The Forbidden Queen

AUTHOR NOTE

Katherine de Valois is an enigma.

History books make little comment on her, the underlying thought being that there is very little to say, other than that she was daughter of Charles VI of France, wife of Henry V and died at a comparatively early age, perhaps afflicted by the instability that affected her father. As Queen of England and Queen-Dowager, she played no role in English government and in fact very little in the raising of her son. The same could be said, of course, for many medieval women from aristocratic or royal families. Their main importance was as a marriageable commodity for the transference of property—’an animated title deed’ in effect. Thus Henry’s desire to marry Katherine.

Katherine de Valois merely fits into this pattern of medieval land transference, as a woman silent and generally unimpressive.

Nor have historians been complimentary to Katherine. We receive the notion of a young woman who was beautiful and gracious but lacking in more than basic intelligence and with a very limited education. The archetypal ‘dumb blonde’ in fact, who had little to say and no opinion to give.

Was this all that could be said for Katherine?

Solid evidence for much of her life is lacking, but what it lacks in hard fact, it gains in rumour, myth and legend, particularly in her falling in love with Owen Tudor. The blatant romance of it has been open to wide speculation.

In writing The Forbidden Queen I have made use of the outline of Katherine’s history as far as we know it. I have placed her firmly in the centre of English politics, as she undoubtedly was, making sense of what is not recorded. As for the romantic myths, I have made use of them, and make no excuses for doing so.

By the time I wrote my final sentence, I had decided that Katherine, rather than a rather dim but lovely creature, must have been a remarkable woman.

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