FIC: "Why, This It Is, When Men Are Ruled By Women (Shakespeare, Richard III, PG)
Title: Why, This It Is, When Men Are Ruled By Women
Play: Richard III
Pairing/characters: Anne, Jane Shore, Princess Elizabeth, and the associated canonical pairings.
Rating: PG for - well, it's fic about women in Richard III, so of course it's not very happy. But it isn’t very graphically unhappy.
Word Count: 606
Summary: Sad stories of the death or other general effacements of queens.
Author's Notes: Written for lareinenoire for the 2007 shakespeare140 Secret Santa exchange. In the interest of up-front historiography, biographical details about Mistress Shore (which are not elaborated by Shakespeare) follow Elizabethan tradition rather than more strictly correct records.
I.
In truth, Queen Anne told herself, it was only what she deserved.
On the day that she threw away what remained of her life, Richard had wept, and said that all he had done had been for her sake, and even as she recoiled in horror part of her had wanted it to be true, had trembled at the suggestion that it stood within her power to reduce a great lord of the realm first to murder and then to tears to win her love, and so she had dropped his sword and accepted his ring, and in return she had yielded any power over him she had had.
It was, after all, a wicked thing that she had felt, to joy in the conceit that Richard loved her so that he had been driven to murder, and so it was fitting, she thought, that accepting such love had gained her only bitter contempt.
In the end, she was grateful to Richard for ridding her of her life.
II.
Jane had always been an obliging woman.
She had, when her parents told her to marry unprepossessing goldsmith Matthew Shore, agreed to it cheerfully, if not precisely eagerly. And when the king had solicited her - well, who would turn down a king? Especially one as charming and as handsome as Edward?
And all the people who had come to her with suits - after all, they were less fortunate than she was, who had the king’s ear, and his love, and it was her duty to help those less fortunate (and those who had been Edward’s friends, such as dear Lord Hastings, who had been so disconsolate when Edward died).
Some would say that she did it to show that she could do all in all with King Edward. It was as well that she had never thought of it that way, for the power to sway a king had cost her all she had.
III.
The war was over now, and England had been freed from tyranny, and Elizabeth was going to be queen of England, and, her mother had said, its savior, though she felt that being a savior probably required a little more work than just being born a girl and having royal parents, and as the daughter of a king, she’d always expected that she’d marry another king - although not one who had until just recently been a runagate Welshman.
She supposed that being wed to Henry was, on the whole, less frightening than being wed to her uncle Richard, who had murdered her poor brothers, and her uncles George and Anthony, and, it was whispered, his own wife, for Elizabeth’s sake. It was certainly less of a sin. Henry spoke frequently and loftily of ending the old wars that nobody had thought much about in ages, and the coronation pageantry was full of roses everywhere, red and white entwined. It made Elizabeth a bit tired; nobody had worn white roses that meant anything since she was a child, and anyway, she was not a white rose, she was very nearly a queen, but after all she knew it made people happy to have a symbol they could use to make it seem like everything had ended.
So they brought her before the archbishop and she looked on her new husband, chilly and stern, and tried not to think too much, at that moment, about her mother and her aunt Anne and even mad old Margaret, and when she placed her hand in his she felt as though she were being frozen in place. And she thought: That is what it is to be a queen.
Play: Richard III
Pairing/characters: Anne, Jane Shore, Princess Elizabeth, and the associated canonical pairings.
Rating: PG for - well, it's fic about women in Richard III, so of course it's not very happy. But it isn’t very graphically unhappy.
Word Count: 606
Summary: Sad stories of the death or other general effacements of queens.
Author's Notes: Written for lareinenoire for the 2007 shakespeare140 Secret Santa exchange. In the interest of up-front historiography, biographical details about Mistress Shore (which are not elaborated by Shakespeare) follow Elizabethan tradition rather than more strictly correct records.
I.
In truth, Queen Anne told herself, it was only what she deserved.
On the day that she threw away what remained of her life, Richard had wept, and said that all he had done had been for her sake, and even as she recoiled in horror part of her had wanted it to be true, had trembled at the suggestion that it stood within her power to reduce a great lord of the realm first to murder and then to tears to win her love, and so she had dropped his sword and accepted his ring, and in return she had yielded any power over him she had had.
It was, after all, a wicked thing that she had felt, to joy in the conceit that Richard loved her so that he had been driven to murder, and so it was fitting, she thought, that accepting such love had gained her only bitter contempt.
In the end, she was grateful to Richard for ridding her of her life.
II.
Jane had always been an obliging woman.
She had, when her parents told her to marry unprepossessing goldsmith Matthew Shore, agreed to it cheerfully, if not precisely eagerly. And when the king had solicited her - well, who would turn down a king? Especially one as charming and as handsome as Edward?
And all the people who had come to her with suits - after all, they were less fortunate than she was, who had the king’s ear, and his love, and it was her duty to help those less fortunate (and those who had been Edward’s friends, such as dear Lord Hastings, who had been so disconsolate when Edward died).
Some would say that she did it to show that she could do all in all with King Edward. It was as well that she had never thought of it that way, for the power to sway a king had cost her all she had.
III.
The war was over now, and England had been freed from tyranny, and Elizabeth was going to be queen of England, and, her mother had said, its savior, though she felt that being a savior probably required a little more work than just being born a girl and having royal parents, and as the daughter of a king, she’d always expected that she’d marry another king - although not one who had until just recently been a runagate Welshman.
She supposed that being wed to Henry was, on the whole, less frightening than being wed to her uncle Richard, who had murdered her poor brothers, and her uncles George and Anthony, and, it was whispered, his own wife, for Elizabeth’s sake. It was certainly less of a sin. Henry spoke frequently and loftily of ending the old wars that nobody had thought much about in ages, and the coronation pageantry was full of roses everywhere, red and white entwined. It made Elizabeth a bit tired; nobody had worn white roses that meant anything since she was a child, and anyway, she was not a white rose, she was very nearly a queen, but after all she knew it made people happy to have a symbol they could use to make it seem like everything had ended.
So they brought her before the archbishop and she looked on her new husband, chilly and stern, and tried not to think too much, at that moment, about her mother and her aunt Anne and even mad old Margaret, and when she placed her hand in his she felt as though she were being frozen in place. And she thought: That is what it is to be a queen.