologne and duke of Lotharingia, against a rebellious vassal. The three—Gerberga, Lothair, and Bruno—met together often in the years following Hugh’s death, usually on the same side of a conflict. Sometimes they quarreled but never with great hostility, always coming to a peaceable resolution in the end, according to our records. During these mostly amicable meetings, Gerberga figuratively held her son’s hand as she and Bruno decided secular and episcopal offices in their adjoining lands, oversaw councils, and coordinated punishment or leniency for rebels. One of the last times we see Gerberga is in 965 accompanying Lothair to Cologne, Bruno’s see, to meet Otto. Otto had recently returned from Italy with the title of emperor and then held a placitum with his siblings. It was likely at this point when Gerberga negotiated with Emperor Otto for Lothair to marry Emma, Empress Adelaide’s daughter by her first marriage. The next year, 966, Lothair and Emma wed. Throughout this time, Gerberga attached her name to several charters and gifts to monasteries—often in a bold style, unusual even for queens-regent—proving Adso’s praise of her generosity to religious orders well founded. The date of her death is unfortunately unknown, though she is believed to have passed in 969."

— Bailey R. Poletti, "Handmaids of the Apocalypse: Queen Gerberga, Empress Adelaide, and the Ottonian Tenth Century", Church History (2023), 92

[wonder-worker]

Day 23: Anastasia of Kyiv. She was probably the second daughter of Prince Yaroslav and married King Andrew I of Hungary when he was in exile at her father’s court. After Andrew’s brother rebelled against him, she and her children fled to the Holy Roman Emperor who supported her son Solomon’s claim. By the end of his reign, Anastasia had begun to quarrel with her son, so she retired as a nun.

[wonder-worker]

tbh it sucks to know Henry VIII died thinking he had a secure male heir in place. he should have been tossing and turning on his deathbed thinking of the succession crisis and the things Mary was going to do

[wonder-worker]

Marguerite d'Orléans, Countess of Vertus in Champagne, daughter of Louis of France, Duke of Orléans & Valentine of Milan, was married around 1424 to Richard of Brittany, Count of Estampes (4th son of Jean, Duke of Brittany) who died in 1438.

[wonder-worker]

@historicwomendaily​‘s MILESTONE CELEBRATION

Favorite Ruler in Her Own Right

–> Anne of Brittany, duchess of Brittany (b. 1477, r. 1488-1514)

Eldest daughter of the last Duke of Brittany, Anne became Duchess at her father’s death and from that point on fought to maintain the independence of her duchy. She married Charles VIII of France in 1491, during whose reign she was forcibly kept away from political matters both in Brittany and France. Following his death in 1498, she regained her independence as sovereign Duchess of Brittany, a role she held onto for the rest of her life. Her marriage to Louis XII of France in 1492 was made on more equal grounds, and she spent the rest of her life exercising her rights as ruler and fighting for the independence of her duchy. During her second tenure as Queen consort of France, she was a Renaissance patron courted by artists and writers of her time, with a special interest in Italian arts.

“Kentoc'h mervel eget bezañ saotret” (“Rather death than dishonor”)

[wonder-worker]

thinking about how jane seymour was said to be a good imperialist, who threw herself on her knees and told henry god was punishing him for his spoiling of religious houses, and how “prophecy permeated the tudor regime itself […] however irrational prophecy may now seem, contemporaries accorded it a far greater degree of respect and power” (kesselring) and how [the spirit of] “queen jane did appear to his grace and desired him to go on the same pilgrimage” in 1538, and how “like fasting, then, the act of pilgrimage could be a kind of criminal behaviour” (jansen) and the idea that jane seymour might have been recognised as a religiously-subversive/traditional figure.

✨ terfs/zionists fuck off ✨

[wonder-worker]

Reginald Cobham and Margaret Grimsby

The father of Eleanor Cobham was Reginald (or Reynold) Cobham, 3rd Baron Cobham of Sterborough, who died in 1446 and buried at Lingfield in Sussex, where his tomb monument - shared with his second wife, Anne Bardolf - is located.

In Death, Art, and Memory in Medieval England: The Cobham Family and Their Monuments, 1300-1500, Nigel Saul makes this comment on Reginald:

Could he have been the Reginald Cobham who, at the end of Richard Il's reign, was accused of bigamy? In a petition to Bishop Stafford, the chancellor, one Margaret Grimsby of 'Straesburgh' in Germany complained that Reginald Cobham had married her, affirming that he was 'Lord Cobham's son' and heir to a great inheritance, but later abandoned her saying that he was already married—though not before making off with her goods (PRO, C1/3/49). Which member of the Cobham clan was this? The Christian name and the reference to Lord Cobham's son' are suggestive of Reginald III, of Sterborough. But it is not clear whether or not Reginald III was married by this time or how, indeed, he could have come into contact with the obscure Margaret Grimsby! The Christian name 'Reginald' is also found in the Randall and Chafford branches of the family at this time. Unfortunately, no light is shed on the case by other sources

I've collected some records relating to the case:

From the Select Cases in the Chancery, A.D. 1364 to 1371, ed. William Pailey Baildon (Selden Society, 1896):

63. A tres reuerent Piere en Dieu et tres noble seignur, l'Euesque d'Excestre, Chuunceller d'Engleterre Supplie tres humblement Margarete Grymmesby de Straesburgh en Duchelond qe come Reignold Cobham, esquier, le xiiij iour d'Octobre darrein passe, prist a femme la dite Margarete affirmaunt q'il n'auoit autre femme ; lui quel Reignold soi auaunta q'il estoit le fitz de Seignur de Cobeham et coment il auoit tres graund enheritaunce en Engleterre, et issint par ses fraudes paroles il auoit la dite Margarete et ses biens al value de ce liures ouesque lui hors du dite ville de Straesburgh tanque al ville de Tilleburi en le Countee d'Essex, et illoesqes demurreit ouesque la dite Margarete tanque al xx inur de Nouembre darrein passe, a quel iour le dit Reignold toutz les ditz biens du dite Margarete al value de ce liures illoesqes troues prist et ouesque lui apporta, disaunt q'il auoit autre femme allostielle:* Plese a vostre tres noble seignurie graunter comission a vn sergeaunt d'armes pur prendre et amesner le corps de dit Reignold deuaunt vous a respoundre a iceste cas, en oeuere de charite. * Al hostiel. 63. To the most reverend Father in God and most noble Lord, the Bishop of Exeter, Chancellor of England Beseecheth most humbly Margaret Grimsby, of Strasburg in Germany, that whereas Reginald Cobham, esquire, on October 14th last past took to wife the said Margaret, affirming that he had no other wife; which Reginald boasted himself to be the son of the Lord of Cobham and how he had very great inheritance in England,* and so by his fraudulent words he got the said Margaret and her goods to the value of £200 with him out of the said town of Strasburg unto the town of Tilbury in the County of Essex, and there he dwelt with the said Margaret until the 20th day of November last past, on which day the said Reginald took all the said goods of the said Margaret there found to the value of £200, and carried them away with him, saying that he had another wife at home : May it please your most noble Lordship to grant a commission to a Serjeant at arms to take and bring the body of the said Reginald before you to answer in this case ; In way of charity.** * Lord Cobham of Sterborough at this period had a son Reginald. ** No reason appears why the plaintiff should apply to the Clmiicellor, unless the fact that the plaintiff is an alien supplies one.

From Calendar of Patent Rolls, Vol. VI: Richard II: A.D. 1396-1399 (1909):

1397. Nov. 26. Westminster. Commission to John Brook, escheator in Surrey and Sussex, Robert Saperton, the king's serjeant-at-arms, Ralph Amotsam, Thomas Grene and John Merlawe to arrest and bring before the king and council Reginald Cobeham, esquire, and also to arrest and safely keep until further order all the goods and chattels of the said Reginald and those of Margaret Grymesby of Strauseburgh, removed by him.

Reginald was a common name in the Cobham family and as Saul says, it's not clear which Reginald Cobham deceived Margaret Grimsby into marrying him. It seems unlikely the the perpetrator gave "Reginald Cobham" as a false name to Margaret Grimbsy, since the orders for his arrest refer to him by that name. However, it seems possible that the story he told Margaret - the claim he was the son of the "Lord of Cobham" and had a "very great inheritance" - was false, designed to deceive and entice Margaret into marrying him. The fact he stole Margaret's goods might suggest that he had little wealth of his own and that his claim of a great inheritance was a lie. However, it is likely that his claim to be already married was true since presumably Margaret would have had recourse to the ecclesiastical courts should it be untrue.

On the face of it, it seems Reginald Cobham, 3rd Baron Cobham of Sterborough is the obvious fit. His father died in 1403 which means in the final years of Richard II's reign, Reginald was "the son of the Lord of the Cobham" and would expect to inherit his father's titles and lands, as the Reginald Cobham in the Grimsby case claimed. Reginald likely did hold the rank of esquire in 1397 (he was not knighted until 1426) and Sterborough was near the eastern border of Surrey so if he was the Reginald in the Grimsby case, the escheator in Surrey and Sussex would have likely been the appropriate person to arrest him.

Though, as I said above, the Reginald in the Grimbsy case may have lied about being the son and heir of Lord Cobham in which case these similarities may mean nothing. For all we know, this Reginald may have even posed as the future third Baron Cobham of Sterborough to deliberately deceive Margaret. We know little about the Grimsby case and little about Reginald, 3rd Baron Cobham of Sterborough's life.

A case in point in his marriage to his first wife, Eleanor Culpepper. It isn't known when they married or when their children were born or in what order. Their daughter, Eleanor Cobham, is given a birthdate of c. 1400 in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Assuming Eleanor was the eldest child and born shortly after her parents' wedding, this would suggest they were married in the late 1390s or early 1400s. However, this is relies on a lot of supposition and it's possible that Eleanor was not the eldest, that her parents had married some time before children were born from it. There is more I could say about Reginald's children and their dates of birth but this isn't the space for it.

In relation to the Grimsby case, it is possible Reginald was married before the case was being heard but since we lack a more specific date for Reginald's marriage as well as information about when Margaret married Reginald Cobham, it's impossible to know whether this tells anything about who the Reginald at the centre of the case really was.

The final point Saul raises is how exactly Reginald Cobham (whoever he was) came in contact with Margaret Grimsby. As far as I've found, there's no evidence the third Baron Cobham of Sterborough left England prior to the Agincourt campaign (1415) and as the records relating to the Grimsby case make clear, Margaret had met and married Reginald in Strasbourg and then moved to England with him. It has to be said that there is little information about the 3rd Baron Cobham of Sterborough's life, particularly before his father's death, and it's possible that he may have gone overseas as a young man in the 1390s for whatever reason.

In short, it's impossible to know whether Reginald, 3rd Baron Cobham of Sterborough was the same Reginald Cobham in the Grimsby case. The information we have about both him and the case is so limited that it's impossible to match up all the details perfectly. As the son and heir of the second Baron Cobham of Sterborough, he seems the best match for "the son of the Lord of Cobham" who had a "very great inheritance in England". But this requires us to take the claims of the Reginald in the Grimsby case at face value and we know he deliberately deceived Margaret on his life. It is not impossible that he similarly lied about his identity. It may also be that where petition to the chancellor spoke of Reginald's "fraudulent words", it meant not only his claim to be unmarried but also his claims to his identity.

I haven't found out what became of Margaret Grimsby. The entry in the Calendar of Patent Rolls suggests that action was being taken on her behalf. I didn't find any further reference to her - perhaps her goods were restored and she returned to Strasbourg?

[wonder-worker]

"[Louis I of Anjou] was a gifted man, an astute politician and the only one of John II’s sons to achieve any repute as a soldier. He was also intensely ambitious. He longed to cut a great figure, to rule a kingdom or to play a role of his own in shaping the fortunes of France, to amass riches beyond anything that his small appanage in the lower Loire could furnish. For this reason he aroused widespread suspicion and distrust, even within his own family. ‘His brilliant qualities, which might have won him immortal renown, were tarnished by his unbounded greed’, a measured obituarist wrote after his death."

— Jonathan Sumption, The Hundred Years War, Volume 2: Trial by Fire (The Middle Ages Series)

[wonder-worker]

Hence it happened once, that at Christmas time a certain great lord brought before him a dance or show of young ladies with bared bosoms who were to dance in that guise before the king, perhaps to prove him, or to entice his youthful mind. But the king was not blind to it, nor unaware of the devilish wile, and spurned the delusion, and very angrily averted his eyes, turned his back upon them, and went out to his chamber, saying: ‘Fy, fy, for shame, forsothe ye be to blame’. [...] The depiction of this episode fits into a longstanding tradition of the sexual trials and temptation of monastic heroes such as St Benedict and St Bernard of Clairvaux, right down to Henry’s ability to discern that this is devilish in origin, even a delusion. The life of St Benedict contains an almost identical episode in which an evil priest attempts (unsuccessfully) to corrupt the monks. As related by Caxton the priest ‘toke seuen maydens all naked / & sente them in to the gardyn to daunse & to carolle for to meue the monkes to temptacion’. Henry’s virtue allows him to turn his back on a spectacle which a lesser man would not have been able to resist. Moreover, he has the strength to do so simply by averting his eyes, turning away, and leaving, without having to resort to rolling in nettles, or submersing himself up to the neck in freezing water (standard remedies or self-inflicted punishments for lust in monastic hagiography). This hagiographic trope derived from monastic constructions of a manly religious identity, which used martial imagery to establish the superiority of monks (and subsequently clerics) to secular men. Chastity forms a significant element in the representation of other king saints and high status lay male saints too; for example Charles of Blois rarely shared his wife’s bed and Caxton explains that Louis was only persuaded to marry in order to safeguard the kingdom by providing an heir, and therefore implicitly not to satisfy his lust. A king saint’s chastity is therefore partly about purity, and partly about his ‘virilitas’: his strength as a leader. It is telling that contemporary didactic texts belonging to the Mirrors for Princes genre make explicit a point which is largely implied in saints’ lives, namely that the truly masculine man is the one who resists the flesh; the man who gives in renders himself unmanly: ‘. . . bowe not to þe vse of women, ffor swylk a vse ys a properte to swine . . . lychery ys distruccioun of body, shortynge of lyf, corypcioun of virtueȝ trespass of þe lawe, And hit engendrys women maners.’ Such invective, which appears frequently in the Mirrors, was at pains to establish that the sexually dissolute man could not be king, for he was unable to rule himself, let alone anyone else. Thus kingly chastity, in these contexts, was seen as desirable and admirable rather than anomalous and problematic. The implication of Blacman’s account may be that the ‘great lord’ was trying to turn Henry into his own definition of a ‘real man’, but Blacman seeks to show that Henry’s self-mastery is truly manly.

Katherine J. Lewis, "‘Imitate, too, this king in virtue, who could have done ill, and did it not’: Lay sanctity and the rewriting of Henry VI's manliness", Religious Men and Masculine Identity in the Middle Ages (The Boydell Press 2013)

[wonder-worker]

"It is not clear why the treaty of the fleurs de lys [between England and France] failed. But it is possible to guess. The most likely explanation is that John II’s councillors were appalled by what he had agreed at Villeneuve and made difficulties about the delivery of the security. In mid-July an English officer, Thomas Driffield, left England with sixty men-at-arms to take possession of Dun, Ainay and la Roche-sur-Yon. The story of his mission is unknown. But it is plain that it failed.

Then, early in September 1363, [Louis of Anjou, John II's second son and one of the signatories of the treaty, escaped from English captivity]. Anjou, an able and ambitious young man of twenty-four, had married for love (and without his father’s consent) a daughter of Charles of Blois shortly before he had surrendered as a hostage two years before. He had borne his captivity particularly ill. Like the other royal princes he was allowed to absent himself from Calais on his parole for up to three days at a time. He made use of the privilege to visit the shrine of Notre-Dame de Boulogne and to see his wife [Marie of Blois-Penthièvre] at his father-in-law’s castle of Guise. He decided not to return. It was an unusual event among those who were bound by the aristocratic code of honour. John II was furious. He summoned his errant son to a family conference at the town of Saint-Quentin. The prince, afraid that he would be arrested and forcibly returned to England, would only meet them in an open field some four miles from the walls. All their entreaties failed to move him. The treaty of the fleurs de lys was dead. Many in France must have been relieved." 

—  Jonathan Sumption, The Hundred Years War, Volume 2: Trial by Fire (The Middle Ages Series)

[wonder-worker]

aurora ruffino as bianca de’ medici in medici: the magnificent

[wonder-worker]

Hello

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[wonder-worker]

Bridget Woodville (OC). Commission sketch for @bl0ndixxx.

Thank you for choosing me! <333

[wonder-worker]

Henry attempted to have another king, Alfred, canonised in 1442, an interest generally explained by their shared patronage of educational establishments. But another reason for Henry’s interest may have been Asser’s account of Alfred’s illnesses and the ways in which these constituted physical manifestations of Alfred’s struggle against the flesh. The young Alfred ‘realised that he was unable to abstain from carnal desire’ and asked God to visit upon him ‘some illness which he would be able to tolerate’ in order that he could still carry out his worldly responsibilities properly. Alfred was subsequently struck by ‘a sudden severe pain’ after his wedding feast. This link between illness and sexual desire is not just a matter of Asser’s interpretation of events; David Pratt demonstrates the extent of Alfred’s preoccupation with sexual sin in an analysis of the king’s own writings and notes the ‘close parallel that Asser . . . emphasises between Alfred’s bodily sufferings and the many other difficulties that he is facing as king’. In the late 1450s and very early 1460s the account of a king attempting to rule a country threatened by war while seriously ill would have been particularly pertinent to Henry. He may even, like Alfred, have interpreted his own afflictions as part of some divine trial; both Blacman and Vergil certainly perceived Henry as Job-like in his patient suffering, which, for them, was part of his sanctity. That being the case it is worth considering that hagiographic tropes may have influenced not just the author, but also the subject. When scholars discuss the ‘holy’ or ‘saintly’ aspects of Henry’s character these generally go hand in hand with the idea of him as simple, well meaning, naïve and artless, which gives the impression that these qualities were somehow ‘natural’ to him. But perhaps there was something more ‘knowing’ than this at work. It is possible that the image of Henry as saint was, to some extent at least, an act of self-fashioning, influenced by the depiction of the holy men who had so frequently been held up to him as exemplars.

Katherine J. Lewis, "‘Imitate, too, this king in virtue, who could have done ill, and did it not’: Lay sanctity and the rewriting of Henry VI's manliness", Religious Men and Masculine Identity in the Middle Ages (The Boydell Press 2013)

[wonder-worker]

"Fundamental to Alice's ability to increase her perceived influence in this fashion was her position at court. Continuing the pattern that had emerged towards the end of the 1360s during Philippa’s illness, after the death of his wife Edward III became even more politically inactive as his own health declined and he sought greater privacy with a restricted group of trusted companions at his favoured residences of Sheen, Eltham and Havering, leaving the majority of the royal household at Windsor. This created a royal court that was very much separate from the royal household. At the same time there was a marked decline in the number of members of the aristocracy amongst the king’s companions and, with the exception of the earl of Arundel, all the lords of Edward’s generation had either died or stopped attending council meetings by 1373. Of the king’s surviving sons, the Black Prince virtually retired from public life after returning from Aquitaine in 1371 debilitated by illness, Thomas of Woodstock was still too young to take an active role in government, and John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley attended court when they could, but they, together with the young earls of March, Suffolk, Warwick, Oxford and Stafford, were too busy on the continent following the resumption of the war with France in 1369 to have any consistent presence at court.

It was under these circumstances that a small group of royal favourites, collectively identified as the court covyne or clique, came to dominate the person, policy and patronage of Edward III during the final years of his life. At the heart of this intimate circle was Alice. The other leading members were the chamberlain, William Lord Latimer; the steward, John Lord Neville of Raby; the chamber knight Richard Stury; and the financier, Richard Lyons. They were followed by a broader circle of household members and London merchants, who included: Helming Leget, receiver of the chamber; Sir John Ipres, controller of the king’s household; Nicholas Carew, keeper of the privy seal; Sir Robert Ashton, treasurer from 1375; Sir Alan Buxhull, chamber knight and constable of the Tower of London; Philip la Vache; John Pyel; Adam Francis; John Peeche; and Adam Bury. The supremacy this group maintained over the king was self-perpetuating; just as Edward, in his desire for his mistress and to be surrounded by a small number of intimates, came to be dependent on Alice, Latimer and their associates, so the members of this close-knit group reinforced their disproportionate amount of influence by supporting each other’s position.

This is not to suggest that Alice was dependent on the court covyne for her position. On the contrary, it could be argued that the king’s infatuation with his mistress made her the personal linchpin without whom the rest of the group would have fallen apart. This put Alice in a position of enormous power, as she was able not only to cajole and flatter Edward into giving her gifts of land and jewels, but also to make great demands of those who sought favour with the king and who came to her in the knowledge that, where Edward III was concerned, Alice could achieve whatever she desired. The queen’s death, her position at court, and her consequent visibility: these are the three reasons for Alice’s extraordinary rise to power after 1369 and her dramatic fall from grace in 1376, when she and her fellow courtiers came under attack from the Commons in the Good Parliament."

— Laura Tompkins, The Uncrowned Queen: Alice Perrers, Edward III and Political Crisis in Fourteenth-Century England, 1360-1377 (PHD Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2013)

[wonder-worker]

Dual portraits of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York dated circa 1530

Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands Art Collection

[wonder-worker]

“And if I break this oath, may the God of Love torment me and never bring release until the day I die”

(Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, from The Devil’s Crown 1978 …Happy Valentine’s)