Snippets of French History: Mrs Conqueror

I mean Mathilda of Flanders, Duchess of Normandy, Queen of England, wife of William the Conqueror.

She was born circa 1031 and died circa 1083. She was the daughter of Baldwin of Flanders and Adela of France, and the grand daughter of Robert II of France.  Almost nothing is known about her early life except that she had at least one brother and that she was almost certainly very wealthy**.  Any pictures and portrayals of her are results of the artists’ imaginations, and therefore ficticious.  We do know, after scientists exhumed her bones in the 1990s, that she was barely 5′ tall – but that was quite common for her day.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/snippets-of-french-history-mrs-conqueror/

Snippets of French History: Mary Queen of Scots

Mary Stuart (1542-1587) was born to the king of Scotland, James V, and his French queen, Marie de Guise, at Linthigow Palace in Scotland.  Her father died less than a week after her birth, so she was only 6 days old when she became Queen of Scotland.  Although there is evidence to suggest the baby was premature, she was healthy and thrived quickly.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/snippets-of-french-history-mary-queen-of-scots/

Diane de Poitiers 1499-1566

Before I start on Diane de Poitiers I must answer your questions about Henri II and Catherine de Medici and their “genitalia” problems.  We will never know for sure, but in those days – and till relatively recently – there were a lot of horrific misunderstandings.  I think we can fairly safely assume that the young king did not realize quite what he was supposed to do. We know that Diane de Poitiers became his mistress a year after his marriage to Catherine de Medici, so we can be pretty sure that she taught him anything he needed to know.  We can be equally sure that he already knew most of it via previous mistresses … yet with his wife he apparently did not perform and both he and his wife were confused as to why she didn’t get pregnant.

For this blog in full and more please see http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk/blog/diane-de-poitiers-1499-1566/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Call-From-France-Catherine-Broughton/dp/1475116659/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369128093&sr=8-1&keywords=catherine+broughton