Editegrity
  • Home
  • FAQ
  • About
  • Portfolio
  • Resources
  • Contact
  • Blog

The Editor Who Reads Too Much
~a writing, editing, publishing & book blog~

England's Queens: The Biography

14/2/2021

 
Picture
England's Queens: The Biography

Title: England's Queens: The Biography

Author: Elizabeth Norton

Genre: Nonfiction

​Publisher: Amberley Publishing


One year ago, on Valentine’s Day 2020, in the Oxfam bookshop near the British Museum in Bloomsbury, I found a copy of Alison Weir’s book Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World, which hurtled me down a rabbit hole about English queens. I then read Uncrowned Queen: The Fateful Life of Margaret Beaufort by Nicola Talis. There was so much I didn’t know!
 
A few months later, my favorite podcast, Rex Factor, shared a photo of Norton’s book on IG. My quest for information could continue! Thank goodness I picked it up, because my knowledge of English history pre-1066 is woefully inadequate. I only recently learned that the Normans were actually descended from Vikings. 
 
I was fascinated to learn that “England in the early eleventh century was a stable and wealthy country,” and that Emma of Normandy, born in about 980 to Richard I, Duke of Normandy, and Gunnor, the daughter of “two noble Danes,” was making an excellent match with Ethelred II (Norton 2012, 35).
 
(Side note: as a student, I never understood why Shakespeare sent Hamlet to Denmark. I hadn’t realized just how close, geographically speaking, the countries are, and that they shared this long and ancient history. You never stop learning! Norton has reshaped my understanding of life in early medieval England, formerly known as the Dark Ages.)
 
Emma married King Ethelred II (the Unready) in 1002 but he died in 1016. The invading Vikings had taken over the country and she was forced to marry Cnut, who had defeated her stepson, Edmund, for the throne. 
 
Apparently, Emma had more power under King Cnut than she had under Ethelred II—her name appears on many charters, which is unusual for the time. 
 
Much of what we know about Emma comes from The Encomium Emmae Reginae, (Latin for Praise of Queen Emma) written around 1041 or 1042. It compliments Emma enough for modern readers to look at the text with a critical eye: how much of this was Emma’s own PR at work? 
 
Cnut died in 1035, and after some fighting, Harold Godwinson was proclaimed king in 1037 and Emma fled to exile in Flanders. In 1040 Emma’s son Harthacnut sailed from Denmark, where he was king, to rescue Emma. In a too-good-to-be-true scenario, Harold died that year, so Harthacnut became king. But he died in 1042. 
 
So Emma’s other son, whose father was Ethelred II, was declared king. That was Edward the Confessor. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.
 
My first question was: why doesn’t this woman have a Netflix show? Did you know any of this? I’m a hardcore English-history nerd, and I knew none of it! 
 
In addition to Emma, I discovered the lives of Berengaria of Navarre, Henrietta Maria of France, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Their husbands (Richard I, Charles I and George III) have all the renown (or infamy, as it may be), and Norton has done an amazing job of bringing these women out of the shadows. With few exceptions, queens rarely get the same examination or scholarship that kings do. Norton reveals the hidden, forgotten, or disregarded lives of the queens. 
 
Readers, this book is perfect if you want to get titbits of information on the queen of your choice. Though each queen’s entry is brief, they are thorough enough to give readers and researchers a well-informed starting point. This book is an excellent choice for readers interested in history and who want to know about more than just one queen or are looking for an overview of the lives of English queens. 
 
Writers, read this book if you want a brief introduction to the queen, dynasty or era of your interest. If you’re researching a specific historical era, it gives a nice background for each period, and this book is especially good for information of the lives of the lesser-known queens. 
 
Warning: it’s longer than it looks. 
 
Norton, Elizabeth. 2012. England’s Queens: The Biography. Stroud: Amberley Publishing. 


    Author

    I read a lot and I hope to help authors with the craft of writing. I share good examples of difficult aspects of writing: point of view, narration, world building and more.

    Occasionally I give editing tips and share insights from the world of publishing. 

    The author of the blog stands infront of the purple Knight Bus from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
    Send me an email!

    Recent Posts

    England's Queens: The Biography
    Keeping Up With the Editors
    ​Happy Birthday, Poe!
    Appreciate a Dragon Day
    I Was Wrong – Or What I Learned from a Year on the SYP London Committee
    Shortlist of the Best Books I Read in 2020
    V for Vendetta
    Rebecca
    The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
    Elizabeth of York: The First Tudor Queen
    Wishful Drinking
    The Giver
    The Mandibles: A Family 2029–2047
    The Diary of a Bookseller
    The Dutch House
    The Uncrowned Queen: The Fateful Life of Margaret Beaufort
    Becoming a Writer
    Homegoing
    Things Fall Apart
    ​Blog FAQ
    Welcome to My Bookshelves!

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019


    Categories

    All
    2020
    Africa
    Anarchy
    Anchor Books
    Anglo Saxons
    Banking
    Biography
    Birthdays
    Bloomsbury
    Book Blogs
    Book Club
    BookMachine
    BookMarchine
    Books
    Bookseller
    Bookshelves
    Bookshops
    Box Hill
    Capitalism
    Carrie Fisher
    Chaos
    Christmas Books
    Classics
    Collapse
    Comics
    Communication
    Copyeditor's Handbook
    Copyeditor's Workbook
    Corona Virus
    Counting Books
    Debbie Reynolds
    Diary
    Diary Of A Bookseller
    Dictionary
    Doubleday
    Dragons
    Dr. Burney
    Drinking
    Dr. Samuel Johnson
    Dystopia
    Economics
    Economy
    Edgar Allan Poe
    Editing
    Editor
    Elizabeth Norton
    Emma Of Normandy
    Family
    Family History
    Fanny Burney
    Fantasy
    Farrar
    Fiction
    Finance
    Freelance
    Genre
    Graphic Novels
    Guildhall
    Harper
    Hiking
    History
    Hollywood
    Houses Of Parliament
    Jane Austen
    Japan
    Jonathan Cape
    J.P. Tarcher
    Knopf
    Knowledge
    Learning
    Letters
    Library
    Literary Fiction
    Lives Of Women
    Lockdown Christmas
    Londinium
    London
    London Bookshop Crawl
    London History
    London Open House
    Medieval History
    Memoir
    Michael O'Mara
    Motivation
    Murder Mystery
    Networking
    Nonfiction
    Palace Of Westminster
    Penguin Random House
    Pocket Books
    Political Science
    Progress Report
    Proofreading
    Publishing
    Queen Of England
    Queens
    Roman Ruins
    Roots
    Royal Courts Of Justice
    Royal Family
    Royal History
    Short Stories
    Simon & Schuster
    Skills
    Sourcebooks Landmark
    Starting A Business
    Star Wars
    St. Dunstan In The East
    St. Paul's Cathedral
    Straus And Giroux
    Study
    The Shard
    The Strand
    The Walkie-Talkie
    Thriller
    Tips
    True Love
    Tudor
    UK Travel
    V For Vendetta
    Vikings
    Volunteer
    War Of The Roses
    Westminster Abbey
    Wigtown
    Writer Tips
    Writing
    Writing Advice
    YA
    Zoom


    RSS Feed



​​Contact​
FAQ
​About

© Kelly Urgan 2016–2021

  • Home
  • FAQ
  • About
  • Portfolio
  • Resources
  • Contact
  • Blog