nanshe-of-nina: Favorite History Books || Lost Heirs of the Medieval Crown: The Kings and Queens Who
nanshe-of-nina: Favorite History Books || Lost Heirs of the Medieval Crown: The Kings and Queens Who Never Were by J. F. Andrews ★★★★☆ William the Conqueror died on 9 September 1087. He had held England in his iron grip for almost twenty-one years, wiping out the old aristocracy and causing untold misery and suffering across large parts of the realm as he went. He had seized the throne by violence in 1066, but he did not want his own death to result in another Hastings, or in a revival of any Anglo-Saxon claims; no, he would create his own Anglo- Norman dynasty, which would rule England by blood right. With this in mind, he made it clear that the English crown should pass to his son … his second son. Naturally, his eldest son had a few thoughts of his own on the subject, and thus began four centuries of bloody disputes as the English monarchy’s line of hereditary succession was bent, twisted out of shape and finally broken when the last Plantagenet king fell in battle in 1485. History is written by the winners, but every game of thrones has its losers too, and their fascinating stories bring richness and depth to what is a colourful period of his- tory. King John would not have gained the crown had he not murdered his young nephew, who was in line to become England’s first King Arthur; Henry V would never have been at Agincourt at all had his father not seized the throne by usurping and killing his cousin; and as the rival houses of York and Lancaster fought bloodily over the crown during the Wars of the Roses, life suddenly became very dangerous indeed for a young boy named Edmund. This book will tell the stories of all of these people and more; the many medieval kings – and the occasional queen – who could have been but never were. It features a very distinct group of people: it does not include illegitimate children who had no expectation of ruling; nor those who sought to invade and claim the throne by conquest, as Prince Louis of France did in 1216; nor unrelated impostors such as Lambert Simnel, who unconvincingly pretended to be Edward, earl of Warwick, whose untimely death closes our story. Instead it focuses on those who were genuinely considered to be next in line to the throne and who expected to be crowned but who – for a number of different reasons – never made it to the top. Very few of them reached old age; those who did went to their graves disappointed or imprisoned, and those who did not were in many cases the victims of violence or murder. Each chapter will open with a simplified family tree, making it clear how each of our ‘lost heirs’ was related to the previous monarch, and why they expected to sit on the throne themselves. We will then explore how and why each of them failed to reach their ultimate goal. Readers should be aware that there are very few happy endings in store … -- source link
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