Elizabeth’s Comments (group member since Aug 02, 2013)

Elizabeth’s comments from the Ask Carol McGrath group.

Sorry, I'm not going to be a good contributer here because of workload and deadlines. I don't have enough knowledge to make guestimates on the Norman bloodlines, and I'm sorry, I haven't studied Isabelle de Montfort.

I try to keep to the mindset of the period because that's one of the most important ways of protraying the life and times of someone from long ago in a historical novel. Ignore the mindset and you might as well just put modern characters in fancy dress. But of course you have to know what that mindset is, and that means immersing oneself in the sources, the archaeology, and reading widely around the subject... and not believing everything you read. Ask questions and dig. The information will then underpin the choices one makes and illuminate the path for the imagination to tread. Dorothy Dunnett always felt to get it right to me. I loved Hanta Yo by Ruth Beebee Hill. She translated her novel in Lakotah and then back into English to get the correct feel for the language. It's a profound, beautiful novel.

I think With Eleanor of Aquitaine, that John was her son. It didn't matter that he'd been Henry's favourite, and anyway, Henry had died back in 1189, so it was water under the bridge. Richard trumped John in her affections, and John trumped Arthur. Besides, Arthur was Geoffrey's son and we don't know how Eleanor felt about Geoffrey come to that.

Hello all,
Fascinating discussion!
William Marshal was apparently a relative of William de Tancarville on his maternal line. Professor Crouch believes that his mother's grandfather Edward of Salisbury married into the Tancarville line in the reign of William Rufus.
As far as I know he went tourneying on 'sabbatical' bearing the arms of Tancarville,i.e. still attached to the Tancarville household, but there's no mention of it once he left de Tancarville's service in full by 1168 and joined the household of his uncle Patrick Earl of Salisbury. However, taken on as a household knight by Eleanor of Aquitaine, he may have served under William de Tancarville's instruction again for a short time when de Tancarville took over as governor of Poitou following Earl Patrick's assassination.
Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal vols 1 and III