Parergon

One of Palgrave Macmillan’s latest publications in the series ‘Queenship and Power’ is a four-volume collection called English Consorts: Power, Influence, and Dynasty (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), edited by Aidan Norrie, Carolyn Harris, J. L. Laynesmith, Danna R. Messer, and Elena Woodacre, all of whom possess impeccable credentials in queenship and royal studies. The collection features individual biographies of all English and British consorts since England fell to the Normans in 1066. This book, Later Plantagenet and the Wars of the Roses Consorts: Power, Influence, and Dynasty, is the second volume of the collection. It includes the following queen consorts (in chronological order): Isabella of France (wife to Edward II), Philippa of Hainault (wife to Edward III), Anne of Bohemia (wife to Richard II), Isabella of Valois (second wife of Richard II), Joan of Navarre (wife to Henry IV), Katherine of Valois (wife to Henry V), Margaret of Anjou (wife to Henry VI), Elizabeth Woodville (wife to Edward IV), and Anne Neville (wife to Richard II). All these queens’ tenures were ‘marked by conflict and warfare’ (p. 2), an unsurprising circumstance given that these women lived as queens during the Hundred Years War and the Wars of the Roses, two major conflicts that occurred in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

As the editors point out, there are two main problems with previous single biographies and biographical collections of English and British consorts from 1066 onwards. The first is that not all royal consorts have been treated with the same attention and interest by scholars or popular writers, and the second is that there is no one single corpus of work covering all the said consorts. One of the editors’ stated aims is, therefore, to provide ‘a single scholarly compendium wherein all the consorts since the Norman Conquest can be consulted’ (p. xxi). If this volume and the generally excellent quality of its biographical chapters are any guide, both problems have been successfully countered, at least for this group of consorts. Standout chapters for me include Louise Tingle’s treatment of Isabella of Valois, ‘one of England’s most obscure and forgotten consorts’ (p. 87), and Katherine J. Lewis’s work on Katherine of Valois, another consort who is arguably just as obscure as Isabella.

Two features further distinguish this volume and collection from many other collected works. First, each biography has been written with a primary focus in mind, and, second, each volume includes thematic chapters that serve to [End Page 232] complement the biographies by addressing relevant issues. The specific focus of each biography is intended to convey to the reader a sense of what was exceptional about the consort and is signalled in the title of the chapter. For instance, the subtitle of Anne of Bohemia’s biography is ‘Overcoming Infertility’, a clear signal that Anne’s childlessness will be the primary focus of the chapter. This approach is laudable, since it would be impossible to write about all aspects of these queens’ lives and tenures within the space of a few thousand words. The specific focus provides a lens through which to view the life of the consort, and, in many of the cases here, the adopted focus is, in fact, the aspect that frequently defines a particular consort.

Nevertheless, there are challenges posed by using this method. The contributors have had to sketch narrative facts quite hastily, which may irk readers who want such detail. Moreover, the lens chosen by some of the contributors is not necessarily that which has typically defined that consort, and choosing a specific focus, no matter how necessary this is, increases the risk that the consort is presented in a one-dimensional manner. Carole Levin’s biography of Margaret of Anjou is a case in point, but...