[FICATHON] The Booke of Oure Foundresses, for roz_mcclure
Title: The Booke of Oure Foundresses
Author: the_alchemist
Play: Henry VI Part 2
Recipient: roz_mcclure
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Margaret/Suffolk
Warnings: Quite a lot of exuberant sex, not very graphically described; egregious anachronism; a smidgeon of melancholy, and some heavy-handed dramatic irony.
Rating: 15
Historical Notes:
- Margaret calls Suffolk Jack or Jackanapes because Wikipedia says his nickname was Jack Napes, so it must be true.
- Queens' College Cambridge was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou, refounded in 1465 by Elizabeth Woodville and in 1484, Richard said the college existed by the "patronage of our aforesaid consort".
Note of ThanksThanks to my beta readers atreic and borusa.
Summary: Margaret tries to go off for a dirty weekend with Suffolk, but ends up accidentally founding a college instead.
Editor's Note
This is a transcription of the account given in 'The Booke of Oure Foundresses', a large folio discovered in Summer 2009 behind a secret panel in the Old Library at Queens' College Cambridge. Tantalisingly, two thirds of the pages are missing, and a loose leaf inserted between the front cover and the first page reads as follows:
To whosoever discovers this volume,
A warning.
I found all three accounts within this volume to be most indecent and not fit for any person's overlooking.
- The first, being less graphic in its descriptions of coitus and related activities, however, I have - with some reservations - left hidden in the alcove in which I found it.
- The last (attributed to Anne, wife to Richard the Third) I have burnt, because of its lewdness.
- The middle, which recounted a certain weekend that Elizabeth Woodville (wife to Edward IV spent in this city with one Jane Shore, was too vile even for burning - I fear that the smoke rising from words such as Queen Elizabeth wrote may corrupt the students at the college. For this reason and no other I brought it to my chamber, with the intent of guarding it closely, so that no person may be corrupted by its putrescence.
If you find this volume, I beg you to replace it without reading another word. I preserved it because it pains me to destroy an object of such age and historical value, not because there is a single word of edifying material therein.
Dr J.R. Hartley, Librarian, Queens' College Cambridge, 1849.
The rumour that our Foundresses Margaret and Elizabeth; and Ann, our Patroness, recorded intimate accounts of how they became involved in the college has, of course, been circulating among Queens' undergraduates since at least the seventeenth century. Until this year it was thought to be an urban myth. However an independent panel of experts has now verified the volume as being genuine, despite some apparently anachronistic details, like Margaret's surprisingly contemporary turn of phrase.
It is, of course, a great pity that the accounts of Elizabeth and Ann are missing - the latter probably destroyed. However, we do have marginalia which have been undoubtedly identified as being in their hands. They are reproduced as footnotes below the transcription which here follows.
The Booke of Oure Foundresses
He leaned out and yelled: "punt number 91, your time is up!"
Two or three other groups turned round to stare.
"Stop it!" I poked him in the ribs.
"Ow! Gettoff..." He wrestled me down and did that thing with his tongue. Mmm…
The punt started to rock.
"Um...excuse me..." I looked up at the undergraduate punting us. He blushed.
"What?" Jackanapes blinked - his face a picture of innocence.
The undergraduate swallowed. "Um… nothing," he said.
"Punt number 91, your time is up!" Jack yelled again.
"Do you mind?" asked a fat merchant's wife in the next punt along, indignantly. Her husband whispered to something her, then: "There isn't even a punt 91," she said.
Jack grinned, satisfied. "Punt number 16," he said, "are you in trouble?" [1]
------------
It had been supposed to be a dirty weekend. It was Lent, so naturally I'd expected Henry to be permanently at prayer, and not notice I wasn't around. I had it all planned. I'd wear a veil and one of my ladies' gowns, and slip off Cambridge, giving out I was sick.
Unfortunately, Henry decided to visit just as I was packing for the journey.
"I heard you were unwell, my love," he said.
"Yes," I said, kissing him. "I'm better now, thanks be to God." I crossed myself piously.
"And you are packing a trunk."
"Yes." He was clearly in one of his more observant moods. Damn.
He picked up a piece of paper from the top. "A map of Cambridge," he said.
"Yes," I said.
Henry frowned. "But why?" he said. "And if you've been unwell, are you sure it's wise…"
"It's a kind of pilgrimage," I said, thinking quickly. "To give thanks for my recovery. St Margaret and St Bernard[2] appeared to me in a dream and told me to… um… told me to…"
It had been going so well. I'm generally a good liar, but sometimes… well… My train of thought went a bit like this:
"Cambridge. What's in Cambridge? Cute young undergraduates. [3][4] Mmm… But St Margaret and St Bernard can't have told me to do them. What else? A river. Colleges…"
"They told me to found a college."
Bugger.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Of course, saintly visitations were not something Henry took lightly, and so before I knew it, a messenger had been sent on ahead and my precious weekend with Jackanapes was filled with dull meetings with dull Deans[5] and their over-excited chatter about the new 'Queen's College of St Margaret and St Bernard'.
Two hours. Two stinking hours were all I could get with Jack, and what's worse the Master of Peterhouse absolutely insisted we spend it being punted by an undergraduate to some filthy little fenland village called Grantchester. Well - you can imagine how I felt. Though I have to confess I perked up a bit when I saw the undergraduate in question.
------------
"You're not as funny as you think you are," I said. Then: "It is very unseemly to laugh at one's own jokes." To tell you the truth I was just jealous because he'd been drinking cocktails all day, while I'd been suffering every academic torment imaginable..
"Do better then," said Jack.
"There was a young Queen in a punt…"[6][7] I began.
"…Who had a magnificent front…" continued Jack, squeezing my left breast.
"…And a fabulous back…" I added.
"…That is fun to attack…" said Jack, pulling me over his knee, and spanking me.
"…But best of all was her cun…ning," I said, swiftly sitting up, and taking advantage of Jack's laughter to push him over the side. [8][9]
"You bitch," he said, grabbing the punt and rocking it, so I, the picnic, the undergraduate and everything else fell in.
It was not easy to swim in my gown, but it was only a few yards to the shore, so I struck out and got myself to the bank, scrambling up into a secluded college garden. Jack crawled out after me and put his hand up my skirt. "I'll give you cunning," he said.
I started to undo his doublet "I'll give you…"
"Help!" came a plaintive little cry. We both turned back to the river. The undergraduate was flailing about. "I can't swim!" he said.
We looked at one another. I confess I'd forgotten there was a third person present.
"Help!" he said again.
Jack threw off the doublet, dived in, and dragged the young man to on the bank. Oh, his arms under the water-logged shirt! And oh, their manly limbs all entwined! [10]
"Sorry," said the bedraggled youth.
I laughed. "What for?" I said, offering him some brandy from my hip flask. He really was exceptionally fine, in a gauche, floppy-haired sort of way.
"Um… falling in? Not being able to swim?" He sighed profoundly. "I'm going to be in so much trouble," he said.
"Why?" said Jack.
"Throwing the Queen of England into the Granta? Losing my… oh!"
The punt pole, which had stuck in the mud, was slowly falling sideways. Soon it would be irretreiveable.
"Excuse me, your Graces," he said. "I just have to grab my pole."
"I understand," said Jack, "sometimes the urge is just irresistible." [11] He winked at me. "It's a man thing, dear," he said.
"Not at all," I said. "Sometimes I just have to grab my Pole too."[12] I started tickling him.
When the undergraduate turned back he was blushing redder than a rose. I decided to put him at his ease. "What's your name?" I asked.
"Cecil," he said despondently.
I made my best concerned face: the one with the pouty lips and attractively furrowed brow. "What's the matter, Cecil? Anything we can do?"
"I'm going to be in so much trouble," he said. "That's the Master's best punt, and he told me I had to take care of you and do everything you ask…"
"Take care of us, eh?" asked Jack, his eyes lighting up with wickedness.
And God help me, I added: "Do everything we ask?"
------------[13]
It was the first - and only - time I shared a man with Jack, though we bedded my ladies-in-waiting often enough. I wish we'd done it more often. I wish… well, many things.
Cecil managed to borrow us a new punt for the way back, and we promised to square everything with the Master. As we watched the sun set, still floating down the river, Jack put his arm round me, and kissed my cheek.
"This is the life, eh!" he said.
I kissed him back, on the mouth.
"Shall we run away to sea?" he said. "We could join a pirate ship. Freedom! Adventure! Gold!"
I laughed. "The pirates could make us their king and queen," I said. "We could ride at the head of their ship."
"Sorry," said Jack, "did you say something about head?" He made puppy eyes at me.
I smiled indulgently and started to unlace his codpiece…
Marginalia
[1] I said to Jane but the other day it were an olde jeste. I knew not how olde! EW
[2] A talking dogge!!! EW
[3] Notte to mention ye learned Doctors! EW
[4] …ande ye porters. And ye chaplains. And ye boy that doth cleane ye pots in ye kitchens. AN
[5] Margaret did misse a tricke there. The dull ones always be most dirtie once you get them into bedde. AN
[6] Uh oh - I can tell what is comming. EW
[7] And I can telle who will be coming ere longe! AN
[8] LOLOLOLOL!!!!!!! I like it welle. Whyte Rose or Redde, women rocke. EW
[9]] In verrie truth we rocke most heartilie. :) (Even they who love the exclamacion mark over well. ;) ) AN
[10]] I care not about 'manly'. With a husbonde like myne I wold settle for even vaguely straighte - in either sense of the worde. AN
[11] Oooh matron & cetera. It be verrie much like unto the chronicles of 'Carry on'. EW
[12] I coulde see that one comming a myle off. EW
[13] Shame on thee Margaret, for omitting ye goode bitte! AN
Author: the_alchemist
Play: Henry VI Part 2
Recipient: roz_mcclure
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Margaret/Suffolk
Warnings: Quite a lot of exuberant sex, not very graphically described; egregious anachronism; a smidgeon of melancholy, and some heavy-handed dramatic irony.
Rating: 15
Historical Notes:
- Margaret calls Suffolk Jack or Jackanapes because Wikipedia says his nickname was Jack Napes, so it must be true.
- Queens' College Cambridge was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou, refounded in 1465 by Elizabeth Woodville and in 1484, Richard said the college existed by the "patronage of our aforesaid consort".
Note of ThanksThanks to my beta readers atreic and borusa.
Summary: Margaret tries to go off for a dirty weekend with Suffolk, but ends up accidentally founding a college instead.
Editor's Note
This is a transcription of the account given in 'The Booke of Oure Foundresses', a large folio discovered in Summer 2009 behind a secret panel in the Old Library at Queens' College Cambridge. Tantalisingly, two thirds of the pages are missing, and a loose leaf inserted between the front cover and the first page reads as follows:
To whosoever discovers this volume,
A warning.
I found all three accounts within this volume to be most indecent and not fit for any person's overlooking.
- The first, being less graphic in its descriptions of coitus and related activities, however, I have - with some reservations - left hidden in the alcove in which I found it.
- The last (attributed to Anne, wife to Richard the Third) I have burnt, because of its lewdness.
- The middle, which recounted a certain weekend that Elizabeth Woodville (wife to Edward IV spent in this city with one Jane Shore, was too vile even for burning - I fear that the smoke rising from words such as Queen Elizabeth wrote may corrupt the students at the college. For this reason and no other I brought it to my chamber, with the intent of guarding it closely, so that no person may be corrupted by its putrescence.
If you find this volume, I beg you to replace it without reading another word. I preserved it because it pains me to destroy an object of such age and historical value, not because there is a single word of edifying material therein.
Dr J.R. Hartley, Librarian, Queens' College Cambridge, 1849.
The rumour that our Foundresses Margaret and Elizabeth; and Ann, our Patroness, recorded intimate accounts of how they became involved in the college has, of course, been circulating among Queens' undergraduates since at least the seventeenth century. Until this year it was thought to be an urban myth. However an independent panel of experts has now verified the volume as being genuine, despite some apparently anachronistic details, like Margaret's surprisingly contemporary turn of phrase.
It is, of course, a great pity that the accounts of Elizabeth and Ann are missing - the latter probably destroyed. However, we do have marginalia which have been undoubtedly identified as being in their hands. They are reproduced as footnotes below the transcription which here follows.
The Booke of Oure Foundresses
He leaned out and yelled: "punt number 91, your time is up!"
Two or three other groups turned round to stare.
"Stop it!" I poked him in the ribs.
"Ow! Gettoff..." He wrestled me down and did that thing with his tongue. Mmm…
The punt started to rock.
"Um...excuse me..." I looked up at the undergraduate punting us. He blushed.
"What?" Jackanapes blinked - his face a picture of innocence.
The undergraduate swallowed. "Um… nothing," he said.
"Punt number 91, your time is up!" Jack yelled again.
"Do you mind?" asked a fat merchant's wife in the next punt along, indignantly. Her husband whispered to something her, then: "There isn't even a punt 91," she said.
Jack grinned, satisfied. "Punt number 16," he said, "are you in trouble?" [1]
------------
It had been supposed to be a dirty weekend. It was Lent, so naturally I'd expected Henry to be permanently at prayer, and not notice I wasn't around. I had it all planned. I'd wear a veil and one of my ladies' gowns, and slip off Cambridge, giving out I was sick.
Unfortunately, Henry decided to visit just as I was packing for the journey.
"I heard you were unwell, my love," he said.
"Yes," I said, kissing him. "I'm better now, thanks be to God." I crossed myself piously.
"And you are packing a trunk."
"Yes." He was clearly in one of his more observant moods. Damn.
He picked up a piece of paper from the top. "A map of Cambridge," he said.
"Yes," I said.
Henry frowned. "But why?" he said. "And if you've been unwell, are you sure it's wise…"
"It's a kind of pilgrimage," I said, thinking quickly. "To give thanks for my recovery. St Margaret and St Bernard[2] appeared to me in a dream and told me to… um… told me to…"
It had been going so well. I'm generally a good liar, but sometimes… well… My train of thought went a bit like this:
"Cambridge. What's in Cambridge? Cute young undergraduates. [3][4] Mmm… But St Margaret and St Bernard can't have told me to do them. What else? A river. Colleges…"
"They told me to found a college."
Bugger.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Of course, saintly visitations were not something Henry took lightly, and so before I knew it, a messenger had been sent on ahead and my precious weekend with Jackanapes was filled with dull meetings with dull Deans[5] and their over-excited chatter about the new 'Queen's College of St Margaret and St Bernard'.
Two hours. Two stinking hours were all I could get with Jack, and what's worse the Master of Peterhouse absolutely insisted we spend it being punted by an undergraduate to some filthy little fenland village called Grantchester. Well - you can imagine how I felt. Though I have to confess I perked up a bit when I saw the undergraduate in question.
------------
"You're not as funny as you think you are," I said. Then: "It is very unseemly to laugh at one's own jokes." To tell you the truth I was just jealous because he'd been drinking cocktails all day, while I'd been suffering every academic torment imaginable..
"Do better then," said Jack.
"There was a young Queen in a punt…"[6][7] I began.
"…Who had a magnificent front…" continued Jack, squeezing my left breast.
"…And a fabulous back…" I added.
"…That is fun to attack…" said Jack, pulling me over his knee, and spanking me.
"…But best of all was her cun…ning," I said, swiftly sitting up, and taking advantage of Jack's laughter to push him over the side. [8][9]
"You bitch," he said, grabbing the punt and rocking it, so I, the picnic, the undergraduate and everything else fell in.
It was not easy to swim in my gown, but it was only a few yards to the shore, so I struck out and got myself to the bank, scrambling up into a secluded college garden. Jack crawled out after me and put his hand up my skirt. "I'll give you cunning," he said.
I started to undo his doublet "I'll give you…"
"Help!" came a plaintive little cry. We both turned back to the river. The undergraduate was flailing about. "I can't swim!" he said.
We looked at one another. I confess I'd forgotten there was a third person present.
"Help!" he said again.
Jack threw off the doublet, dived in, and dragged the young man to on the bank. Oh, his arms under the water-logged shirt! And oh, their manly limbs all entwined! [10]
"Sorry," said the bedraggled youth.
I laughed. "What for?" I said, offering him some brandy from my hip flask. He really was exceptionally fine, in a gauche, floppy-haired sort of way.
"Um… falling in? Not being able to swim?" He sighed profoundly. "I'm going to be in so much trouble," he said.
"Why?" said Jack.
"Throwing the Queen of England into the Granta? Losing my… oh!"
The punt pole, which had stuck in the mud, was slowly falling sideways. Soon it would be irretreiveable.
"Excuse me, your Graces," he said. "I just have to grab my pole."
"I understand," said Jack, "sometimes the urge is just irresistible." [11] He winked at me. "It's a man thing, dear," he said.
"Not at all," I said. "Sometimes I just have to grab my Pole too."[12] I started tickling him.
When the undergraduate turned back he was blushing redder than a rose. I decided to put him at his ease. "What's your name?" I asked.
"Cecil," he said despondently.
I made my best concerned face: the one with the pouty lips and attractively furrowed brow. "What's the matter, Cecil? Anything we can do?"
"I'm going to be in so much trouble," he said. "That's the Master's best punt, and he told me I had to take care of you and do everything you ask…"
"Take care of us, eh?" asked Jack, his eyes lighting up with wickedness.
And God help me, I added: "Do everything we ask?"
------------[13]
It was the first - and only - time I shared a man with Jack, though we bedded my ladies-in-waiting often enough. I wish we'd done it more often. I wish… well, many things.
Cecil managed to borrow us a new punt for the way back, and we promised to square everything with the Master. As we watched the sun set, still floating down the river, Jack put his arm round me, and kissed my cheek.
"This is the life, eh!" he said.
I kissed him back, on the mouth.
"Shall we run away to sea?" he said. "We could join a pirate ship. Freedom! Adventure! Gold!"
I laughed. "The pirates could make us their king and queen," I said. "We could ride at the head of their ship."
"Sorry," said Jack, "did you say something about head?" He made puppy eyes at me.
I smiled indulgently and started to unlace his codpiece…
Marginalia
[1] I said to Jane but the other day it were an olde jeste. I knew not how olde! EW
[2] A talking dogge!!! EW
[3] Notte to mention ye learned Doctors! EW
[4] …ande ye porters. And ye chaplains. And ye boy that doth cleane ye pots in ye kitchens. AN
[5] Margaret did misse a tricke there. The dull ones always be most dirtie once you get them into bedde. AN
[6] Uh oh - I can tell what is comming. EW
[7] And I can telle who will be coming ere longe! AN
[8] LOLOLOLOL!!!!!!! I like it welle. Whyte Rose or Redde, women rocke. EW
[9]] In verrie truth we rocke most heartilie. :) (Even they who love the exclamacion mark over well. ;) ) AN
[10]] I care not about 'manly'. With a husbonde like myne I wold settle for even vaguely straighte - in either sense of the worde. AN
[11] Oooh matron & cetera. It be verrie much like unto the chronicles of 'Carry on'. EW
[12] I coulde see that one comming a myle off. EW
[13] Shame on thee Margaret, for omitting ye goode bitte! AN