Puzzling out Princess Elizabeth Tudor’s Life as a Teen

Puzzling out Princess Elizabeth Tudor’s Life as a Teen

There are a number of puzzling facts about teen Elizabeth Tudor’s relationship with her charismatic stepfather Sir Thomas Seymour. In his second year as Elizabeth’s new stepfather, he was arrested for a score of misdeeds, including behaving inappropriately with her. A number of people were put in prison and many more were questioned, including Elizabeth herself, who was put under a sort of house arrest. The resulting 652 pages of “confessions” are an amazing historical record of 16th-century Tudor England. (See links below.)

One detail I’ve not been able to come to any satisfying conclusion about is this account in the “confession” of Elizabeth’s governess Kat Ashley:

At Hanworth, the queen told Mrs. Ashley that the Lord Admiral looked in at the gallery window and saw Princess Elizabeth cast her arms about a man’s neck. The which hearing, Mrs. Ashley asked Princess Elizabeth, who denied it weeping, and bade ask all her women. They all denied it. And Mrs. Ashley knew it could not be so, for there came no man but Grindle, Princess Elizabeth’s schoolmaster.

Kat Ashley goes on to say that she thought that Dowager Queen Kateryn Parr had made up this story so that Kat would keep a closer eye on her 15-year-old charge. This doesn’t seem plausible to me. If Kateryn Parr was making this up, she could have said that someone else had seen Elizabeth; why involve her husband?

Might Thomas Seymore have made up this story, told his wife that he’d seen their stepdaughter in the arms of a man? The only motivation I can think of is that he had in fact embraced Elizabeth and was nervous that they might have been seen, creating an “It wasn’t me!” defence by throwing Elizabeth under the bus. Cad that he was, this is possible — cover a crime with a crime — but would that have been to his advantage? Elizabeth would have known it was a fib. Thomas Semour was impulsive by nature and not always savvy in his often shady dealings, but this seems too shabby even for him.

Young Princess Elizabeth, http://www.luminarium.org/, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Also: might it have been true? Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth was constantly in the company of attendants and it would not have been at all in character for her to embrace a man. That her schoolmaster was entirely out of suspicion is, if anything, charming, giving a rare impression of what the distinguished Cambridge scholar might have been like.

For my novel, I’ve taken a fictional path — created whole-cloth, but not historically impossible — by creating a scene where Elizabeth is accosted by her stepbrother. John Neville, the Queen’s stepson by her second marriage, was a troubled youth who was later charged with rape and murder.

I write historical fiction, but I like it to be as close as possible to the known facts. I’m not entirely comfortable creating a fictional account of this episode, so I keep coming back to this breadcrumb of a clue: What really happened? What was going on? If only we could know.


Links:

https://tinyurl.com/ThomasSeymourofSudeley

A Collection of State Papers: relating to Affairs In the Reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth: From the year 1542 to 1570, edited by Samuel Haynes, available online at https://tinyurl.com/HaynesStatePapers, pages 99-100. I’ve reworded this quote for clarity.

https://tinyurl.com/JohnNevilleLatimer


Note:

The post above was first posted on Substack, where I can be found at https://tinyurl.com/SandraSubstackNews. I’m enjoying Substack quite a lot, both as a reader and writer. I recommend it! Please subscribe there if you wish to catch all my musings.

The image at top: “Unknown man,” recently identified as possibly Thomas Seymour, a sketch by Hans Holbein the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

For Research Nerds: clipping information and making it OCR searchable

For Research Nerds: clipping information and making it OCR searchable

When I’m researching and I see a bit of text relevant to my WIP (either online or on Kindle), I will clip it: shift-command-4 and “pull” rectangle around the text I want.

It’s so easy to do I often end up with a mess on my computer desktop. Here’s a screen shot to give you an idea how things can look at the end of a day:

Graphical user interface, application Description automatically generated

My next step is to gather up all the clips and drag them into an empty “Today’s clips” folder. That, at least, looks manageable.

Graphical user interface, application Description automatically generated

Why it’s important to a researcher for all files to be searchable

Research clips are not of much use to me unless I can search the text. For example, if I was looking for clips about Mother of the Maids I should be able to search that title and all relevant files would be listed.

Clips are a png file, a type of photo, so how is this done?

For the text in a photo to be searchable it needs to have OCR — optical character recognition. Basically, OCR makes it possible to search for a word in a photo. Magic.

I’ve messed around with OCR software quite a bit over time. Software such as OneNote claims to convert files automatically, but sometimes so very slowly it’s not practical. Evernote can be touchy and deliver poor results. Also, I need to be able to easily move the OCR’d clip into my writing programmes (Scrivener and AEON Timeline, at this time), which I can’t do — at least not easily — out of Evernote or OneNote.

Why not send a clip directly to Scrivener?

One of the strengths of Scrivener is that I can clip a bit of text from a website directly into my project. However, Scrivener does not offer OCR (at least at this time), so while I will often post a web address URL to Scrivener, I won’t send a clip. I need to be able to search the text of a clip, and without OCR, I can’t do that.

ABBYY FineReader software to the rescue

FineReader is simply an awesome OCR software: fast, powerful and reliable, but at around $150 for Mac, it’s not cheap. (There is a 2-week free trial offered, however.) (Check: is it subscription for Pro?)

I’ll show you what FineReader does with a day’s pile of clips:

Table Description automatically generated

I select and drag all of them into the Fine Reader icon in the dock:

It bounces around a bit as it does the work, and then, snap, it’s done.

FineReader, step-by-step

First I get a “Completed” notice with problem alerts — these I simply ignore and click “Close.”

The next screen shows small images of the clips on the left with enlarged versions on the right. I also ignore all that and click “Export” in the header.

That brings me to this window, which has the PDF option lightly highlighted. I ignore all the options in the middle and click Next in the lower right corner.

Graphical user interface, text, application, email Description automatically generated

The final window gives me the opportunity to name the collection. I type in “Today’s clips” and select where I want them to show up on my computer (desktop, for now).

Graphical user interface, text, application, email Description automatically generated

Caution!

The really, really, really important thing about this final window is to save each clip to a separate file. (Unless it’s a book file: You don’t want a separate file for each page!)

Click “Export,” and it’s done.

Done? Almost …

I now have 24 searchable clips which I rename and file to put into either AEON Timeline (for events and date-specific clips) or my Scrivener project file. I then trash the original unsearchable clips.

I do a computer search for “Mother of the Maids” and of the over 20 pdf files listed, my 3 newest clips that mention “Mother of the Maids” are listed at the top:

Success!

And that’s it, for now. Next up, I hope to write a blog post about Mrs. Stonor (sometimes Stoner), a Mother of the Maids who looked after the young, unmarried Maids of Honour who served most if not all of Henry VIII’s six wives. Four of these maids became the next wife and all four ended up dead.

Now there’s a story. :-)


After not using FineReader for a time, the documents would not come out searchable. I messed with this for hours without luck — until I clicked the “set to default” button in the last frame. :-)

The one problematic part of this process is that the file will come out “untitled,”  so I select and copy the title before putting it through the process.

Frazzled much? The challenges of writing fact-based fiction

Frazzled much? The challenges of writing fact-based fiction

I’ve been stuck for nearly a week over a chapter in the WIP. (The whip, I think ruefully, as I type those letters.) The problem has many causes. One is that I have a stubborn need to know where-the-heck my heroine (Elizabeth Tudor, in this instance) is, in fact. It’s a period of only two days, and historians don’t provide the details—which should lead me to suspect that the information simply isn’t available.

Edward VI with flowers by William Scrots, circa 1550

It’s an important moment, so I’m surprised not more is known. Fifteen-year-old King Eddie VI has died, and (after something of a bloodless battle) his half-sister Mary has been proclaimed queen.

Portrait of Queen Mary I of England by Antonis Mor, 1554.

Mary’s much younger half-sister Elizabeth (not yet twenty), is now the heir to the throne. She is riding out to meet Mary—to bow before her sister queen.

Elizabeth, a good ten years later.

First, the frazzled timeline

This is what is said:

On Friday, July 28, 1553, news of her sister Mary’s accession reaches Elizabeth at Hatfield. (Tudors—Twenty-eight Days to Wanstead by Alan Cornish)

This website account is fantastic, but this one date is unlikely, in my view, because Mary was proclaimed queen in London on July 19.

According to historian Tracy Borman in Elizabeth’s Women (page 136), Elizabeth wrote Mary on that day to congratulate her, but also …

Showing all due deference, she also humbly craved Mary’s advice as to whether she ought to appear in mourning clothes out of respect for their brother, Edward, or something more festive.

(This is the type of detail I relish.)

It would have taken time for Elizabeth’s missive to reach Mary, for she was in the northeast, at her Framlingham castle, already attending to matters of state business and debating whether or not to go to London. Some advised her that it would be wise to return soon while the public was so enthusiastic about her. On the negative side, it was stinking hot in London and there were rumours of plague.

Mary was apparently prepared to be magnanimous in her triumph. She therefore invited Elizabeth to accompany her to London. (Borman’s Elizabeth’s Women)

Mary set out for London on Monday, July 24. It was a long journey: Ipswich (two nights), Colchester (one night), Newhall (three nights), Ingatestone (two nights), Havering (one night), finally arriving at Wanstead House on Tuesday, August 1, where she welcomed Elisabeth the next day, on August 2. (This overnight stay is rarely mentioned in biographies.) Together they set out for London on Thursday, August 3—with a combined entourage of over twenty thousand—arriving late that afternoon in London.

Elizabeth set out to meet Mary on Saturday, July 29, and by most accounts, she stayed for only one night in London before heading out the next day, Sunday, July 30, to meet Mary.

The puzzle

The journey from the London gate to Wanstead takes but a few hours on foot. (See my note below.) If Elizabeth was in London on July 29 for only one night, and met Mary on August 2 near Wanstead, where was she on July 31 and August 1? She was travelling with an entourage of over a thousand, so it was not as if she could drop in just anywhere.

This question foolishly cost me several days of work. I finally found support for the likelihood that Elizabeth had simply stayed at Somerset House, her new (to her) manor in London, for the full three nights. (Elizabeth I; The Word of a Prince, by Maria Perry, page 83.)

Second, the frazzled meet-up

A few historians state that Elizabeth stayed with Mary for one night at Wanstead House, and the consensus seems to be that they met on the road, and that Elizabeth dismounted and knelt in the dirt before Mary.

The problem with writing fact-based fiction — at least for me — is that things have to make sense. So now my question was: If Mary was expecting Elizabeth at Wanstead House, why did she meet her on the road? I didn’t want to spend another week on this, so I decided to sketch out a draft where they meet on the road, Elizabeth kneels, and they move on to Wanstead House from there.

But then what?

However Elizabeth and Mary meet, the sheer size of their entourages boggled my mind. Elizabeth had an entourage of over a thousand, but it was nothing to compare with her sister’s following. Imagine:

In the late afternoon of 3 August, Mary Tudor set out in procession from Wanstead to take possession of her kingdom. Those who stood along the processional route to London were astounded by the great number in her party. Mary had an escort of some ten thousand people with her – ‘gentlemen, squires, knights and lords’, and not to mention, the various peeresses, clergymen, judges, heralds, and foreign dignitaries come to pay her tribute.

—The Turbulent Crown: The Story of the Tudor Queens by Roland Hui (p. 322).

This is an image of the coronation procession of Elizabeth’s brother, King Edward VI. Imagine the traffic congestion!

This was at a hot time of year: the dust clouds of Mary’s procession coming through rural Essex must have been horrendous.

It did not take long to run into another time-consuming research question: Once they reach London, followed by well over ten thousand, what route do they take to the Tower of London? I decided that one hint might be to find out what the traditional route for a regal procession to or from the Tower of London might have been. This (eventually) led me to an amazing book (in four volumes): The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth by John Nichols on https://books.google.ca. On page 115 of Volume 1, there is this map:

Knowing this, I was able to chart the route on the fabulous interactive Agas Map of Early Modern London: Entering at Aldgate, they would wend their way down Aldgate Street, take the left fork onto Fenchurch Street, left onto Mark Lane, right on Tower Street and right again on Petty Wales to the entry into the Tower.

To the Tower!

My second puzzle, also solved today, was to determine where were the queen’s apartments in the Tower of London. Several maps later, including the one below, I discovered that the queen’s apartments were in the lower right-hand corner of the Tower premises, fairly cut off from any unpleasantness.

For what queen’s apartments might have looked like, I found an excellent blog post on The Tudor Travel Guide: The Royal Apartments at the Tower & the Scandalous Killing of Anne Boleyn.

In addition to great details, the site provides this image of what the Great Hall at the Tower likely looked like:

This helps give me a feeling for what the rooms beyond might have been like.

How much of this is likely to end up mentioned in the novel? Likely very little, but knowing what’s what helps me imagine the scenes.


Confession: two research tricks

To estimate approximate walking distances, I find it useful to use maps.google.com.

(Too bad maps.google doesn’t have an “on horseback” option. For this, I suspect that somewhere between “walking” and “by bike” might be an approximation, given all the stops horseback travel requires to give the horses rest, food, and water, or possible exchanges.)

Another part of knowing what’s what is determining when the sun rises and sets, and (particularly in this time) when the moon is full. I can’t track that for 16th century England, so instead, to at least keep the sun and moon on realistic trajectories I’m using the current calendar for the UK using this fantastic site: timeanddate.com.

And so? So now “all” I have to do is write the #%&@ scenes.


Resources mentioned

Books Google

Elizabeth’s Women by Tracy Borman.

Elizabeth I; The Word of a Prince, by Maria Perry.

Google Maps

The Agas Map of Early Modern London

The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth by John Nichols.

The Royal Apartments at the Tower & the Scandalous Killing of Anne Boleyn, a blog post on The Tudor Travel Guide.

The Turbulent Crown: The Story of the Tudor Queens, by Roland Hui.

Timeanddate.com

Tudors — Twenty-eight Days to Wanstead by Alan Cornish. This website post is a wonderfully detailed account.

The pros & cons and ups & downs of OCR and Scrivener

The pros & cons and ups & downs of OCR and Scrivener

(Warning: tech talk ahead!)

I’ve been putting research documents into Scrivener, assuming that they were searchable. After all, one oft-stated advantage of using Scrivener is that you have all your documents in one place.

Dissertating with Scrivener « The Junto

It’s true that I can put everything and anything into Scrivener, but I also need to be able to search within those documents. I mistakenly assumed that one of Scrivener’s many superpowers was the ability to make all documents searchable. In other words, I assumed that Scrivener utilized OCR (Optical Character Recognition). Not so. :-(

Having searchable documents is important for my current WIP because it’s set in the 16th century, and a number of the resources are rare and/or ancient and only available on BooksGoogle or InternetArchive. I’ve taken to clipping relevant parts of such documents (shift-control-4 on a Mac) or exporting them whole as PDFs before sending them to Scrivener. The clips are a type of image, so they need OCR to be searched, and most PDFs are not searchable as well.

And so I began to look at ways to make documents searchable before putting them in Scrivener. In the process, I discovered that anything to do with OCR opened a bottomless pit. I will try to keep this simple.

Dedicated OCR software

One possibility would be to invest in a software programme dedicated to making documents OCR searchable. The highest-rated programme for Mac is ABBYY FineReader Pro, available on trial for 30 days. I tested it out on a clip (below), and in seconds had a searchable Word document that beautifully preserved the formatting of the original.

This is the original clip:

And this is the searchable Word document:

Wow.

Databases that make documents searchable

The other possibility would be to use a database that automatically makes documents OCR searchable. The advantage of using such a database is that it is—duh—a database, a logical place to store research documents. … which brings me to OneNote and EverNote.

evernote logo design | Flickr - Photo Sharing! Best 7 Evernote Alternatives: Try These Great Apps Like ...

Both EverNote and OneNote convert documents to OCR, so I decided to test them both using the test clip above.

It took well over an hour for OneNote to convert it to a searchable text, but EverNote has yet to do so even a day later!

Once made searchable, there is a way to create a copy in EverNote, a copy that can then be put in Scrivener, but it’s weird and basically unreadable, showing every word as a separate object.

In OneNote, once the document has gone through the OCR treatment, it’s possible to easily create a searchable text version. (Control-click the document and select “Copy text from picture.”)

This is what I got from my test clip:

Here comes old Woodcock, the Yeoman of Kent, that’s half Farmer and half Gentleman; his horses go to the plow all week, and are put into the coach o’ Sunday.

Tunbridge Walks or the Yeoman of Kent, act I, sc. 1

Not as pretty as ABBYY FineReader, but not at all bad. (I did clean it up a bit.) This text can now be copied and pasted into Scrivener or wherever I want it.

Note: It would have been nice to be able to send this searchable text directly to Scrivener. I passed on this recommendation to OneNote and discovered 1) that their help menu actually helps (EverNote Help is extremely basic), and 2) that they ask how to improve. What a concept! (But do they listen? That remains to be seen.)

A word about Web Clippers

One beautiful thing about EverNote is its Web Clipper. With it, I can send the contents of any webpage to EverNote and, at the same time, indicate which notebook it should be filed in and how it should be tagged.

Evernote Web Clipper 6 For Googles Chrome Browser Launches ...

OneNote’s Web Clipper is not functional on Safari right now due to recent OS changes at Apple. I trust that this will be solved. In any case, it is available on Chrome or FireFox.

It’s a good clipper, but it’s not as useful as EverNote’s. Although you can choose what OneNote notebook to file it in, you can’t specify beyond that with tags, and you can’t file it in more than one place.

OneNote Web Clipper updated with YouTube support, preview ...

Which brings me to Tags

Being able to add tags to a document in EverNote is great. For example, I’d be able to tag an 18th-century French recipe for roasted swans as 18th century, France, food, recipes and swans. This would allow me to narrow a search for a perfect detail regarding a roasted swan snack.

OneNote doesn’t have a tag function, alas—at least not that I can see.

What about cost?

I use EverNote heavily, so I need their Premium plan, which costs $5.83 US a month when paying annually. For that I get 10GB uploads per month, and am able to search PDFs. (For more information about Evernote pricing, click here.)

OneNote is included in an Office 365 subscription package. (Some claim it’s also now available as a free stand-alone, but I’ve not been able to confirm that.) Since I’m already subscribed to the Office 365 world, I can start using OneNote at no additional cost. With OneNote, I get unlimited uploads, so win-win.

Say what? A scanner app?

Scanning pages from books is too slow to be practical. I’m delighted with the Microsoft app Office Lens, which will send a image directly to OneNote. This will save me lots of time.

For example, I took the image below with Office Lens and sent it to OneNote at 10:30 am. In under 30 minutes, it was searchable and even the all-text extract was surprisingly good.

EverNote or OneNote or … ? My conclusion

I do need a database, but given the pros and cons of OneNote and Evernote, where do I stand?

Because of the expense and inconsistent, slow and inadequate OCR function of EverNote, I have decided to migrate my extensive EverNote database to OneNote.

I should mention, as well, that there are indications that EverNote might be heading into hard times, and I don’t want to be left in the lurch.

It’s possible to import EverNote documents into OneNote using their OneNote Importer app, but judging from this note—

The importer software described on this page is still available for you to download and use, but we’re no longer actively developing or supporting this tool.

—that may not always be possible, so migrating now is perhaps wise.

I’ve never been a Microsoft fan—Mac users aren’t their priority—but OneNote for Mac looks worthy, so I’m going to make the move.  I’ve also purchased ABBYY FineReader Pro, and given that I will be unsubscribing from EverNote, I’ll be coming out ahead in more ways than one.  :-)


The links below might be of interest.

Be aware that there are differences between OneNote for Mac and the mothership OneNote for PC users. Also, OneNote for Mac has been recently “updated”—but the changes have caused quite an uproar because it’s no longer possible to arrange tabs along the top, as in this example:

I would love to have such tabs back and I’m hoping the OneNote engineers succumb. Some long-time users are even advocating reverting to the 2016 version and vowing never again to upgrade.

Evernote vs OneNote: The Best Note-taking App in 2019

Top 10 things you didn’t know about OneNote

Using Onenote for your Novel I was excited about trying out this template but it’s for an old version of OneNote, and possibly not applicable to Mac.

Why OneNote is One-Derful for Writers. Inspiring!

Eagles, red kites and an Elizabethan wedding: a round-about way to come up with an idea for a scene

Eagles, red kites and an Elizabethan wedding: a round-about way to come up with an idea for a scene

Yesterday I began searching for my next raptor to paint and I was captured by this lady, named, appropriately, “Imperious.”

I wanted to find out the breed of this bird and to know if it might be one my character in The Next Novel might have had experience with. In other words, what was this bird, and was it common to Elizabethan England?

http://raphaelhistoricfalconry.com/img/Team-Raphael-Falconry.jpgI’d discovered Imperious on the website of Raphael Historical Falconry, and so I wrote to them. This morning, I had a long email from Emma Raphael, giving me a full and very interesting explanation. (People are so very generous with their knowledge!) Imperious is a Golden Eagle hybrid, and Eagles were rarely seen in Elizabethan England. In fact, there was only one recorded, in the ruins of an old castle near Chester, and was persecuted by farmers who feared for their young cattle.

The beauty of the Red Kite

The wild raptor most associated with Elizabethan England, Emma went on to explain, is the Red Kite.

Free photo: Red Kite, Bird Of Prey, Milan - Free Image on ...

The red kite might be a scavenger raptor, but it is so beautiful! I believe I may have found my next painting subject. (Note: I did!)

Emma went on to explain about red kites in Elizabethan England:

They were at their highest population levels ever at this time because of the spread of human settlements and all the open rubbish pits found in towns and villages in which they scavenged. They flocked in their hundreds and could be seen wheeling around the skies like crows whistling and calling.

She suggested I look at the painting “The Wedding at Bermondsey” — a painting of a wedding in Elizabethan London. From a detail of the painting, red kites can be seen in the sky.

Emma goes on to explain that …

The royals throughout the period hunted kites with Gyr Falcons because they were so numerous and there are lots of accounts of “kite hawking” in Londonshire, Cambridgeshire and Huntingtonshire.

Cambridgeshire is the initial location of The Next Novel, and so here, with a simple inquiry about Imperious, I have a wealth of scene possibilities.

The charm of men in bloomers

Additionally, ” Wedding at Bermondsey” is a painting I could get absorbed in for some time. The details are delicious. The 16th century is new to me, and I confess that men in bloomers are charmingly captivating.

Wedding at Bermondsey, Joris Hoefnagel, 1569-71 | Historic ...

Why Do Only Women Have to Dress Well?

 

Belgium artist Joris Hoefnagel painted “Wedding at Bermondsey” some time after his visit to the UK in 1569.

Molière’s wife Armande: a story that begs to be told

Molière’s wife Armande: a story that begs to be told

In preparing for a video presentation of The Shadow Queen  to book clubs here in San Miguel de AllendeI’ve been revisiting the world of that novel — especially the magical world of 17th century theatre in Paris. Rereading this blog post, written long ago, I was captured once again by the story of Molière and his much younger wife Armande. Theirs was a story I was planning to write before I got spirited away into the world of The Game of Hope.

And so here, to share, is my post from 2009, spruced up with wonderful visuals. (Thank you, Internet!)


I’m doing a great deal of research right now into the theater world of 17th century France. My focus is on Claude de Vin des Oeillets, the daughter of actors, but along the way I’ve been encountering many wonderful characters. So many stories!

Molière’s wife Armande, 23 years his junior

One, in particular, is that of the actress Armande Béjart, Molière‘s wife. He was 40 when they married, she only 17. She had known him all her life, and must have regarded him as something of a father and teacher. Indeed, he had taken charge of her education as a child.

They were a miserable couple. It is said that Armande was heartless and vain. She was considered a frivolous, giddy flirt, and was quite likely unfaithful (possibly to Lauzun, and possibly to the comte de Guiche); certainly Molière was consumed by jealousy. After the birth of a son, and then a daughter, they lived apart, yet they continued to work together closely on the stage. Molière could simply not stop doting on her . . . and neither could the public. She was a brilliant actress, and Molière was inspired to write many roles specifically for her.

Molière

A mutual friend eventually persuaded Armande to reconcile with her increasingly consumptive and love-sick husband. She did, putting him on a strict meat diet, yet he continued to decline. On the day of the 4th performance of “The Imaginary Invalid,” in which he starred, Armande begged him not to play. He refused, knowing how many depended on the performance for their livelihood.

At the end of play, Molière (ironically playing the part of a hypochondriac) had a convulsion, which he tried to disguise with a harsh laugh. The curtain was hastily lowered and he was carried to his house. Always a comedian, he said on his deathbed: “I have set a detestable example. From now on, no playwright will be content until he has killed an actor.”

After her husband’s death, Armande proved to be anything but giddy and frivolous, fighting passionately for her husband’s right to be respectfully buried by the church (a fight she sadly lost), and then running Molière’s theatrical company with astonishing confidence and aplomb, making a number of difficult decisions that proved to be very successful. He would have been pleased.

I love her saucy attitude, but most of all I love how talented she was, and how capable she proved to be as a widow. Someday I hope to write about her.

[Note: This post was originally published on Hoydens and Firebrands, a website of women who write about the 17th century.]