by Anne O'Brien
17 Top Ten Books
QUESTIONS FOR YOUR READING GROUP
1. A wife was regarded as little more than a possession of her husband. To what extent does the life of Anne Neville and her family support this view of marriage in the fifteenth century?
2. How was the role and life of women in fifteenth-century England different from today? To what extent was this a good time to be a woman? Did Anne have a better experience of life than many women of her time?
3. Why was King Edward not willing to uphold the law with regard to Anne’s inheritance? Was he justified in taking this stand in the circumstances?
4. At what point do you consider that Anne came of age and left her childhood behind?
5. Eventually Anne was driven to put much of the blame for her family’s sufferings at the door of her father, the Earl of Warwick. Do you think she was right to do so? Was Warwick in any way justified?
6. A ‘What If…’ question…If Edward of Lancaster had lived and the Lancastrians had been victorious at Tewkesbury, do you consider that Anne would have had any chance of happiness as Queen of England?
7. Richard was guilty of Prince Edward’s death. How hard would you consider it to be for Anne to accept the death of her husband at the hands of the man she loved? Should she have accepted it as a necessity?
8. What do we learn about Richard’s character in his stance over the imprisonment of the Countess of Warwick and her eventual release? Does it make him a more or a less acceptable character?
9. Anne’s relationship with the King and Queen is uneasy. What do we learn about the characters and motivations of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth?
10. This is a period of unscrupulous treachery and bloody warfare. Is there any proof that ends justify means in bringing peace and stability to a country? Were such ethics in the fifteenth century any different from today in our attitude to modern conflicts?
“…What if she had inherited all the self-will and pride of her Neville and Beauchamp ancestors…?”
INSPIRATION
My inspiration for Virgin Widow was very simple. Anne was Queen of England and wife to one of the most notorious Kings, and yet we know so very little about her. History records the dates of her life and her two marriages and a meagre outline of her life. Her family of course is well documented. The Earl of Warwick, her father, figures prominently in the history of the Wars of the Roses, a dominant force in the making and unmaking of kings, whilst Richard III, her husband, needs no introduction.
But Anne appears a shadowy figure, without form or depth.
It seemed to me that, surrounded as she was by strong characters, Anne too might have been a young woman of considerable spirit.
I considered this to be a gift to an historical novelist. How could I resist the opportunity to put words into Anne’s mouth and encourage her to emerge as a living entity? Equally hard to resist was the possibility of a romance between Anne and Richard.
Without doubt, Anne was used as a pawn in the unscrupulous political manoeuvrings of the Wars of the Roses, as any young girl of birth and fortune would have been. But what if she had inherited all the self-will and pride of her Neville and Beauchamp ancestors…?
I was inspired to recreate her.
“…Anne was used in the game of high politics where the stakes were high…”
A CLOSER LOOK AT ANNE NEVILLE…
The skeleton of facts we have about Anne as an historical character are these.
She was the younger daughter of Warwick the Kingmaker and Anne Beauchamp, a considerable heiress in her own right whose inheritance would be passed to Anne and her elder sister Isabel. In her youth, Anne was betrothed to Richard of Gloucester, the future Richard III, brother of King Edward IV. When Warwick challenged the Yorkist King Edward, failed in his rebellion and was declared traitor, Anne was forced to flee with her family to France, the betrothal annulled. From there Anne was used in the game of high politics where the stakes were high. To cement a difficult alliance between her father and the Lancastrians, she was married to Edward of Lancaster, the exiled heir to the English throne. In an attempt to keep control of the situation by her mother-in-law, Margaret of Anjou, Anne’s marriage was never consummated. Isolated in Margaret’s hostile court, Anne returned to England in the wake of the invading Lancastrian army. In the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury and their aftermath – episodes in the Wars of the Roses – both her father and her husband were killed and her mother imprisoned. Prince Edward, so history judges, was murdered at the hands of Richard of Gloucester. Taken prisoner by King Edward, Anne was betrayed by her sister and brother-in-law–the Duke of Clarence – who planned to snatch her inheritance and enclose her in a nunnery. Richard of Gloucester rescued her, saved her inheritance, released her mother and finally wed Anne.
From this framework, Virgin Widow was created.
FURTHER READING ABOUT ANNE NEVILLE…
There is astonishingly little. The only recent historical biography dedicated to Anne is:
Anne Neville, Queen to Richard III by Michael Hicks.
Jean Plaidy’s novel about Anne – Anne of York – has recently been reissued.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
I was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire. After gaining a BA Honours degree in History at Manchester University and a Master’s degree in education at Hull, I lived in the East Riding for many years as a teacher of history. Always a prolific reader, I enjoyed historical fiction and was encouraged to try my hand at writing. Success in short story competitions spurred me on.
Leaving teaching – but not my love of history – I wrote my first historical romance, a Regency, which was published by Harlequin Mills & Boon in 2005. To date, nine historical novels and a novella, ranging from medieval, through the Civil War and Restoration and back to Regency, have been published in the UK, North America and Australia, as well as in translation throughout Europe and in Japan.
I now live with my husband in an eighteenth-century timber-framed cottage in the depths of the Welsh Marches in Herefordshire. It is a wild, beautiful place on the borders between England and Wales, renowned for its black-and-white timbered houses, ruined castles and priories and magnificent churches. It is steeped in history, famous people and bloody deeds as well as ghosts and folklore, all of which give me inspiration and sources for my writing, particularly in medieval times.
Virgin Widow is my first novel based on the life of an historical character. I am at present working on my second book, featuring Eleanor of Aquitaine.
“…I find writing a compulsive necessity in my life…”
WHY I WRITE
I recall the days, when I was still teaching history, when I wanted to write but found it difficult. What to write, how to construct a plot, how to make it interesting – I never seemed to make any progress. What do I write about?? That was the real problem. I felt an urge to write, but the subject matter defeated me. When I did, short stories were as much as I could cope with, and I admit to still finding it hard to write stories set in contemporary situations. The change came when I realised that I could use what I knew: when I discovered the rich vein of history as subject matter, my imagination was fired. Now I find writing a compulsive necessity in my life, the ideas springing from a combination of events, characters, conflicts that enable me to visualise a situation. When my interest is caught I feel a need to breathe life into a scene or situation by allowing the characters to speak.
I write because I enjoy the experience – both the process of it and its end result.
“…to tell the story so that distant historical events come alive…”
Q&A ON WRITING
What do you love the most about being a writer?
I think it is the control factor. Manipulating and directing characters to allow them – or sometimes to force them – to tell the story so that distant historical events come alive through conversation and the interaction of characters, proving that in some ways we are not too different today from our ancesto
rs. We are driven by the same ambitions and motivations. I love seeing the scenes develop as the characters speak.
Where do you go for inspiration?
In general, my garden. Weeding a flower bed or picking raspberries frees the mind to allow ideas to flow. But ideas come in the most unlikely places. I once plotted the whole of an historical whodunit on a motorway in a traffic jam. If I need a specific atmosphere I might visit a place associated with the character. When researching Anne Neville, I visited Tewkesbury Abbey and the adjacent battle field – Tewkesbury is quite close to where I live. I knew Middleham Castle well from my days of living in Yorkshire. Eleanor of Aquitaine, my present project, presents me with some difficulties, but a visit to Goodrich castle gave me the atmosphere of a small border fortress in the early twelfth century.
What one piece of advice would you give to a writer wanting to start a career?
To sit down and write. It is so easy, as I know, to make excuses of lack of time, lack of ideas, lack of somewhere to sit and write. I made these excuses for years. Whether it’s longhand or by computer, it will not happen unless you accept that it’s a time-consuming, often inconvenient and lonely exercise. On the other side of the coin, it can become an all-embracing way of life, bringing amazing enjoyment and fulfilment.
“…The acceptance of my first book was wonderful…”
But you have to make a start – and persist by working out a routine and sticking to it, even if it’s a somewhat haphazard routine.
Which book do you wish you had written?
I think it has to be Dorothy Dunnett’s The Game of Kings – see my top ten books – and the other five to complete the Lymond series. I was seriously hooked when I read the first of them.
How did you feel when your first book was signed?
Astonished, I think. The timescale from starting writing, through agents and publishers, and the inevitable rejections, is so vast and success seems to be an impossibility. It is difficult to remain confident and patient. The acceptance of my first book was wonderful – and definitely worthy of a bottle of champagne with my husband.
How do you begin writing characters based on real historical figures and do they ever surprise you as you write?
Reading to begin with – any biography of the historical character. Once I have a plan of their life – main dates and events – with overlapping plans to indicate where they interact with the other characters in the story – then I make a list of the scenes which will obviously bring some element of tension or excitement or emotion into the story. This is most important, I find. I also make a list of areas which can be omitted or given a mere passing reference, with the pace of the story in mind or its relevance to the overall novel. Sometimes events just don’t fit and it’s as important to recognise these as it is the explosively important ones. Although sometimes it surprises me – that scenes I’ve jettisoned demand to be included when I begin writing.
“…she…strove to grasp her own happiness from the grief and degradation. I have to admire her…”
Characters certainly surprise me. Sometimes they resist the direction I wish them to take. Sometimes they carry conversations into directions I had no idea of. Characters develop as I write, so I have to take this into consideration and allow them to be headstrong if that is what they wish. I know I must not force a character into an action that is not in keeping with the character I have given them. If a particular action is vital to the story, then it may be that I have to tweak the character.
Do you have a favourite character in Virgin Widow and what is it you like about that character?
It has to be Anne herself. I like her because she is a prime example of a character who surprised me. At the beginning, when she was very young, she insisted on being heard with a very definite voice. As she matured she became quite demanding with a sense of her own place and worth and what was due to her. She has an arrogance that is not unattractive. Throughout all her sufferings – the dangers, the loneliness, the humiliation – she remained determinedly stoical and forward-looking. She knew that she was being manipulated for political ends, but strove to grasp her own happiness from the grief and degradation. I have to admire her.
What kind of research goes into your writing process?
General: I immerse myself in the period so that I know how people lived and to some extent thought. I need a sense of place and time for my characters. I have a good selection of reference books – I live near Hay on Wye, a magnificent place for browsing for books – on food and fashion, architecture and gardens, health, sex and witchcraft, so that I can put my characters into a scene. This research tends to be ongoing throughout the time I am writing the novel.
Specific: focusing on the lives of the characters at the centre of the novel as I first envisage it. For the most part these are secondary rather than primary sources, although the opinions of contemporaries are invaluable.
Physical: I visit places associated with the characters or similar venues to give me an idea of atmosphere. Sometimes I use contemporary music to set a mood. I use a local group who specialise in medieval and Renaissance costume and dancing to give me some visual stimulus. Poetry and literature can help me to visualise the ideas that influenced my characters.
A WRITER’S LIFE
Paper and pen or straight onto the computer?
Straight onto the computer but I also keep a notebook and pen to hand. I write notes on images and scenes, conversations between the characters, anything that comes to mind – they tend to appear at the most inopportune times. Sometimes I rough out whole scenes by hand but only with the bare minimum of detail.
PC or laptop?
PC
Music or silence?
Silence when I’m first putting scenes and plots together. When I’m reviewing or redrafting or polishing towards the end of a novel I listen to music. Baroque choral works for me when I’m writing.
Morning or night?
Definitely morning. I am not a night person.
Coffee or tea?
Tea first thing in the morning – then coffee.
Your guilty reading pleasure?
A book, a glass of wine and music – often choral but might equally be folk or symphonic – before a wood fire in my cottage.
The first book you loved?
The first adult historical novel I remember reading as a young girl was The Passionate Brood by Margaret Campbell Barnes, which focused on the children of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. I recall being drawn into the richness of the period, the emotion of the characters and the drama of the lives of the Plantagenets. My pleasure in this genre has stayed with me ever since.
The last book you read?
I have just finished The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters – I enjoyed it, especially her skill in creating suspense.
Now I am reading Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. How splendid to have historicals so prominent in the Booker Prize short list – and the winner – for 2009.
A DAY IN THE LIFE
I try to write every day, for the sake of continuity, and because I suffer from withdrawal symptoms if I miss more than a few days. What will my characters do without me?
I am a morning writer. In summer when the days are long I can start work at 6.00am – it is harder in winter when I am usually underway by 8.00am. I work until lunchtime, about one o’clock, with a coffee break. I have an office where I can leave all my books and papers around so that I can find them when I start again. If I tidy up I lose things.
In the afternoons when the weather is fine I enjoy my garden, a large, rambling area where I and my husband grow vegetables and soft fruit. The seasons are a delight with herbaceous flower borders, a wild garden, a small orchard and a formal pond. With an interest in herbs and their uses, I have a herb garden constructed on the pattern of a Tudor knot garden and enjoy cooking with the proceeds. It is a perfect time for me to mentally review what I’ve been doing as I keep the flowerbeds in order and wage war on the weeds.
Housework is fitted in as and when. My priority is writing and the garden, but I am driven to cleaning when I can write my name in the dust on the furniture.
Early evening is a time when I sit with a glass of wine to make contact with my husband. It is a very important hour which we put aside for ourselves. Sometimes I might read through what I have written in the morning. Then we eat – I am an enthusiastic cook so it is a pleasure to fit this into my day.
I have other interests to be slotted into my days. Recently I have signed on for a course on Writing for the Stage, something that intrigues me. I have found it both helpful and enjoyable to develop skills in this different but complementary aspect of writing. Yoga is part of my relaxation as well as singing with a local choral society. Water-colour painting is a skill I am also trying to improve on, although I seem to have less and less time for anything other than writing…
TOP TEN BOOKS
Apart from Jane Austen…
Ariana Franklin: Mistress of the Art of Death
Ariana Franklin: The Death Maze. I have just discovered Ariana Franklin’s medieval crime novels, although I enjoyed her historicals as Diana Norman. I love the humour, the authentic detail, the fine characterisation and the understated romance of them.
