Status Updates From The Kingmaker's Women: Anne...

Warwick's surviving daughter understood all too well fate's vagaries and must have recognised that queens of England were no more secure than daughters of ambitious earls, unless the king could control the realm.

Warwick once again placed himself on the side of reform, urging his supporters in Kent to join with him at Canterbury to seize control of the realm.

Is this a presentation of facts? Are we making an argument or indicating the best guess based on what we know?

I was not aware that Isabel had four pregnancies.

I am a little confused by the decision not to cite directly from the available sources. For instance letters or any details from the account records.

I feel deeply saddened for Countess Anne

The snippet of information from Countess Anne’s letter was cool

Barely a mention of these women at all.

I cannot imagine how Isabell must have felt at 16? Losing a baby and maybe it being stuck in limbo?

I am now confident that this book is being marketed incorrectly. This is basically a biography of Warwick.

Some interesting information concerning the familial dynamics of the wars of the roses.

27% in can count on one hand, the fact that I have learned about the woman on the cover of this book. Part of me wants to keep reading this because I have learned a lot of interesting facts about the wars of the roses however that’s not what I wanted to read this book.

Second, I am struggling with none of the evidence directly examines the three women on the cover. Now extrapolating things that you don’t know from the historical record such as childbirth practices I feel is fine, however, while I have learned a couple things I did not know about Anne and Isabel and their mother. It feels almost like those facts are accident in their presentation rather than intentional.

OK there are two things I have determined about this book. First part of the confusion about following who is the focus of the story is that it changes. Indicative of the time many of the women have the same name but the author complicates it more by switching between Isabel, Anne, and their mother and then describing a third person in relationship to the person to focus.

It’s never a good sign when you are reading a history book and you keep reading “we can only postulate”, “there is no record of this”, etcetera

Chapter one while informative was so hard to follow. Everyone has multiple marriages and the same name.

The introduction sounds promising and I’m excited to read more.