Böcker av Gemma Hollman

A magnificently illustrated oversize book that uses art to illuminate the lives of medieval women, from peasants to queens

There were two women in Edward III's life: Philippa of Hainault, his wife of forty years and bearer of twelve children, and his mistress, Alice Perrers, the twenty-year-old who took the king's fancy as his ageing wife grew sick. Both women had wealth and power but used vitally different methods to dispense it. After Philippa's death Alice began to dominate court, amassing a fortune and persuading the elderly Edward to promote her friends and punish her enemies. Holliman contrasts the pious, unpolitical, steady Philippa with the wily, charismatic, manipulative Alice. Philippa died a royal, adored, while the full force of the English court united against Alice, leaving her with nothing.

The first biography to look at the two most important women in Edward III's life, their power and influence on the court and country.

Joan of Navarre was the richest woman in the land, at a time when war-torn England was penniless. Eleanor Cobham was the wife of a weak king's uncle - and her husband was about to fall from grace. Jacquetta Woodville was a personal enemy of Warwick the Kingmaker, who was about to take his revenge. Elizabeth Woodville was the widowed mother of a child king, fighting Richard III for her children's lives. In Royal Witches, Gemma Hollman explores the lives of these four unique women, looking at how rumours of witchcraft brought them to their knees in a time when superstition and suspicion was rife.