Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

  ( Janet McTeer as Jacquetta in The White Queen ) If you have been watching Philippa Gregory’s THE WHITE QUEEN on Starz no doubt you are captivated by Janet McTeer’s performance as Jacquetta Woodville, Elizabeth Woodville’s mother.   Since the series starts when Elizabeth meets and marries the Queen, the audience is only privy to Jacquetta’s story through dialogue and her interaction with other characters.   Jacquetta’s story, however, is interesting in its own right.   Elizabeth Woodville would never have thought she could aim so high as to marry the King of England if she hadn’t had the example of her parents’ marriage before her. If a mere knight could marry the widow of a royal duke, brother and uncle of a king, then nothing was out of the realm of possibility. Jacquetta managed not only marry for love which was almost unheard of in the 15 th century, but she also managed to thrive and survive not only under the Lancastrians but under the Yorks as well. If that weren’

    Mark your calendars!!   To celebrate the release of her third novel in the Marie Antoinette trilogy, CONFESSIONS OF MARIE ANTOINETTE Juliet Grey will be here at SCANDALOUS WOMEN for a Live Chat on October 2nd from 7:30 - 8:30pm EST!           Exciting giveaway!! One lucky winner will receive all 3 books in the Marie Antoinette trilogy update:  one lucky winner will also receive this lovely ring     But you have to join the live chat to be entered.    CHAT NIGHT DETAILS When: Wednesday, October 2nd, 2013 What Time:  7:30 - 8:30 pm EST Where:  http://scandalouswoman.blogspot.com  All corresponding (questions and answers) will take place in the comments section of the Chat Night post (not this one).  I will start off the Chat Night with a welcome message and a question or two to get the ball rolling and then the floor is open to whomever has a question for Juliet.   Here are links to previous chat nights at Passages

There are many great things about living in New York, and one of them is the Paley Center in midtown.   The Paley Center is a museum that is dedicated to one thing only; television.   For the past several years, they have given members as well as the public the chance to get a first look at the new fall television season.   This year, I was lucky enough to get to view the pilot for the new CW series about Mary, Queen of Scots, called appropriately enough, REIGN.    (Mary and Francis have a tense moment)    I tried desperately to check my brain at the door and throw away and preconceived notions that I might have had from watching the extended preview online.   However, that proved difficult once the show started.   Granted, I’m clearly not the intended viewing audience for this show.   The CW tends to skew hella young and most of the shows are geared towards teenagers and twenty-somethings.   REIGN is definitely skewed towards teenage girls; there is man candy, pr

Title:   The Many Lives of Miss K: Toto Koopman - Model, Muse, Spy Author:   Jean-Noel Liaut, Denise Raab Jacobs (Translator) Publisher:   Rizzoli Books   Pub Date:    9/3/2013   Pages:   244   How Acquired:   ARC through Edelweiss From the back cover:    A life of glamour and tragedy, set against the watershed cultural and political movements of twentieth-century Europe. "Toto" Koopman (1908–1991) is a new addition to the set of iconoclastic women whose biographies intrigue and inspire modern-day readers. Like her contemporaries Lee Miller or Vita Sackville-West, Toto lived with an independent spirit more typical of the men of her generation, moving in the worlds of fashion, society, art, and politics with an insouciant ease that would stir both admiration and envy even today. Sphinxlike and tantalizing, Toto conducted her life as a game, driven by audacity and style. Jean-Noël Liaut chases his enigmatic subject through the many roles and lives

Scandalous Women is pleased to welcome Guest Blogger Elizabeth Eckhart. Her guest post on Elizabeth I seems appropriate on Elizabeth I's birthday (born 7 September 1533). Few are unaware of the great and famous Queen Elizabeth I, the legendary, fire-haired woman often considered to be England’s greatest monarch. Before her succession to the throne her father King Henry VIII made history in England by breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church, and establishing himself as head of the Church of England. Elizabeth was a product of his second marriage to Anne Boleyn, whom Henry Tudor had divorced his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, in order to marry. Anne was cloaked in enough scandal herself, seducing the King who had already taken Anne’s sister, Mary Boleyn, as a lover. Anne, however, refused to become a mistress as Mary had. Her denial, and Henry’s desire for a legitimate son, convinced Henry to divorce Catherine, reject papal authority and in turn spur the English Reformation.

This week we leave the Plantagenet era behind and journey to the Early Georgian era of London during the reigns of George I and George II.   The early Georgians seem rather tame compared to the antics of George IV when he was Prince of Wales or the many royal mistresses of Charles II & James II.   I never even knew that George II had a mistress until I read Eleanor Herman’s book SEX WITH KINGS.   As far as I knew, the Georgian kings had spent most of their time hating their eldest sons, and pining for Hanover.   The story of Henrietta Howard is fascinating because she was the last person one would expect as a royal mistress.   Circumstances led her to seek the protection of the Prince of Wales, later George II. Henrietta was born Henrietta Hobart in London in 1689.   Her father was a Norfolk landowner and MP who was killed in a duel when she was almost 9.   Before his death, she had led an idyllic childhood at Blickling Hall (the childhood home of another royal mistress An