Penny Lawne

This is an interesting and easy read.
There are 2 main issues that I have despite the ease of the writing style.
First, the main character barely appears in her own biography. I know that few records from this period survive and women are only mentioned on texts about men. Due to the legal case Joan was involved with her first 2 marriages more records about her exist than most women of that period.
I enjoyed the information about the key players in Joan's life and times. Still, they star in the book more than Joan.
Second and frankly more disturbing is the author's tendency to pretend like historical data exists about why Joan made the choices she made. Rather than accurately portray what happened, that from this distance we have no clue why Joan chose the way she did, nor how those around her reacted. After which the author is free to offer her opinion stated as an opinion or even educated guess. Instead this author pretends like her opinion or interpretation of events are instead verifiable fact. Sigh.
It's sloppily done and annoying.… (más)

Reasonably solid life of Joan of Kent, wife of the Black Prince and mother of King Richard II. Does more than most with her early life and her father, Edmund earl of Kent, executed by Mortimer for trying to rescue Edward II (after he was actually dead0. Also does a lot with Joan's marriage to Thomas Holland. Lawne accepts that Joan and Holland were secretly married when she was very young (rather than inventing that story years later, as some suspect). More improbably, Lawne believes that most of the ley people at court, including William Montagu earl of Salisbury to whom Joan was officially married afterward, were aware of the Holland marriage but assumed Holland could be bought off. I am very skeptical of this. More probably, she sees Holland as the great love of Joan's life, though she thinks the last marriage of the Prince of Wales was a good relationship that provided for her children by Holland. Lawne tends to feel the prince's administration in Aquitaine was more successful in its early years than some might allow, though admitting it fell apart after the Najera campaign. Lawne believes Joan and John of Gaunt were on very good terms during Richard's minority and that Joan deliberately stayed out of politics as queen mother. I tend to feel there was more tension between Gaunt's followers and the Black Prince's former household.… (más)