Both a Womb and a Brain in Tudor Times: The Witch of Eye

The Witch of Eye by Mari Griffith

Accent Press Ltd

Pp. 383

This historical fiction about the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, Humphrey and Eleanor, and her dealings with Margery Jourdemayne, known as the Witch of Eye, is told through the tale of Jenna, a made-up character, and her romantic involvement with Margery’s husband, William. The language is modern and the storytelling easy to follow, but it is engaging and throws out several titbits about contemporary customs and costumes.

Eleanor wants a child – her husband is next in line to the throne, and if anything should happen to his sickly nephew, Henry VI, then she would be queen, and a child would secure the succession. Eleanor is desperate and she turns to herbs and decoctions from Margery, image magic and also involves high-ranking priests in using astrolabes to cast horoscopes, and mirror magic to descry the lifetime of the current monarch.

The conjuration scene from Henry VI, Part 2, illustrated by John Opie

Margery Jourdemayne was accused of ‘false belief and witchcraft’ and burned at the stake at Smithfield Market in 1441. In this novel, she tells Jenna, “I often think a woman’s main problem is that she has both a womb and a brain. Society dictates that her womb is the more important of the two. But I’m not sure that’s true.” Jenna is a simple milkmaid, so she regards this cynical viewpoint with disbelief, as it allows the author to propound her feminist leanings.

Jenna, meanwhile, is merely a cypher, and her story, although it has a happy ending and delivers her from a life of domestic abuse and drudgery, is not particularly colourful or arresting. There is a further Huckleberry Finn moment where a character (in this case Jenna) is not told some life-changing information (that her abusive husband, from whom she is hiding, has died) because the male protagonists enjoy being able to control the reveal.

The ongoing battle between Beaufort and his nephew Gloucester wrangling over strategy and kingship forms a backdrop to the narrative. This is an interesting novel if the reader is already aware of these individuals and this particular period. Otherwise, it is somewhat lacking as a romance and there are probably much better-written works about these historical characters.