Popular vs Academic History

My article on the debate about popular vs. academic history was published today on the University of Sheffield's History Matters Blog. You can find the article here: http://www.historymatters.group.shef.ac.uk/popular-vs-academic-history/

I was asked to write the article as I am somewhat unusual in having a foot in both camps of the debate. My academic work at King's College, London (which will hopefully eventually result in a PhD) is on the Blount family of Shropshire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, looking in particular at aspects of their religion, as well as economic interests and patronage, in order to further inform on the gentry in the period. My books on the other hand, would be considered popular in tone (wide topics, aiming for a large audience, telling a story more than focussing on analysis etc.). It is my belief that the two should not be considered entirely separate and that they are, largely, two sides of the same coin. There is certainly enough history to go around!

Anne Boleyn's Descent from Queen Elfrida

I was asked on Facebook for the details of Anne Boleyn's descent from Queen Elfrida, following on from my post on the similarities between the two queens. Anne was actually descended from Elfrida many times over. Here are some of the lines of descent:

1. Elfrida, Ethelred II (the Unready), Edmund II Ironside, Edward the Exile, St Margaret of Scotland, Matilda of Scotland, Empress Matilda, Henry II, King John, Henry III, Edward I, Thomas of Brotherton, Margaret of Norfolk, Elizabeth Seagrave, Thomas Mowbray, Margaret Mowbray, John Howard (first Duke of Norfolk), Thomas Howard (second Duke of Norfolk), Elizabeth Howard, Anne Boleyn.

2. Elfrida, Ethelred II (the Unready), Edmund II Ironside, Edward the Exile, St Margaret of Scotland, Matilda of Scotland, Empress Matilda, Henry II, Eleanor of England, Blanche of Castile, Louis IX of France, Philip III of France, Margaret of France, Thomas of Brotherton, Margaret of Norfolk, Elizabeth Seagrave, Thomas Mowbray, Margaret Mowbray, John Howard (first Duke of Norfolk), Thomas Howard (second Duke of Norfolk), Elizabeth Howard, Anne Boleyn.

3. Elfrida, Ethelred II (the Unready), Edmund II Ironside, Edward the Exile, St Margaret of Scotland, Matilda of Scotland, Empress Matilda, Henry II, King John, Henry III, Edward I, Elizabeth of England, Eleanor de Bohun, James Butler (2nd Earl of Ormond), James Butler (3rd Earl of Ormond), James Butler (4th Earl of Ormond), Thomas Butler (7th Earl of Ormond), Margaret Butler, Thomas Boleyn, Anne Boleyn.

4. Elfrida, Ethelred II (the Unready), Edmund II Ironside, Edward the Exile, St Margaret of Scotland, Matilda of Scotland, Empress Matilda, Henry II, Eleanor of England, Berengaria I of Castile, Ferdinand III of Castile, Eleanor of Castile, Elizabeth of England, Eleanor de Bohun, James Butler (2nd Earl of Ormond), James Butler (3rd Earl of Ormond), James Butler (4th Earl of Ormond), Thomas Butler (7th Earl of Ormond), Margaret Butler, Thomas Boleyn, Anne Boleyn.

5. Elfrida, Ethelred II (the Unready), Edmund II Ironside, Edward the Exile, St Margaret of Scotland, Matilda of Scotland, Empress Matilda, Henry II, King John, Henry III, Edward I, Elizabeth of England, William de Bohun (1st Earl of Northampton), Elizabeth de Bohun, Joan Fitzalan, Joan de Beauchamp, Thomas Butler (7th Earl of Ormond), Margaret Butler, Thomas Boleyn, Anne Boleyn.

6. Elfrida, Ethelred II (the Unready), Edmund II Ironside, Edward the Exile, St Margaret of Scotland, Matilda of Scotland, Empress Matilda, Henry II, Eleanor of England, Berengaria I of Castile, Ferdinand III of Castile, Eleanor of Castile, Elizabeth of England, William de Bohun (1st Earl of Northampton), Elizabeth de Bohun, Joan Fitzalan, Joan de Beauchamp, Thomas Butler (7th Earl of Ormond), Margaret Butler, Thomas Boleyn, Anne Boleyn.

7. Elfrida, Ethelred II (the Unready), Edmund II Ironside, Edward the Exile, St Margaret of Scotland, Matilda of Scotland, Empress Matilda, Henry II, King John, Henry III, Edmund Crouchback, Henry Earl of Lancaster, Eleanor of Lancaster, Richard Fitzalan (Earl of Arundel), Joan Fitzalan, Joan de Beauchamp, Thomas Butler (7th Earl of Ormond), Margaret Butler, Thomas Boleyn, Anne Boleyn.

8. Elfrida, Ethelred II (the Unready), Edmund II Ironside, Edward the Exile, St Margaret of Scotland, Matilda of Scotland, Empress Matilda, Henry II, Eleanor of England, Blanche of Castile, Robert 1st Count of Artois, Blanche of Artois, Henry Earl of Lancaster, Eleanor of Lancaster, Richard Fitzalan (Earl of Arundel), Joan Fitzalan, Joan de Beauchamp, Thomas Butler (7th Earl of Ormond), Margaret Butler, Thomas Boleyn, Anne Boleyn.

There are many more lines of descent from Elfrida to Anne Boleyn, feel free to add any more that you know of to the comments section.

Tudor Kitchen Garden - Multi-Coloured Carrots

It's been a while since I updated on the Tudor kitchen garden project, which I am working on as part of BBC London's Grow Your Own Campaign.

The garden is being very productive at the moment. The beans, in particular, are growing well - although the variety, which have dark purple speckles, don't look very appealing when they are still on the plant. When they cook they turn green though. I have actually got more beans than I am able to use and have been busy freezing them - an option not available to Tudor gardeners. Seasonality was obviously very important in the sixteenth century, with menus tailored to fit the seasons.

Once again, I have failed spectacularly to grow radishes and we have been eating more radish leaf pesto (which is actually very nice!). One plant did actually form a radish bulb but, unfortunately, it got half eaten by a slug before I found it. None of the others formed bulbs at all. It was a similar story with the beetroots, which grew some nice leaves, but no actual beetroots. We have been using the leaves in salads and I am going to make some beetroot leaf pesto this evening for dinner. I'm not quite sure what I have done wrong with the radishes and beetroots - I will aske St John, BBC London Radio's gardening expert, next time I speak to him and will let you know. I've tried re-sowing both to see if I can get in another crop before it turns cold.

Finally, the carrots are growing beautifully. The thinnings look and taste great and I am looking forward to harvesting fully grown carrots soon. The yellow carrots have been the biggest success and look great. There are only a few purples, although I planted the most of these. The purples actually look quite unappetising when you see the tops poking out of the soil - when I first spotted one I thought the carrot had somehow gone off in the ground! The colour will take some getting used to!

There are also some orange carrots, which I am surprised about. We planted these just before the March snow and used all the seed up, so I had thought that we wouldn't actually get any. It shows how resilient plants can be!

Here are some photos:

Carrot thinnings - the purple and yellow varieties are the most Tudor-authentic, although the orange carrots are also a heritage variety.

The beans on the side of the shed - space saving would have been as important in Tudor kitchen gardens as it is now in my small, urban garden. I grew onions at the front of the tub, although these have been harvested now.

Part of the main bed, showing cabbages (which have unfortunately been attacked by caterpillars), turnips and yellow carrots.

Queen Elfrida and Queen Anne Boleyn

My all time favourite queen of England has to be Elfrida (or, more correctly but less easy to read, Aelfthryth), the queen of King Edgar. I have carried out research into Elfrida for some years now and she was one of the motivations behind deciding to write my first book – She Wolves (The History Press, 2008). I wanted to tell Elfrida’s story. I returned to Elfrida in print with a short biography in England’s Queens, The Biography (Amberley, 2011), but it always seemed like there was more of her story to tell. I was therefore thrilled to finally be able to persuade my publisher that she merited her own biography and the result is Elfrida, The First Crowned Queen of England which was published this week.

While researching Elfrida, I was very struck by the similarities between her story and that of her descendant, and later successor as queen, Anne Boleyn. Anne, like much of the Tudor nobility and gentry, was descended from Elfrida several times over, through her son, Ethelred II (the Unready). Was there something of her royal ancestress in Anne?

Like Anne, Elfrida was the daughter of a middle-ranking man, with her father, a thegn named Ordgar, only becoming an ealdorman after her marriage. Her mother, a woman of royal descent, outranked her father – as Anne’s mother, Lady Elizabeth Howard, did. Both girls were particular favourites of their fathers. It was Anne that Thomas Boleyn chose to send to Margaret of Austria in the Netherlands in 1513, in order to take up a post as lady in waiting. Similarly, Ordgar spent a considerable amount of time with his only daughter, whom he was rumoured to have promised to leave a substantial proportion of his wealth. He taught her to play chess and was a major influence on her childhood.

The relationship that each woman enjoyed with their respective kings was both scandalous and surprising to contemporaries. Elfrida and Edgar were rumoured to have begun an affair while she was married to her first husband, Ealdorman Ethelwold – with the king reportedly clearing the way for his own suit by murdering his love rival. While the evidence that Ethelwold was murdered is tenuous, it was the sort of story that contemporaries – and later observers – were prepared to believe of Edgar and Elfrida, again foreshadowing the poor reputation of the later Anne Boleyn.

Of greater similarity is the way that the relationships developed between the two couples. Edgar, reportedly, fell in love with Elfrida at first sight, becoming determined to take her as his queen. This is similar to the intensity of feeling felt by Henry VIII for Anne, who pursued her with ardent letters pressing his suit when she tried to retreat from him away from court. Henry VIII was, of course, married to Catherine of Aragon and his decision to marry Anne caused years of confusion and turmoil for all parties involved.

What is not so well known is that Edgar was also married at the time that he chose to make Elfrida his queen. His first wife, a noblewoman named Ethelflaed the Fair, was probably still living, although immured in a nunnery. She had already stepped down as Edgar’s wife to allow him to marry the royally-descended and very noble Wulfthryth, a cousin of Edgar’s. Wulfthryth was, politically and socially, a highly suitable bride for Edgar, just as Catherine was for Henry. Love overcame him, with his second wife also being sent to a nunnery as abbess. This was, in fact, something that Henry hoped to do with Catherine, with her retirement the one way that, without an annulment, he could legally marry again.

 

Edgar and Elfrida were married as soon as Wulfthyth had retired. Although divorce was considerably easier for an Anglo-Saxon king than a Tudor one, Wulfthryth did not go quietly, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dunstan, for one, accusing Edgar and Elfrida of adultery when he burst into their bedchamber one morning to upbraid them. Elfrida and Wulfthryth clashed over control of the nunneries and it appears that Elfrida’s very poor reputation comes from stories circulated about her in convents associated with her predecessor and her family. Elfrida also had a poor relationship with her stepdaughter, Wulfthryth’s daughter, Princess Edith, just as Anne had with Catherine’s daughter, Princess Mary.

Both Elfrida and her later successor as queen, Anne, were, by all accounts, devoted and involved mothers. Elfrida was particularly close to Ethelflaed – the daughter of her first husband (and, thus, either her stepdaughter or daughter). She also strove to ensure that the succession to the throne passed to her sons by Edgar, rather than his eldest son, Edward, who was the son of Edgar’s first marriage. It was Elfrida’s greatest political supporter, Bishop Ethelwold of Winchester, who referred very pointedly to her as the legitimate wife of the king and her eldest son, Edmund, as the king’s legitimate son in an important charter. The older Edward, who witnessed below his half-brother, was described merely as a son of the king. Just as, for Anne, Princess Mary was a dangerous rival to her own daughter, Elizabeth, so too was Edward a rival to Edmund and Ethelred, Elfrida’s sons.

Perhaps due to the controversy over his marriage, Edgar was eager to display Elfrida as his legitimate wife. She shared his second, imperial coronation in 973, when he had already been king for some years – something which allows her the distinction of being the first woman to have been crowned as queen of England. Anne’s coronation was also an important means of displaying the legitimacy of her marriage and pushing the claims to the throne of her future children. In both cases, it was important to imbue a non-royal queen with the mystique of royalty, in order both to enhance their own status and that of their offspring.

Unusually for an Anglo-Saxon queen, Elfrida was able to exercise real political influence over Edgar, as Anne was in the early years of her relationship with Henry. Both women were powerful political figures in their own right and, while Anne, of course, did not survive Henry, Elfrida was still living when Edgar died suddenly in 975. Although she was at first unsuccessful in winning the crown for her surviving son, Ethelred, following the murder of King Edward (reportedly at her house at Corfe), she was able to establish herself unofficially as regent of England during her child’s minority.

Do these similarities matter or are they just superficial? It is interesting that five centuries apart, love could overthrow political reason for a king. Many of the pressures on the kings and their wives were the same in both societies with the queenship of lowborn women. Both Elfrida and Anne sought to increase the power of the role of queen and build a political position for themselves. It is interesting that both were not popular – due largely to the ways in which their marriages were achieved – and Anne could, perhaps, have learned something from her predecessor, who remains the most notorious of early queens of England.

Queen Elfrida was born over a thousand years ago, but the way in which she became queen and established herself politically still resonates. Her descendant, Anne Boleyn, may not even have been aware of her story or of the facts of her life, but they were surprisingly similar, with both women subverting societal norms in order to build their own political role as queen.

Let me know what you think of Elfrida when you read Elfrida, The First Crowned Queen of England. Alternatively, you can read about Anne’s story in The Boleyn Women or my biography of her (Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s Obsession). I have also edited the sources most closely connected with Anne in The Anne Boleyn Papers (formerly Anne Boleyn in Her Own Words).

 

One final point – but an important one – Anne Boleyn is remembered for her great role in the religious reform movement, which eventually led to England becoming a Protestant kingdom. Elfrida presided, alongside Edgar, in the first great religious reform movement in England, with the re-establishment of monasticism following the ninth century Viking attacks. The importance of this reform, and Elfrida’s role in it, should not be understated. I will post later on this – watch this space!

 

 

The Ultimate Guide to the National Archives

As a historian, I work regularly at the National Archives at Kew, going through original documents, as well as using their library. Look out for my article in issue 133 of Your Family Tree magazine, which is available in the shops and online from tomorrow. The article looks at how you can make the most of a visit to Kew, as well as using their website and online catalogues.

The article also includes my top ten list of records at Kew for family historians. From Wills and probate, the employment records, court records and state papers, your ancestors will certainly feature somewhere in the documents held at The National Archives - you just need to know where to look!

Elfrida, The First Crowned Queen of England

After a long gap I suddenly seem to have a rush of books coming out, with the hardback of The Boleyn Women and paperbacks for The Anne Boleyn Papers and Bessie Blount being released in recent weeks. I actually have another new book which has just been released - so recently that I haven't actually received my author copies from the publisher yet!

Elfrida, The First Crowned Queen of England is the first biography of Elfrida (or Aelfthryth as she would more correctly be called), the third wife of King Edgar. Elfrida is the first woman to have been crowned as queen of England and was incredibly significant, both as one of the first king's wives to fully assert herself as queen and as virtual ruler of England during her son's minority.

Elfrida will forever be remembered for her claimed role in the murder of her stepson, Edward the Martyr, which became more and more embellished as it was retold. This was not the only murder that she was reputed to have been involved in and a woman did not reach the pinnacle of Anglo-Saxon society without making enemies along the way who were prepared to slander her.

As you know, my work usually focusses on the Tudors. I have always loved the Anglo-Saxons, however, and my work for my degrees in Archaeology at Cambridge and Oxford Universities was focussed on the Anglo-Saxon period. This book was therefore a real labour of love for me, which I have worked on - on and off - for the past eight years. I really hope you enjoy reading about Elfrida - the woman who defined English queenship and was a model who was followed by her successors for centuries to come.

 

 

 

The Boleyn Women

My new book, The Boleyn Women, was released a coupe of weeks ago and is already getting some really good feedback. The book is a history of the women of Boleyn family, from their peasant origins at Salle in Norfolk to the death of Elizabeth I. I look in detail at every woman who was born or married a Boleyn, as well as some daughters of Boleyn women, such as he fascinating Mary Shelton, Catherine Carey and, of course, Queen Elizabeth. The family's rise to prominence was incredible and largely due to the efforts of the women of the family.

I hope you enjoy the book and do feel free to let me know what you think. You can always comment on any of my posts here or send me a message at mail@elizabethnorton.co.uk. Also, check out my website - www.elizabethnorton.co.uk

The Anne Boleyn Papers

Sorry for the silence over the last couple of weeks, I've just got back from a trip to Malta, which was absolutely fantastic. I've never visited the islands before, but, with the grant of Malta to the Knights of St John by the Emperor Charles V in 1530, they played a crucial role in the defence of southern Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Both Malta and the smaller island of Gozo are packed with sights of historic interest, particularly in relation to their prehistoric temples. Well worth a visit!

Anyway, the main point of this post is that I have just noticed that 'The Anne Boleyn Papers' s now in stock at Amazon. I just wanted to point out again that this is the paperback version of 'Anne Boleyn In Her Own Words and the Words of Those Who Knew Her' and not a new book. If you don't already have it, it's a great read (even if I do say so myself!). I edited the book, which is a collection of the most important sources associated with Anne Boleyn, including her letters, the despatches of Eustace Chapuys, chronicles, George Wyatt's history of Anne and Henry VIII's love letters. It's a great companion book to my biography of Anne - Anne Boleyn: Henry VIII's Obsession.