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An interesting comparison

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We have posted before about the lives of noblewomen and how they were almost never executed before the “Tudor” era began – including how King Lear, featuring the death of Cordelia, reflected this changed reality.

Here is as near as we can manage to a counter-example from 1003, after the St. Brice’s Day Massacre of the Danes, to 1535, before Anne Boleyn’s end: Maud de Braose, who died from starvation in captivity – a form of passive violence that seemed also to be the fate of Richard II:

Matilda de Braose, the King’s Enemy

Thankyou to Sharon Bennett Connolly.

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  1. Jean A. Dickey Avatar
    Jean A. Dickey

    King John’s abuses anticipate the utter ruthlessness of Tudor as a House when in a bad mood. Why am I not surprised? This is why he was confronted at Runnymede. This is why Richard the Lionheart was the better monarch.

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  2. Jasmine Avatar
    Jasmine

    Richard the Lionheart spent barely 6 months in England during his ten year reign. He used England as a cash cow to finance his foreign adventures, to say nothing of the huge ransom England had to pay to get him released from his captivity. John, among his rather more extreme features, had a number of good characteristics which made him a better king.

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  3. giaconda Avatar
    giaconda

    I think they were both spectacularly lacking in some of the attributes required to be a good king for their people. It’s sad that Eleanor and Henry didn’t manage to produce sons with better character traits. Who was the first woman (other than heretics/ witches etc) to be executed under the Tudors and was that a turning point? Did it set a precedent for executing in public?

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    1. super blue Avatar
      super blue

      Anne Boleyn. She certainly opened the floodgates.

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  5. The RICL: Anthropology and forensic science – murreyandblue

    […] than entry.From this she could deduce that he is likely to have been a Viking youth killed on St. Brice’s Day 1002 by the order of Ethelred II. At this point Professor Caroline Wilkinson, still of Liverpool […]

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