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In the early 1920s, the German scholar Alois Brandl suggested that Constance’s speeches in III.iv of King John (1595–96) might be derived from the scene in which Andromache pleads with Ulysses on behalf of Astyanax in Seneca’s Troades , though A. R. Braunmuller found Brandl’s ‘argument of influence … unconvincing’. 1 Were there only that
This book examines the rise and fall of the aristocratic Lacy family in England, Ireland, Wales and Normandy. As one of the first truly transnational studies of individual medieval aristocrats, it provides a fresh look at lordship and the interplay between aristocracy and crown from 1166 to 1241. Hugh de Lacy (†1186), traded on his military usefulness to King Henry II of England in Wales and Normandy to gain a speculative grant of the ancient Irish kingdom of Mide (Meath). Hugh was remarkably successful in Ireland, where he was able to thwart the juvenile ambitions of the future King John to increase his powers there. Hugh was hailed by native commentators as ‘lord of the foreigners of Ireland’ and even ‘king of Ireland’. In this study his near-legendary life is firmly grounded in the realities of Anglo-Irish politics. The political career of Hugh’s less famous son and heir, Walter de Lacy (†1241), is in turn illuminated by surviving royal records and his own acta. Walter was one of the major actors in the Irish Sea province under Kings Richard I, John and Henry III, and his relationship with each king provides a unique insight into the nature of their reigns. Over the course of fifty-two years, Walter helped to shape the course of Anglo-Irish history. That history is recast in light of the transnational perspective of its chief participants. This book is a major contribution to current debates over the structure of medieval European society.
This book sets the scene for the reinterpretations and explorations of the ways William Shakespeare and his contemporaries worked mythological material on their looms. In Ovid, each text leaves a trace in the others, introducing an enriching leaven that expands the text. Reading Holinshed's efforts to place Samothes or Brutus on England's family tree, one feels sorry for those chroniclers who had to reconcile a variety of founding tales and defend mutable causes. Founding myths need a renowned ancestor; warlike feats; identification with a territory, continuity, purity of blood; and someone to tell the story: fame must be recorded by pen if it is to survive marble monuments. The book discusses the Trojan matter of King John, which powerfully structures and textures the scenes of the siege of Angiers and, more specifically, the tragic fates of Constance and Arthur. It also considers some metamorphoses of Shakespeare and Ovid. The book reiterates imaginative association, influence, historically diachronic descent study, as evidenced in that kind of critical work that finds in a keyword an attractive pretext for projecting an author's particular interest or, a critic's. Yves Peyré's work opens perspectives on post-Shakespeare reworkings and Shakespearian myths that were also explored during the ESRA conference and inspired a separate collection of essays, Mythologising Shakespeare: A European Perspective.
Cobham, in Henry V; a second for Henry Carey, first Baron Hunsdon, in King John; the third for Carey and his son, George, in Hamlet Q2. In recovering these lost encomia this chapter reveals the historical figures behind some of Shakespeare’s most remarkable, memorable characters. When Henry Carey died on 23 July 1596 he had been patron of Shakespeare’s acting
relationship between royal and aristocratic lordship, even at a time of conflict. 130 royal v. aristocratic lordship: 1206–16 The Irish crisis of 1207 On 3 April 1206, King John sent two mandates which were meant to redress the imbalance of power in Ireland. One ordered the Irish justiciar, Meiler fitz Henry, to take the former lands of the recently deceased William de Burgh and Theobald Walter into the king’s hand.1 William’s lands provided the Crown with a significant stake in Thomond, but Theobald’s were more widespread sub-tenancies held of the lords of Limerick
4 Factionalism: 1199–1206 T he accession of King John marks a turning point in the history of the Lacy family. In this period, Ireland was brought under the direct lordship of the king of England, and Normandy was lost. The balance of the king’s administration and attention (if not his ambition) was shifted westwards, and he sought to exploit his insular realms for resources to retrieve his continental inheritance. John’s brother and father had relied upon strong local magnates to drive the Irish royal administration in their absence, but, after fifteen years
courage and that ‘shooting, darting, running and wrestling’ were enjoyed by both sexes. 14 Not surprisingly, the history plays include some very active women: Joan la Pucelle in 1 Henry VI , the dowager Queen Eleanor in King John and Queen Margaret in 3 Henry VI ( Richard Duke of York ) are amongst the women who lead armies and play their part in the physical action
Soon after his succession to the throne ‘King John of England’ was determined to appeal certain ‘barons of Poitou’ of treachery towards both himself and his dead brother, King Richard. Roger of Howden’s contemporary account suggests that the new king must have taken great care to plan the proposed legal proceedings in advance, since he intended these barons to be appealed formally of treachery (the terms appellatio and proditio were used by Howden). The appeal was to be a prelude to judicial combat, designed to be the method of proof for testing these
supposed mentalities’. 7 Lloyd called for case by case investigations, as the same person may think or do one thing that looks primitive and another that looks advanced. Later on in this essay I discuss a case which came before the royal judges in the court of King John in 1213, when the prior of Durham’s attorney produced a charter with a broken knife attached to it instead of a seal. The attorney was presumably experienced in the business of the court. Why did he rely on this primitive form of proof, which was in fact rejected, when Durham cathedral priory was one