On 22 April 1433 at age 17, Jacquetta married John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, at Thérouanne. [2] The Duke was the third son of King Henry IV of England and Mary de Bohun, and thus the grandson of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, himself the third son of King Edward III. The marriage was childless, and the Duke died on 15 September 1435 at Rouen. [3] As was customary at the time, Jacquetta retained the title of her first husband after her second marriage and was always known as the Duchess of Bedford, this being a higher title than that of countess. Jacquetta inherited one-third of the Duke's main estates as her widow's share. [4] Second marriage [ edit ]

Reread notes from January 2021: I loved every second of this reread!! I could talk for a long time about the women in Philippa Gregory's stories. The first time I read this book, I learned a lot about Jacquetta of Luxembourg and her marriage-for-love to Richard Woodville, after losing her first husband John, Duke of Bedford. This time, I was able to focus more on her role at Queen Margaret's court and the swiftly-moving politics of that time. This story takes place just before and at the beginning of the Wars of the Roses. Vei putea avea orice va fi dispus sotul tau sa-ti ofere. Si vei invata in scurt timp cum sa-l convingi." The Lady of the Rivers also suffers from rather simplistic use of language. The novel is full of subject-verb sentences, the simplest kind of sentence, and frequently the dialogue between characters felt far too anachronistic. Typos crept in, and I even spotted the occasional Twilightism (problems with the construction of the sentences which alter their meaning). I think a skill of a good historical novellist is to make the characters speak in a way that is authentic to the times, but their sentiments are entirely identifiable – they are modern-minded in some way, but speak in a period-appropriate voice and with period-appropriate attitudes – Philippa Gregory’s characters fail to achieve this. Jacquetta especially sometimes seemed far too modern in her ideas (Gregory really pushes heavily the militant feminist angle this time round) and at other times she seemed quite a simple character, almost foolish. I think reliance on character stupidity to explain an historical event is simply not an enjoyable thing to read compared to a complex but believable and smart motivation/explanation. The Lady of the Rivers is a 2011 historical novel by Philippa Gregory, part of her series The Cousins' War. The story is narrated by Jacquetta of Luxembourg, mother of Elizabeth Woodville, and covers the reign of the Lancastrian King Henry VI. The novel serves as a prequel to Gregory's The White Queen (2009), the story of Elizabeth's reign as Queen consort of England. De regula, cand un barbat intrezareste un mister, e mai bine sa-l lasi nedumerit. Nimanui nu-i plac femeile inteligente. "

In The Lady of the Rivers, Philippa Gregory continues her Wars of the Roses saga (I balk at calling it the Cousins’ War) with the story of Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, mother to Edward IV’s queen, Elizabeth Woodville. Like her daughter Elizabeth, Jacquetta is possessed of supernatural powers. I’ve always had a love hate relationship with Philippa Gregory. Sometimes she does what she does extraordinarily well, and sometimes she writes crap like this.

I think the way the story is written in first person, present tense, made it completely emotionless. I felt nothing throughout this entire novel. I didn't really care who lived or died, what cities were lost or won ... zero emotional attachment from me. I wanted characters that I could really root for and admire and there were none to be found. Elizabeth Woodville, Queen consort of England (c. 1437 – 8 June 1492), married first Sir John Grey, second Edward IV of England. The Lady of the Rivers is Jacquetta Woodville, lady-in-waiting to Margaret of Anjou, who becomes the Queen of England in 1445. Jacquetta is a fascinating person, wise and true and regal. She is a direct descendant of Melusina, the water goddess of legend, and this lineage gives her some powers that separate her from the everyday people around her. This aspect of the story is handled beautifully and without anything that makes it seem preposterous or unrealistic.

The Lady of the Rivers is number-one New York Times best-selling author Philippa Gregory’s remarkable story of Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, a woman who navigated a treacherous path through the battle lines in the Wars of the Roses. The York rise to the throne of England was yet another power grab in England’s long history of power grabs. The Celt took England from the prehistoric people, who were invaded by the Saxons and Danes, who lost power to the Romans who came and went, and, finally, William the Conqueror came long and established Norman rule, setting the stage for the Plantagenet’s and their eventual power squabbles that led to the war of the roses. With all this history of conquest in England, I do not understand the need for writers to be so protective of the house of York. The house of Lancaster was the ruling house, how is that they were defeated? That story would be well worth reading about. We all know that the Woodville’s changed sides following the York victory of Edward IV in 1461, and, of the fateful meeting in 1464 of Elizabeth Woodville and King Edward, if only because we all read Gregory’s The White Queen. But in The Lady of Rivers, I wanted to read the Lancastrian point of view, read about their story. Unfortunately I am still waiting.

Publishers Weekly wrote of the novel, "Gregory portrays spirited women at odds with powerful men, endowing distant historical events with drama, and figures long dead or invented with real-life flaws and grand emotions." The review adds that the author "makes history (mostly accurate) come alive for readers (mostly women) by giving credence to persistent rumors that academic historians (mostly men) have brushed aside." [1] And yet there were some definite improvements over recent novels in the series. For one thing, Jacquetta gets to travel around quite a bit, and even though she's not in the battles I did get a better sense of being near to the action than I usually do. And the supporting cast was good; I particularly liked Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI's queen, and I found the account of Henry VI's mental illness compelling. There were several other memorable characters; in fact, I now understand the Wars of the Roses a whole lot better. So if you read historical fiction for the history, you'll be satisfied. The rest of the novel takes us through their lives together which include no less than 12 children, the marriage of Henry VI to Margaret of Anjou, the beginning of the battles of the Cousins' War with Richard, Duke of York, and the eventual demise of Henry and Margaret with the rise of Edward IV of York. Dupa ce ramane vaduva, constienta ca-si va pierde averea si pozitia, se casatoreste cu Richard Woodville, scutierul fostului ei sot. Casnicia este una ca de vis, ei iubindu-se enorm, iar ea nascandu-i o gramada de copii. Nu regreta niciodata ca renunta la statutul de ducesa si la avere pentru aceasta casnicie splendida. BBC – Media Centre: The White Queen, a new ten-part drama for BBC One". BBC.co.uk. 31 August 2012 . Retrieved 6 October 2014.Actiunea debuteaza in 1430 la castelul Beaurevoir unde Jacquetta, fetita fiind, o cunoaste pe Ioana d'Arc care este ascunsa de englezi de catre stramatusa ei. Din pacate aceasta moare si astfel Ioana ajunge pe rug sub ochii Jacquettei, ea intelegand care este uneori soarta unor femei alese. If you read this book, do so with caution! Why? It's really good. And it's the first in a series of six books (with a seventh reportedly in the works). I read the second in the series, "The White Queen," first, and it's even better than this one. Married to the Duke of Bedford, English Regent of France, Jacquetta is introduced by him to a mysterious world of learning and alchemy. Her only friend in the great household is the Duke's squire Richard Woodville, who is at her side when the Duke's death leaves her a wealthy young widow. The two become lovers and marry in secret, returning to England to serve at the court of the young King Henry VI, where Jacquetta becomes a close and loyal friend to his new queen. Philippa is a member of the Society of Authors and in 2016, was presented with the Outstanding Contribution to Historical Fiction Award by the Historical Writers’ Association. In 2018, she was awarded an Honorary Platinum Award by Nielsen for achieving significant lifetime sales across her entire book output.

Hands down, Philippa Gregory is my favorite English historical novelist. She brings the era she is exploring to life and always tells the story from such a personal point of view that you feel you are, or at least know, the main character. I also love that she takes historical women who have been literally overlooked by historians and brings their stories, their stuggles, into the light. Philippa Gregory is one of the world’s foremost historical novelists. She wrote her first ever novel, Wideacre, when she was completing her PhD in eighteenth-century literature and it sold worldwide, heralding a new era for historical fiction. Jacquetta fights for her King, her Queen, and for her daughter Elizabeth Woodville, a young woman married to a neighbor for whom Jacquetta can sense an extraordinary and unexpected future: a change of fortune, the throne of England, and the white rose of York. Am retinut si o vraja in legatura cu sexul copilului nenascut, care se practica indeosebi la tara: se leaga verigheta de o ata si se tine deasupra pantecului, daca se roteste de la stanga la dreapta e baiat. Daca se roteste de la dreapta la stanga e fata. The Lady of the Rivers was an okay kind of book. After watching the TV shows The White Queen and The White Princess I have been kind of dying to read this series. However, this book was just an okay kind of beginning to it.Gregory's descriptive prose had me feeling like I was a part of every scene. Her wording describing Joan of Arc's final moments and later, of Jacquetta's pain upon her young son's death, especially broke my heart.