Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

When Catherine Elizabeth Middleton walks down the aisle at Westminster Abbey and marries Prince William tomorrow, she will be the first non-aristocratic commoner to marry an heir to the British throne since Anne Hyde married James, Duke of York (the future James II). While Lady Diana Spencer and the Queen Mother were commoners, they were both aristocrats. Diana was the daughter of Earl Spencer while the Queen Mother was the daughter of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. What’s that you say, what about Camilla? Well, she is descended from George Keppel, brother of the Earl of Albemarle, so she doesn’t count either. Our story begins in 1638, when Anne was born at Cranbourne Manor in Windsor Park, owned by her grandfather Sir Thomas Aylesbury, then Master of Request. Her father Edward Hyde was Charles II’s principal advisor while he was in exile so Anne didn’t see much of her father while growing up. At the age of 15, she was appointed a maid of honor to Mary, Princess Royal who wa...

This past April marked the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. To mark the occasion, I will be writing a series of posts over the next several months about the lives of some fascinating women who made their mark during the Civil War. Varina Howell Davis was born at her family plantation, the Briers, near Natchez, Mississippi in 1826. Although her mother, Margaret Kempe was a Southern belle and the daughter of a wealthy planter, her father, William Howell was a Yankee from New Jersey. Although he came from a distinguished family (his father served several terms as Governor of New Jersey), it wasn’t enough to overcome the stigma of being a Northerner. He also wasn’t a very good provider, over the years, he worked as a planter, merchant, cotton broker and banker but none of them panned out in the long run. Her parents had to rely on handouts from Margaret’s family to help support their eight children. Varina’s only formal education was at Madame Greenland’s School, a pres...

Cast Jeremy Irons as Rodrigo Borgia / Pope Alexander VI François Arnaud as Cesare Borgia Holliday Grainger as Lucrezia Borgia Joanne Whalley as Vannozza dei Cattanei Lotte Verbeek as Giulia Farnese David Oakes as Juan Borgia Sean Harris as Michelotto Corella Simon McBurney as Johannes Burchart Aidan Alexander as Gioffre Borgia Colm Feore as Giuliano della Rovere (later Pope Julius II) Derek Jacobi as Orsino Orsini Ruta Gedmintas as Ursula Bonadeo (fictional character) Elyes Gabel as Prince Cem Montserrat Lombard as Maria Emmanuelle Chriqui as Sancia Vernon Dobtcheff as Cardinal Julius Verscucci (fictional character) Bosco Hogan as Alessandro Piccolomini (later Pope Pius III) (real counterpart: Francesco Piccolomini) Peter Sullivan as Ascanio Sforza David Lowe as French Ambassador The story thus far :  On the eve of the death of Pope Innocent VIII in 1492, a fierce political battle rages inside the Vatican walls over who will become the next pope. The papacy ha...

Scandalous Women is pleased welcome author Kate Lord Brown, whose new book The Beauty Chorus came out this month: Synopsis: New Year's Eve, 1940: Evie Chase, the beautiful debutante daughter of a rich and adoring RAF commander, listens wistfully to the swing music drifting out from the ballroom, unable to join in the fun. With bombs falling nightly in London, she is determined that the coming year will bring a lot more than dances, picnics and tennis matches. She is determined to make a difference to the war effort. 5th January, 1941: Evie curses her fashionable heels as they skid on the frozen ground of her local airfield. She is here to join the ATA, the civilian pilots who ferry Tiger Moths and Spitfires to bases across war-torn Britain. Two other women wait nervously to join up: Stella Grainger, a forlorn young mother who has returned from Singapore without her baby boy and Megan Jones, an idealistic teenager who has never left her Welsh village. Billeted together in a tiny co...

Title: TO BE QUEEN Author:  Christy English Publisher:  NAL Pub Date:  April 5, 2011 From the back cover:  Taught by her father, the Duke of Aquitaine, how to be powerful in the midst of ruthless politics of the court, Eleanor learned at an early age to inspire love and loyalty in the people around her.  Those lessons serve the fifteen-year-old well when - after her father's sudden death - she is crowned Duchess of Aquitaine and becomes the most eligible, sought-after woman in France. Enamored of the young and beautiful Eleanor, King Louis VII claims her as his own, but the newly crowned monarch is easily manipulated by the Church and therefore bound to a way of life Eleanor does not believe in.  Trapped in a loveless marriage and met with opposition at every turn, Eleanor fights to dissolve her estranged union with Louis and return to Aquitaine. But Eleanor is soon charmed by the English upstart Henry of Normandy.  If she can find the strength t...

On March 25, 1927 a well-dressed couple boarded a train at the Gare du Nord. A shot was heard, followed immediately by another. When the conductor opened the door to the compartment, the woman gasped, "I did it," before collapsing. The woman who pulled the trigger was an twenty-seven year old American heiress named Alice de Janzé, married to a French count. The victim was her lover, 32 year old Raymund de Trafford, the son of an English baronet. Raymund had informed Alice that couldn't marry her. His parents, who were strict Catholics, had threatened to disinherit him if he married her. Alice had tried desperately to change his mind . She managed to get him to agree to lunch before he left. After they ate, the couple went to visit a sporting goods store where Alice insisted on buying him a present. Raymund chose some knives and a twelve-bore shotgun. Alice purchased a small revolver, a 3.8 caliber Colt with a pearl inlay handle and a box of nickel-plated bullets. At the ...

Sisters of Fortune:  The Caton Sisters at Home and Abroad Author:  Jehanne Wake Publisher: Simon & Schuster, April 1, 2011 From the Front Cover: As gripping as the best historical novel, Sisters of Fortune is the story of the exuberant Marianne, Bess, Louisa, and Emily Caton, the American sisters who enthralled the highest levels of English Regency society decades before the notorious Dollar Princesses of the Victorian era. The Caton sisters were descended from prominent first settlers of Maryland, brought up by their wealthy grandfather Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, and were expected to “marry a plantation.” Instead, their grandfather made sure that they were well educated, raising four beautiful and charming young women who were unusually independent, intelligent, fascinated by politics, clever with money, and very romantic. Arriving in Britain, the Caton sisters swept into the set of the Duke of Wellin...