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lisa_setepenre's review
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The ambitious Eleanor Cobham has become the Duchess of Gloucester, the foremost lady in the land and the wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester and heir to the English throne. But she lacks a son and heir, her one way to consolidate her position and path to the throne. Margery Jourdemayne, a wise woman once accused of witchcraft and now hungry for advancement and money, may be able to aid her. Meanwhile, Jenna, a sweet dairymaid, flees from her abusive drunkard husband and becomes entangled in the ambitions of both women after taking work with Margery Jourdemayne’s husband, William.
I suppose I should start by saying that The Witch of Eye is a stronger work than Mari Griffith’s first novel, [b:Root of the Tudor Rose|25755605|Root of the Tudor Rose|Mari Griffith|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1434723702s/25755605.jpg|45599392]. There’s no glaringly obvious problem with tone here and the characters are significantly more intelligent than Griffith’s take on Catherine “I do believe Englishmen have tails, I do!” de Valois.
That’s not to say that this is a good book. The summary I’ve given is actually a fairer and more accurate description of the plot than the description given by publishers, because the main thrust of the story is the sweet dairymaid, Jenna, and her budding romance with William Jourdemayne.
And here I picked this up because, however much I wasn’t a fan of [b:Root of the Tudor Rose|25755605|Root of the Tudor Rose|Mari Griffith|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1434723702s/25755605.jpg|45599392], this claimed to be about Eleanor Cobham, a figure I’m fascinated by and desperately want to read about.
So I didn’t want to read about Jenna. And on top of that, I’m given no reason to care about her. I don’t care about her sweetness and purity, mainly because it’s shallower than a puddle. She’s incredibly passive and never once exercises her agency. She does what she’s told and the plot gives her multiple occasions to do something, yet she never does. In one scene, she realises her mistress, Margery, is a liar and is deeply uncomfortable with that. But never once does she ever do anything about it, not even when she is given a gift-wrapped opportunity to speak up and expose Margery. And this is all excused by Jenna deciding that she, for some unknown reason, owes Margery loyalty. The story never takes Jenna to task for this, either. There’s not even a moment where she briefly regrets that things could have been different, that people might not have died or been ruined, had she spoken up or done something.
And I don’t care that her major dilemma is being in love with a married man – and it’s okay he’s married, because his wife is ambitious and doesn’t do the work he wants her to do, so she deserves to be cheated on. (Authors? This thing of characterising the spouse as an awful person so we don’t feel bad when they’re cheated on has to stop. It’s not pretty nor clever.) In fact, I began to feel distinctly uncomfortable with Jenna when it became clear that she prioritises shagging William Jourdemayne over her young surrogate daughter, Kitty, or the incredibly vulnerable Eleanor in her time of need. Oh, and Jenna gets the only happy ending in the book, her abusive drunk husband conveniently dropping dead offscreen so she can happily marry William once his nasty wife is out of the picture. Hurrah, hurrah. I want to puke.
Before I start talking about anything else, the book gets really weird about Jenna. It’s not enough that she’s a dairymaid working for the Jourdemaynes, no. She has to be taken on by Margery as an apprentice, learning herblore and helping Margery spruik her skincare line (which she doesn’t use because she’s omg so naturally pretty and youthful). Then, when Sarah, Eleanor’s only maid/tiring woman/lady-in-waiting, breaks an ankle, Jenna replaces her. It should be a disaster because Jenna does not know how to dress hair, let alone the finer details of court life, and Eleanor’s characterisation varies from demanding harridan to uppity bitch. But no, no, no. The narrative and characters twist themselves into knots to let Jenna be in that pivotal, integral role. So Jenna automatically becomes Eleanor’s bestest buddy, sole confidant and the most awesome, innovative maid/tiring woman/lady-in-waiting ever.
NO. If your characters have to betray their intrinsic characterisation in order for your plot to work, STOP.
So let’s talk about Griffith’s take on Eleanor, since Eleanor was the sole reason I picked this up. To sum my reaction up in four words: disappointed, but not surprised.
The dominant and only surviving narrative of Eleanor’s life is that she was a shameless hussy who enticed a man (Humphrey, the Duke of Gloucester) away from his lawful wife and spent the remainder of their marriage as an overambitious, vain woman who turned to illicit methods to secure her position and plot the death of the young king (and her nephew by marriage), Henry VI, all so she could become queen.
It is impossible to tell how much of this narrative accurately reflects the real Eleanor. But it is a narrative ripe for interrogation.
It is easy to see the misogyny dripping off it – women are enchantresses who seduce men away from their loyal wives, women with ambition are evil and unnatural, deserving of punishment. It is entirely possible, of course, that the charges of treasonable necromancy against Eleanor were exaggerated and falsified, that she was not the overambitious harridan who ruined herself by seeking to be queen. Gloucester was involved in a bitter political struggle with Cardinal Henry Beaufort – perhaps Eleanor’s downfall was little more than a plot to weaken Gloucester’s credibility and position? Perhaps the fact that Gloucester “lost” this struggle led to the narrative never being significantly challenged?
There is plenty of opportunity for that narrative to be scrutinised and challenged, but Griffith pretty much takes it as verbatim. The only thing she challenges is Gloucester’s innocence in his seduction, instead characterising him as a remorseless womaniser who preyed on Eleanor for sex as much as she preyed on him for power.
Eleanor is insecure about her title and position, turning to the wise-woman Margery for lotions to preserve her youth, obsessed with her choice of clothing and jewels, and constantly correcting those who call her “my lady” instead of “your grace”. This malarkey with Eleanor’s titles is probably meant to show Eleanor for the uppity bitch the author clearly thinks she was. Yet I would assume that a servant who constantly referred to a duchess who, as the king was unmarried, just happened to be the foremost woman in the land, incorrectly as “my lady” would be severely punished and probably dismissed. So Eleanor’s behaviour looks to me less uppity bitch and more… well, kind. And the servants who insistently call her a title not befitting her rank, well, they begin to look incompetent and snobby, looking down at a woman they think has no right to be where she is.
There are moments of deeper characterisation, where Eleanor seems to grow beyond her narrow, ambitious viewpoint, where she develops sympathy for others (really only Jenna) or where she regrets that she has been so ambitious and devoted to getting her man. That’s… well, that’s some depth and growth so good. Yet it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. I am sick of women being demonised and punished for their ambition. I am sick of so-called ambitious women needing to learn that it’s better to stay in their lane than want more. I am sick of the demonization of women struggling with fertility. I am sick of stories that continue to push these toxic narratives.
We don’t know that Eleanor and her husband’s relationship was based around sex and her desire for power. We don’t know they didn’t love each other. We don’t know that Eleanor wanted children to solely advance her position. We don’t know that Eleanor (or her husband) viewed their lack of children as anything more but a tragedy. We don’t know that Eleanor dedicated herself solely to marrying a high profile man, scorning all other avenues of life.
We also don’t know that Gloucester was a womaniser. Based on The Witch of Eye, you might expect Gloucester would respond to Eleanor’s disgrace and downfall and their forced divorce by shacking up with a new stunning young bride. Instead, the historical Gloucester retired from public life and remained single to his death, six years later. I believe there is even an account that says he was enticed to into the trap that ultimately killed him by the possibility of gaining a pardon for Eleanor. Additionally, there is no evidence that this apparently notorious womaniser had a mistress or any extramarital affairs after he married Eleanor, even in the years after their divorce.
Of the three women at the centre of The Witch of Eye, only one has a happy ending – and it’s the sweet and humble dairymaid who just wants to be a good dairymaid and bag herself a nice husband. Who, as I said above, abandons the girl and woman who need her to, quite literally, roll around in the hay with her man. What is feminism? We just don’t know.
In terms of historical accuracy, beyond what I’ve detailed above, it can perhaps be best summed up by the author’s note in which Griffith seems to imply that Henry VII and the Tudor line based their claim to their throne around their descent from Catherine de Valois and Owen Tudor. This is sheer and utter lunacy. Neither Catherine or Tudor had a drop of blood that would entitle them to the English throne. The Tudor claim to the throne, quite simply, was always based on their descent from the Beaufort line and, ultimately, John of Gaunt, third son of Edward III. To put it another way, if Henry VII had based his claim around his descendent from a French princess and a Welsh commoner, he would have been laughed out of England.
I started this book thinking it was a bit dull and disappointed by its take on Eleanor. But I finished it angry. I found Jenna to be a complete waste of narrative focus. The book’s take on women, demonising Eleanor and Margery for their ambition while celebrating Jenna’s passivity, leaves me deeply uncomfortable. Its take on history is clumsy at best, downright ludicrous at worst, while its attempts to manipulate readers was transparent and ugly. Finally, it somehow managed to regurgitate nearly every sexist narrative trope I’m sick of.
I suppose I should start by saying that The Witch of Eye is a stronger work than Mari Griffith’s first novel, [b:Root of the Tudor Rose|25755605|Root of the Tudor Rose|Mari Griffith|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1434723702s/25755605.jpg|45599392]. There’s no glaringly obvious problem with tone here and the characters are significantly more intelligent than Griffith’s take on Catherine “I do believe Englishmen have tails, I do!” de Valois.
That’s not to say that this is a good book. The summary I’ve given is actually a fairer and more accurate description of the plot than the description given by publishers, because the main thrust of the story is the sweet dairymaid, Jenna, and her budding romance with William Jourdemayne.
And here I picked this up because, however much I wasn’t a fan of [b:Root of the Tudor Rose|25755605|Root of the Tudor Rose|Mari Griffith|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1434723702s/25755605.jpg|45599392], this claimed to be about Eleanor Cobham, a figure I’m fascinated by and desperately want to read about.
So I didn’t want to read about Jenna. And on top of that, I’m given no reason to care about her. I don’t care about her sweetness and purity, mainly because it’s shallower than a puddle. She’s incredibly passive and never once exercises her agency. She does what she’s told and the plot gives her multiple occasions to do something, yet she never does. In one scene, she realises her mistress, Margery, is a liar and is deeply uncomfortable with that. But never once does she ever do anything about it, not even when she is given a gift-wrapped opportunity to speak up and expose Margery. And this is all excused by Jenna deciding that she, for some unknown reason, owes Margery loyalty. The story never takes Jenna to task for this, either. There’s not even a moment where she briefly regrets that things could have been different, that people might not have died or been ruined, had she spoken up or done something.
And I don’t care that her major dilemma is being in love with a married man – and it’s okay he’s married, because his wife is ambitious and doesn’t do the work he wants her to do, so she deserves to be cheated on. (Authors? This thing of characterising the spouse as an awful person so we don’t feel bad when they’re cheated on has to stop. It’s not pretty nor clever.) In fact, I began to feel distinctly uncomfortable with Jenna when it became clear that she prioritises shagging William Jourdemayne over her young surrogate daughter, Kitty, or the incredibly vulnerable Eleanor in her time of need. Oh, and Jenna gets the only happy ending in the book, her abusive drunk husband conveniently dropping dead offscreen so she can happily marry William once his nasty wife is out of the picture. Hurrah, hurrah. I want to puke.
Before I start talking about anything else, the book gets really weird about Jenna. It’s not enough that she’s a dairymaid working for the Jourdemaynes, no. She has to be taken on by Margery as an apprentice, learning herblore and helping Margery spruik her skincare line (which she doesn’t use because she’s omg so naturally pretty and youthful). Then, when Sarah, Eleanor’s only maid/tiring woman/lady-in-waiting, breaks an ankle, Jenna replaces her. It should be a disaster because Jenna does not know how to dress hair, let alone the finer details of court life, and Eleanor’s characterisation varies from demanding harridan to uppity bitch. But no, no, no. The narrative and characters twist themselves into knots to let Jenna be in that pivotal, integral role. So Jenna automatically becomes Eleanor’s bestest buddy, sole confidant and the most awesome, innovative maid/tiring woman/lady-in-waiting ever.
NO. If your characters have to betray their intrinsic characterisation in order for your plot to work, STOP.
So let’s talk about Griffith’s take on Eleanor, since Eleanor was the sole reason I picked this up. To sum my reaction up in four words: disappointed, but not surprised.
The dominant and only surviving narrative of Eleanor’s life is that she was a shameless hussy who enticed a man (Humphrey, the Duke of Gloucester) away from his lawful wife and spent the remainder of their marriage as an overambitious, vain woman who turned to illicit methods to secure her position and plot the death of the young king (and her nephew by marriage), Henry VI, all so she could become queen.
It is impossible to tell how much of this narrative accurately reflects the real Eleanor. But it is a narrative ripe for interrogation.
It is easy to see the misogyny dripping off it – women are enchantresses who seduce men away from their loyal wives, women with ambition are evil and unnatural, deserving of punishment. It is entirely possible, of course, that the charges of treasonable necromancy against Eleanor were exaggerated and falsified, that she was not the overambitious harridan who ruined herself by seeking to be queen. Gloucester was involved in a bitter political struggle with Cardinal Henry Beaufort – perhaps Eleanor’s downfall was little more than a plot to weaken Gloucester’s credibility and position? Perhaps the fact that Gloucester “lost” this struggle led to the narrative never being significantly challenged?
There is plenty of opportunity for that narrative to be scrutinised and challenged, but Griffith pretty much takes it as verbatim. The only thing she challenges is Gloucester’s innocence in his seduction, instead characterising him as a remorseless womaniser who preyed on Eleanor for sex as much as she preyed on him for power.
Eleanor is insecure about her title and position, turning to the wise-woman Margery for lotions to preserve her youth, obsessed with her choice of clothing and jewels, and constantly correcting those who call her “my lady” instead of “your grace”. This malarkey with Eleanor’s titles is probably meant to show Eleanor for the uppity bitch the author clearly thinks she was. Yet I would assume that a servant who constantly referred to a duchess who, as the king was unmarried, just happened to be the foremost woman in the land, incorrectly as “my lady” would be severely punished and probably dismissed. So Eleanor’s behaviour looks to me less uppity bitch and more… well, kind. And the servants who insistently call her a title not befitting her rank, well, they begin to look incompetent and snobby, looking down at a woman they think has no right to be where she is.
There are moments of deeper characterisation, where Eleanor seems to grow beyond her narrow, ambitious viewpoint, where she develops sympathy for others (really only Jenna) or where she regrets that she has been so ambitious and devoted to getting her man. That’s… well, that’s some depth and growth so good. Yet it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. I am sick of women being demonised and punished for their ambition. I am sick of so-called ambitious women needing to learn that it’s better to stay in their lane than want more. I am sick of the demonization of women struggling with fertility. I am sick of stories that continue to push these toxic narratives.
We don’t know that Eleanor and her husband’s relationship was based around sex and her desire for power. We don’t know they didn’t love each other. We don’t know that Eleanor wanted children to solely advance her position. We don’t know that Eleanor (or her husband) viewed their lack of children as anything more but a tragedy. We don’t know that Eleanor dedicated herself solely to marrying a high profile man, scorning all other avenues of life.
We also don’t know that Gloucester was a womaniser. Based on The Witch of Eye, you might expect Gloucester would respond to Eleanor’s disgrace and downfall and their forced divorce by shacking up with a new stunning young bride. Instead, the historical Gloucester retired from public life and remained single to his death, six years later. I believe there is even an account that says he was enticed to into the trap that ultimately killed him by the possibility of gaining a pardon for Eleanor. Additionally, there is no evidence that this apparently notorious womaniser had a mistress or any extramarital affairs after he married Eleanor, even in the years after their divorce.
Of the three women at the centre of The Witch of Eye, only one has a happy ending – and it’s the sweet and humble dairymaid who just wants to be a good dairymaid and bag herself a nice husband. Who, as I said above, abandons the girl and woman who need her to, quite literally, roll around in the hay with her man. What is feminism? We just don’t know.
In terms of historical accuracy, beyond what I’ve detailed above, it can perhaps be best summed up by the author’s note in which Griffith seems to imply that Henry VII and the Tudor line based their claim to their throne around their descent from Catherine de Valois and Owen Tudor. This is sheer and utter lunacy. Neither Catherine or Tudor had a drop of blood that would entitle them to the English throne. The Tudor claim to the throne, quite simply, was always based on their descent from the Beaufort line and, ultimately, John of Gaunt, third son of Edward III. To put it another way, if Henry VII had based his claim around his descendent from a French princess and a Welsh commoner, he would have been laughed out of England.
I started this book thinking it was a bit dull and disappointed by its take on Eleanor. But I finished it angry. I found Jenna to be a complete waste of narrative focus. The book’s take on women, demonising Eleanor and Margery for their ambition while celebrating Jenna’s passivity, leaves me deeply uncomfortable. Its take on history is clumsy at best, downright ludicrous at worst, while its attempts to manipulate readers was transparent and ugly. Finally, it somehow managed to regurgitate nearly every sexist narrative trope I’m sick of.
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