I must say that I am terribly tempted by these intrigues at royal courts, poisons, public executions, battles and fights for the throne, but also beautiful princesses, lavish lunches and balls, well, not one girl wanted to be a princess.
Oh sorry, after reading these books, I'd rather be an ordinary wife of the innkeeper.
I was looking for something about the war of roses, and at the same time it would not be too boring a historical book.
And what you ask for it you have. Like dinner on a plate in a restaurant.
Let's start with the esteemed writer Philippe Gregory, a historian who in England was hailed as "the queen of English historical fiction".
You can not say that she only writes fictions because there are many historical facts in her books. Anyway, at the end of every book, she writes what is not a historical truth but only her thoughts on how the story could have happened, give the authors of the books from which she drew historical knowledge.
After all, not everything is known in history, because the queen did not write down in her diary that she poisoned her sister-in-law, killed her best friend's sons - we can only guess.
A series of five books.
You could say that they are written like diaries that they wrote in those
times, ladies from good homes and these are the main women from the war of the two roses or war cousins who, pushed with their own ambitions, play significant roles in the kingdom (after all, every mother wants to see her son on the throne of England).
You can not choose only one book, eg. for the Queen of England, but you have to read all five because then you have to watch everything.
And so the queen only writes about her good sides, about her colorful life, balls, dinners and battles her husband Edward IV chooses for.
But before we read about her royal life, we must first read where she came from on the English throne and in England in general.
And the first book I recommend "The lady of the Rivers" and this is the story of the life of Jacquetta of Luxemburg, mother of Elizabeth Woodville.
The eldest daughter of Piotr I of Luxembourger and Margaret de Baux.
At the beginning of the book, we meet Jacquetta, who which establishes a relationship with Joanne d`Arc in her uncle's prison and is the world of its burning at the stake, which makes her think that her "gift" is not welcome in Christian Europe.
At the age of 17, she married John, Prince Bedford (he was the brother of King Henry V), who died after two years of childless marriage and here in the book there is another legend.
Apparently, the Luxembourg dynasty derives from the legendary river goddess Meluzyna, who was the grandmother of Siegfried and the first count of Luxemburg, and her first husband wants to find a philosopher's stone and change metal into gold, so he goes to astrologers and they inform him that he will be lucky if he takes Jacquetta as a wife, but she must be a virgin, because then her "visions" will be cleaner.
During this marriage, Jacquetta falls in love with Richard Woodville's squire and Chamberlain.
She knows that after a year mourning for her husband, the King of England will show her a new husband and marry Richard for love and thus lose her lands and titles given to her by her husband, she was also forbidden to stay outside the court and was assigned a one-year annuity of 1,000 pounds.
This changed when the wife and queen of England became Margaret , whose brother was Jacquetta's brother-in-law and under the pressure of Queen Henry, recognized her marriage, reinstated Richard and appointed Baron Rivers , and two years later, the Knight of the Garter.
The book shows how much the queen relied on Jacobin and always asked her advice and and even asks her for divination, Jacquetta was always devoted to the queen and of course you can not overlook how much she loved her husband, and every his return from Caleis(which at that time belonged to England) was crowned with the birth of another child (and there were 14).
Jacquetta is not happy to use his divination skills, because she knows what it threatens, but she sees the future and can not believe that this is how the fate of Queen and her daughter Elizabeth are to go.
But read about it in this book.
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