Hm.
After making me wait in vain for two months, the comicstore where I get my English-language comics from told me they no longer import. This means having to wait for the trade volumes, I guess. Curses. So the question is, do I give in to the spoiler lure or don't I?
In other news, I've read The Sixth Wife by Suzannah Dunn, which manages, among other things, a new twist on the Katherine Parr - Thomas Seymour - Young Elizabeth tale. It's written from the pov of Katherine's friend, the Duchess of Suffolk (yet another Catherine), and focuses on Katherine's last years of life. If you're not up to your Tudor history, Katherine was Henry VIII. sixth and last wife, by all acounts a very intelligent, kind woman, managed to survive him (barely - there was a moment of crisis where she could have died, but she managed to turn it in her favour)...and then married the dashing but none-too-scrupulous Thomas Seymour, whose conduct towards her fourteen-years-old stepdaughter Elizabeth later was the subject of much debate, stints in the Tower and contributed to one execution. (Though the main factor for that one has Thomas trying to get control of his nephew the boy king Edward via abduction.) Katherine didn't live to witness this, she died in the aftermath of childbirth, proving you could survive the bluebeard of your time but not a marriage for love. Anyway, this episode naturally shows up quite often in fictional treatments of Elizabeth Tudor's life, and in all the biographies; because of all the witness accounts in Tom Seymour's trial and of the reports written by Robert Tyrwhit who as in charge of interrogating Elizabeth, we've got quite a lot of details which nonetheless leave a lot of room for interpretation. What got confirmed was that Seymour certainly was amazingly informal for the times around his wife's stepdaughter, making surprise visits in the morning to wake her up, tickling her, and on one occasion cutting her dress from her (though Katherine held Elizabeth during that one). Also, something must have happened as Elizabeth left the household quite suddenly. What fiction writers previously made of this basically went in three variations:
1) The romantic version. For the most famous example, see Young Bess, in which Thomas Seymour is a romantic hero who loves two women - well, a woman and a girl, and Elizabeth's extreme youth is downplayed, as is the fact he was in loco parentis while she lived in his household and dies because of his evil brother.
2) The cynical version. For a more recent example, see Philippa Gregory. Here, Elizabeth is a ruthless teenage seductress who doesn't care that she betrays her favourite stepmother and seduces a weak but otherwise harmless man.
3) The "trial by fire for a queen in training" version. This one you can find in Susan Kay's Legacy and also in the old BBC series Elizabeth R's first episode. Here, while Elizabeth is presented as being attracted to Thomas Seymour, the focus isn't really on this but how she deals with the aftermath, which could have landed her in prison at the very least or could have gotten her executed if it could have been proven she agreed to marry Seymour after Katherine's death. (Since Elizabeth was third in line for the throne, she wasn't allowed to marry anyone without the Council's explicit permission during her younger brother's reign; it would have been high treason.) As it's not every 14-years-old who can not only withstand isolation and interrogations without breaking down and giving in but also manages to get her governess and steward, both of whom had been shown the instruments and had then made the demanded confessions, out of prison and reinstated at her side, one could say that this is indeed the most interesting aspect about the affair, but it neglects the tragedy of Katherine.
4) The modern psychology version. This one was used by Patricia Finney both in one of her novels and in her radio play about Elizabeth, and it focuses on the most disturbing aspects of the Seymour affair from a modern pov; that Seymour was basically Elizabeth's stepfather, which makes the question of consent dubious at best, and that today we'd see it as child (well, teenager) abuse. I can never make up my mind as to whether the fact 14 years then was older than it is now - it was certainly a marriagable age - should be seen as a valid counter argument or not.
The Sixth Wife, in which Elizabeth is only a supporting character and strictly seen from the outside, manages to come up with a fifth version which I haven't seen before.
As the story is a triangle, but not between the usual suspects but between unsuspecting Katherine Parr, Thomas Seymour and the narrator, the Duchess of Suffolk, Katherine's best friend, whose dislike of Seymour is full of unresolved sexual tension which eventually leads to a three months affair. When Katherine glimpses her husband kissing someone, but can't see whom, and confides in her friend, the panicked Duchess decides to use Elizabeth as a patsy, figuring that due to Tom Seymour's conduct towards the Princess (the famous morning wake up calls, tickling et al.), this will be believable, as indeed it is, and Elizabeth's denials, should she make them, would only make her look more guilty. At which point you realize that the narrator's antipathy towards Elizabeth which has been build up through the novel also has served an important secondary function. I'm not sure I buy it as an actual historical theory, but as a reader while reading the novel I did. The book also pulled off the tricky feat of the unreliable narrator, i.e. conveying information beyond the pov character without cheating; the hostility Catherine of Suffolk displays towards Tom Seymour from the moment her friend marries him, for example, is presented by her only as the distrust of a loyal friend, but it's increasingly clear she's surpressing some other feelings, and her distrust of Elizabeth, her conviction Elizabeth will betray Katherine's trust, similarly work as projection. Not among my favourite Tudor novels, but quite cleverly done, and definitely worth checking out.
In other news, I've read The Sixth Wife by Suzannah Dunn, which manages, among other things, a new twist on the Katherine Parr - Thomas Seymour - Young Elizabeth tale. It's written from the pov of Katherine's friend, the Duchess of Suffolk (yet another Catherine), and focuses on Katherine's last years of life. If you're not up to your Tudor history, Katherine was Henry VIII. sixth and last wife, by all acounts a very intelligent, kind woman, managed to survive him (barely - there was a moment of crisis where she could have died, but she managed to turn it in her favour)...and then married the dashing but none-too-scrupulous Thomas Seymour, whose conduct towards her fourteen-years-old stepdaughter Elizabeth later was the subject of much debate, stints in the Tower and contributed to one execution. (Though the main factor for that one has Thomas trying to get control of his nephew the boy king Edward via abduction.) Katherine didn't live to witness this, she died in the aftermath of childbirth, proving you could survive the bluebeard of your time but not a marriage for love. Anyway, this episode naturally shows up quite often in fictional treatments of Elizabeth Tudor's life, and in all the biographies; because of all the witness accounts in Tom Seymour's trial and of the reports written by Robert Tyrwhit who as in charge of interrogating Elizabeth, we've got quite a lot of details which nonetheless leave a lot of room for interpretation. What got confirmed was that Seymour certainly was amazingly informal for the times around his wife's stepdaughter, making surprise visits in the morning to wake her up, tickling her, and on one occasion cutting her dress from her (though Katherine held Elizabeth during that one). Also, something must have happened as Elizabeth left the household quite suddenly. What fiction writers previously made of this basically went in three variations:
1) The romantic version. For the most famous example, see Young Bess, in which Thomas Seymour is a romantic hero who loves two women - well, a woman and a girl, and Elizabeth's extreme youth is downplayed, as is the fact he was in loco parentis while she lived in his household and dies because of his evil brother.
2) The cynical version. For a more recent example, see Philippa Gregory. Here, Elizabeth is a ruthless teenage seductress who doesn't care that she betrays her favourite stepmother and seduces a weak but otherwise harmless man.
3) The "trial by fire for a queen in training" version. This one you can find in Susan Kay's Legacy and also in the old BBC series Elizabeth R's first episode. Here, while Elizabeth is presented as being attracted to Thomas Seymour, the focus isn't really on this but how she deals with the aftermath, which could have landed her in prison at the very least or could have gotten her executed if it could have been proven she agreed to marry Seymour after Katherine's death. (Since Elizabeth was third in line for the throne, she wasn't allowed to marry anyone without the Council's explicit permission during her younger brother's reign; it would have been high treason.) As it's not every 14-years-old who can not only withstand isolation and interrogations without breaking down and giving in but also manages to get her governess and steward, both of whom had been shown the instruments and had then made the demanded confessions, out of prison and reinstated at her side, one could say that this is indeed the most interesting aspect about the affair, but it neglects the tragedy of Katherine.
4) The modern psychology version. This one was used by Patricia Finney both in one of her novels and in her radio play about Elizabeth, and it focuses on the most disturbing aspects of the Seymour affair from a modern pov; that Seymour was basically Elizabeth's stepfather, which makes the question of consent dubious at best, and that today we'd see it as child (well, teenager) abuse. I can never make up my mind as to whether the fact 14 years then was older than it is now - it was certainly a marriagable age - should be seen as a valid counter argument or not.
The Sixth Wife, in which Elizabeth is only a supporting character and strictly seen from the outside, manages to come up with a fifth version which I haven't seen before.
As the story is a triangle, but not between the usual suspects but between unsuspecting Katherine Parr, Thomas Seymour and the narrator, the Duchess of Suffolk, Katherine's best friend, whose dislike of Seymour is full of unresolved sexual tension which eventually leads to a three months affair. When Katherine glimpses her husband kissing someone, but can't see whom, and confides in her friend, the panicked Duchess decides to use Elizabeth as a patsy, figuring that due to Tom Seymour's conduct towards the Princess (the famous morning wake up calls, tickling et al.), this will be believable, as indeed it is, and Elizabeth's denials, should she make them, would only make her look more guilty. At which point you realize that the narrator's antipathy towards Elizabeth which has been build up through the novel also has served an important secondary function. I'm not sure I buy it as an actual historical theory, but as a reader while reading the novel I did. The book also pulled off the tricky feat of the unreliable narrator, i.e. conveying information beyond the pov character without cheating; the hostility Catherine of Suffolk displays towards Tom Seymour from the moment her friend marries him, for example, is presented by her only as the distrust of a loyal friend, but it's increasingly clear she's surpressing some other feelings, and her distrust of Elizabeth, her conviction Elizabeth will betray Katherine's trust, similarly work as projection. Not among my favourite Tudor novels, but quite cleverly done, and definitely worth checking out.