This blog post was inspired by Kathryn Warner`s fabulous Support Group for People Unfairly Maligned in Historical Fiction. While I have often been complaining about a certain sort of historical fiction featuring Francis, especially that a lot of this fiction does not even seem particularly interested in him, I have also noticed that the female characters are very often reduced to victims if they are meant to be sympathetic.
It goes without saying that this is creepy in all sorts of ways, and very often extremely sexist, so this post was born.
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Anne Neville: “Hello everyone. I`m Anne Neville, or Queen Anne if you want, and I will chair this meeting of the Support Group for Women Constantly Reduced to Nothing but Victims. If you don`t mind, let me start. I was the second daughter and co-heiress of one of the richest men in England in the fifteenth century. My father, the Earl of Warwick, was also one of the most important men in the kingdom, and when he seemed likely to lose that power and King Edward IV would not allow him to marry me and my sister to his brothers, he rebelled. He married me to Henry VI`s only son, intending to make me a queen. When that eventually failed, I chose to marry King Edward IV`s youngest brother and eventually became queen after all. I thought I was quite successful at life, but modern day novelists clearly think I was the greatest victim imaginable. What haven`t I been all called a victim for: of my father`s, for him arranging a marriage for me. A marriage to make me queen, no less, but still I have been called a “pawn“ for it, and one famous novel literally says “damn Warwick for what he had done to her“. As if I was too stupid to understand customs and that I had to fulfill them like everyone!
My first husband, Edward, has also been claimed to have victimised me. Just because someone invented that he stated at the age of seven that two traitors should be beheaded. To be honest, I like a bit of a ruthless streak in a man! How else would he succeed at court and give me the position owed to me? But poor Edward did not say that anyway.
My brother-in-law George, Duke of Clarence has also often been claimed to have victimised me, supposedly even hiding me away so I would not marry. That story does not even make sense, but it is claimed to be true because he did not want me to marry his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester. I damn well hope he did not, because it meant he would not get money that was owed to me! But apparently it makes for a better story if I don`t care for money and just want to marry for purest love. Because I just happened to fall in pure love with a prince, the only one to be able to act in my interest against Clarence. Right.
Look for someone else to make a victim of!
Eleanor of Aquitaine: I feel your pain, Anne. I have been portrayed as a helpless victim as well several times, by authors who apparently felt they could not justify my actions otherwise. I`m telling you, you did not need to be victimised by my husband Henry II to rebel against him! His pure presence is enough to make me mad! But novelists somehow think I am more sympathetic if they insist he raped me to conceive our last son, John. As if! He was much less annoying in bed than out of bed, so really, I was glad to have him there. It`s the only area where I miss him – but I digress. Novelists have also decided that I was a victim of Thomas Becket. Of Thomas! Like Henry, he could be a bit hard to bear, but he was also one of the few who dared contradicting him, together with me, so really I was glad for his presence. Honestly, what am I, thirteen? Jealous that my boyfriend has friends and doesn't focus on me? And that time he greeted foreign visitors instead of me, that novelists use as evidence he somehow usurped me? I was in confinement! Just preparing to give birth! I could not have received them; he was substituting for me. Honestly. How is that so hard? Nor did he steal my oldest son`s love. What do these novels expect, I would have rather handed young Henry to a household with someone he hated?
And no, I also did not rebel against Henry because he cheated on me with Rosamund. I knew he cheated, and guess what? I did not care. I even saw to it that some of his illegitimate children were raised together with mine. I thought they could be a calming influence. I should have guessed that would not work. After all, they were all Henry`s … but different story. Point being, I was not victimised by anyone. And do not get me started on that novel in which poor hapless Louis, my first husband, sexually abuses me. That is really too weird to even address.
Isabel Neville: Hello, sister dearest, hello Eleanor. I hope I can join in this meeting, given that I have been made a victim of my husband George with an alarming frequency in novels. This, as I am sure you will guess if not know, is based on absolutely nothing by way of evidence. George and I were quite happy actually. I mean, I even chose to side with him rather than my father when George decided to go against him, and there is no way he could have forced me in any way.
This, by the way, does not mean that my father in any way abused me, though that has sometimes been claimed as well. Apparently, it was abusive of him to marry me to George, rather than let me decide for myself whom I want to marry. Because apparently, like my sister, I was just too stupid to understand that customs that counted for everyone like me also applied to me. Some novels even manage to make me a victim of both my poor father and my husband, saying that my father married me to George despite knowing what he was like. Weirdly enough, I have never seen anyone call my grandfather Richard Beauchamp abusive for marrying my mother to my father when daddy was by far too young to guess “what he was like”. Or Richard, Duke of York, for marrying his own daughter Anne to Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, who really was a sleaze. It's always just my father who gets the abusive edit for marrying me to George, and Anne to Edward, and that even though they were perfectly good marriages. But I immediately stop being a victim the moment my father died and Anne became a member of my and George`s household. Then I am suddenly haughty and mean to Anne. The need to see Anne victimised apparently trumps the need to see me victimised. It`s weird.
Isabella of France: I know just how you feel. I have been victimised for absolutely everything in my life, unless it`s something modern novels see as “badass”, in which case I suddenly stop being a victim and I`m instead a strong, empowered woman. But this is not in any way consistent - I apparently switched back to being a victim at a moment`s notice.
Do I really need to tell you that this is untrue? I was not a victim of my husband Edward II, and honestly it`s creepy to see it written that he should have focused more on me and less on his boyfriend Piers when I first became his wife. I was twelve! In what universe does my husband not being sexually and romantically interested in me when I was twelve make me a victim? Nor was I a victim of my husband loving Piers when I was old enough to be Edward`s wife in more than name. Just between us, I quite liked Piers - I even gave him money once. He was hilarious and charming, and Edward was always so happy when he was around. Nor did he ignore our children, thereby making me terribly miserable and victimising me. Wouldn't our kids be more the victim in that case anyway? But really, Edward was a good father, and we were perfectly happy for quite long; it was only when that terrible man Despenser turned up that things turned sour. But as much as I hated Despenser - and trust me, I hated him. I wouldn`t have put anything past him - he did not rape me. Why does everything always have to be reduced to rape anyway? Like Eleanor rebelling against her husband - why does rape have to be the motivation? As if, because we`re women, we`re not able to have any political thoughts unless we have been sexually assaulted?
Anne Neville: I know what you mean! Apart from my poor first husband Edward, I have been claimed in novels to have been molested by a lot of random men. William Stanley, for example, for … no real reason I can discern. Another novel has my brother-in-law Edward IV leer at me and openly contemplate if he wants to rape me to pay back my father for rebelling against him. I`m just … speechless, really. But in my case, these novels always use these invented sexual assaults to explain why I have no interest whatsoever in politics. I know I kept fairly low profile, but this was just because I was perfectly happy doing that, not because my lack of political interest was due to sexual assault.
Elizabeth of York: Oh no, Anne, a lot of these novels reducing us to victims do not make all our political motivations, or lack thereof, based on sexual assault. Other sexual motivations such as rejections or simple desires also figure in. For example, I have been claimed to have been a victim of being rejected by my uncle, and therefore wanted to see him overthrown. Sexually rejected by my uncle! That one has actually even been claimed by something that said it was non-fiction. I mean, honestly. I was not actually a victim of my uncle, either, though. Yes, I didn't like he said I was a bastard, and no, I`m not going to discuss the truth or lack thereof now. This is beneath me! But honestly, though I did not like it, I did not sit around helplessly, wondering how such a thing could possibly happen. I was only four when my godfather, my father`s cousin, went against my father and overthrew him for half a year. I was aware of how dangerous politics could be from a very young age, and I had quite a good time at my uncle Richard`s court. He was going to marry me to a Portugese royal duke. But nor was I a terrible victim for my uncle being overthrown. After all, that meant that I became queen, and I was fond of my husband Henry. He could be a bit tight with the money; but I just went and bought what I wanted on loan. It was an annoyance, sure, but I can`t say I really felt victimised. In fact, most of what has been used to victimise me in novels was really not more than an annoyance. My sometimes a bit overbearing mother-in-law, for example. She could be a bit much, but nor did she make me sit around in the cold, only giving me fire wood when I was pregnant, as one novel has it. As if I spent my time just sitting around being a victim!
Anne Neville: Don`t you know that your whole life was shaped by you watching me being adored by my husband? At least, I know three novels that say so, and I am sure there are more I can`t think off, from the top of my head.
Elizabeth of York: … oh please.
Katherine Swynford: Hello, ladies. I don`t know if I am happy to see I am not alone in being victimised by random people, or be depressed it seems to be so wide-spread. Like for you, Anne, there is a very influential novel that insists that my first husband, Hugh, was a terrible person, who raped me and from whom I was eventually saved by my second husband. It`s insulting, really. Hugh was a perfectly good man, and he was the father of several of my children. And yes, I really did come to love my second husband, John, son of Edward III. I wouldn't have agreed to become his mistress if I had not. But it`s really selling me short to portray me as a damsel rescued by him and not having anything but purest love on my mind when finally starting a relationship with him. I mean, what kind of idiot do you have to be not to realise both the advantages and the disadvantages of becoming the mistress of a prince? I`m also sometimes claimed to have been the victim of my first mother-in-law, for reasons I have yet to fathom, and of pretty much every man I ever encountered. Apparently, all of them desperately desired me and knowing they could never have me, all of them wanted to rape me. You`d think at least most of these men would have better things to do with their time than lecherously lust after me!
Anne Neville: Thank you all for coming, ladies! Until our next meeting, by which time I hope we`re all seen less as helpless victims and more as interesting people in our own right. Good evening, you all!
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