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.

Friday Five: Books Read in June

 

1. Why Does My Dog Do That? by Sophie Collins (Ivy Press) - This helpful pocket-sized book is laid out with a page of text next to a line drawing and a question about dog behaviour (I read it for my animal care course). There are fifty questions altogether, split into sections of ‘puppy to adult’, ‘a dog’s-eye view’, ‘you and your dog’, and ‘solving problems’. The simple and practical language addresses concerns such as fighting, rolling in foul-smelling matter, trembling, biting, ignoring commands and overstimulation. The advice is mainly to remain calm, positive and consistent, while understanding that a dog is not a small human and has its own behaviour which should not be anthropomorphosised.
2. Root of the Tudor Rose by Mari Griffith (Accent Press) - If you like historical fiction with a smattering of facts and setting, you could do worse. The story is told as a straightforward romance and the feelings of the participants are interpreted in terms of modern sensibilities of love and motherhood, contrasting with contemporary political arrangements and treatment of women and children. Catherine de Valois is the young (French) bride of the great Henry V of England (and France), but she is lonely and vulnerable because she is a foreigner at court. Things worsen after Henry's death as she is forbidden to remarry but must remain in the public eye as the mother of the present king. She attempts to keep him safe from the factions at court - the Yorks and Lancasters mainly - while rather inconveniently falling in love with the Welshman Owen Tudor. It becomes a Mills-and-Boon-style romance with forbidden love and a servant who knows and keeps the secret, while the occasional historical record is dropped into the fictional romance to keep it real.



Catherine de Valois (1842) by Edward Hargrave

3. Less by Andrew Sean Greer (Abacus) - Books about writers can be tedious and self-indulgent. This is so self-consciously the latter, that it is great fun and a form of parody. Arthur Less is a failed gay novelist, about to turn fifty, who, in order to avoid attending his ex’s wedding, goes to any invitation he receives for promoting his book so that he can say he is busy. It is a sort of travelogue as he flits from adventures in one country to another, unable to settle anywhere and struggling to avoid consequences or meaningful interactions. In an increasingly crumpled blue suit he travels from New York to Mexico, Italy, Germany, Paris, Morroco, Japan, and finally India. He remains cheerful, reflective, naive and charming throughout, and he really is jolly good company.  
4. Unfinished Woman by Robyn Davidson (Bloomsbury) - The trade paperback title of this memoir was Portrait of an Imaginary Woman, which begs the question as to who exactly is the unfinished woman: Robyn or her mother? Her mother died by suicide and, although the author claims it didn't affect her, she spends the rest of the memoir explaining how it has. Best known for the travel book, Tracks, in which she recounts her solo trek across 1,700 miles of Australian outback, she comes across as aloof and condescending. She believes in anarchy and looking out for oneself, and has a dim view of community with little time for therapists. She maintains, "Scratching around in the landscape behind you, looking for terrible things, has always struck me as being… indulgent.” One could level this exact accusation at the process of writing a memoir. Complaining about the difficulty of promoting her book and touring with other writers (she counts Doris Lessing and Bruce Chatwin among her friends), she whines, “I feel myself hurrying towards the end, wanting to leap over decades, race towards release from this fairy-tale task. It is exhausting to sift through the sediment, exhausting to keep repeating ‘I, I, I’.” Not as exhausting as it is to have to read it.
5. Death Comes to Marlow by Robert Thorogood (HQ) - In the second of the Marlow Murder Mysteries, we once again spend time with the three unlikely women who solve crimes and assist the police with their enquiries in this cosy murder series. A man is murdered on the morning of his wedding when a large bookcase topples over on to him from within a locked room. Was it really an accident? Of course it wasn’t. But everyone has an alibi. With its arcane detective workings it is very pacy and easy to read, if not particularly demanding. I love the setting (naturally, it's my home town), and I also like the cover with the upturned duck sticking out of the water. There are specific mentions of real places and businesses (car repairs; cafes; pubs; hairdressers; art galleries etc.) that make one wonder whether they might have sponsored the book in exchange for a namecheck. It is a fine book to read at the weekend or to while away the time on a holiday when nothing really matters.

The three women of the TV series, The Marlow Murder Club (Jo Martin as Suzie Harris, Samantha Bond as Judith Potts, and Cara Horgan as Becks Starling)