Inspired by this pie chart about how to write a novel about Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, I decided to post a few of my own helpful pie charts on my Facebook page. As not everyone hangs out there, I’m putting them here as well (plus a couple of brand-new ones). Just heed the charts carefully, and you too can get a piece of the publishing pie!
Some of my Facebook friends have created their own pie charts, so check them out on my Facebook page!
Total genius!
Loved yours, too! You should post them on the Feast!
Much appreciated, both (although shouldn’t Anne Neville have a substantial ‘adoring Dickon’ slice?). Especially as I was listening to P. Gregory promoting her latest production-line novel the other night.
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All excellent, though I have to say that even if you’re not a Richard III partisan, there’s just something incredibly novel-unfriendly about Henry VII. It’s weird, because there was certainly enough going on during his reign, but the overriding image of him is still “Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Budgeter”. And Jane Grey’s chart is mercifully missing the “Undergoing Sexual Abuse Unknown To Historians” section.
Am now feeling a strong urge to make my own charts …
Henry VII is surely crying out for some love, or at least a historical novel in which he doesn’t spend a ridiculous 99% of his time either counting money or obsessing over some tiresome continental brat claiming to be long-lost royalty and fooling almost nobody.
Instead think of him as the monarch who has ships dashing around the Med, dodging Papal agents so he can make a vast fortune out of sanctions-busting trade with the Ottoman Empire, undercutting His Holiness’ lucrative alum monopoly. With the Papal inspectors in England all on his secret payroll. Which is actually how Henry made most of his vast personal hoard – gouging his barons with recognisances and bonds was merely a modest side-hobby.
Or think of him as the only monarch of the Middle Ages who ever devised a way of cutting the Gordian Knot of Anglo-Scottish peacemaking, namely the near-impossibility of reconciling it with Scotland’s Auld Alliance with France. Henry’s out-of-the-box solution? Agree that the Scots could honour the alliance by sending troops to fight in France so long as no fighting took place in the British Isles. A piece of pure genius entirely derailed by Henry “Subtle Isn’t My Middle Name” the Eighth, who insisted on all or nothing and spent about a third of his reign fighting Scotland.
Personally I mentally picture Henry VII as a zesty Machiavellian genius bearing an odd resemblance to Shakespeare’s gleefully conniving Richard III, only minus the fictitious hunchback and the (possibly) fictitious habit of murdering half his family. There was even the wonderfully Shakespearean moment where he proposed marrying his recently widowed daughter-in-law Catherine of Aragon, before deciding that her sister Juana would suit him much better.
Henry Tudor Senior was anything but dull.
I agree with you. Joking aside, I’d love to see a good novel about Henry!
Oh, I wasn’t trying to say that that was an *accurate* portrait, just that you’d probably have a hard time selling someone on, say, a Henry VII romance novel. And while it’s fortunate for all involved that he never actually married Juana, I have to say the ensuing drama would have made for some pretty good novels as well1
IMO, Matt Baynton should play Henry VII when your ideas turn into a movie (hope that this link works):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU5s9VSuqKo
These are more helpful than any bubble charts could ever be! There are endless possibilities here – let’s not even open the treasure troves that are Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I – or anyone surrounding the illustrious Henry VIII period for that matter.
LOL! These are great!
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Just read the “pie chart” postings. Very revealing! By the way, there is a From my friend Janet Trimbath:
By the way there is a novel about Henry VII – kind of a historical romance novel – by Roberta Gellis. The title is ” The Dragon and the Rose”. Apparently Elizabeth found him to be really a “hit” guy!
I actually met Roberta Gellis several years ago and she sincerely believed he was a good person!
Anyway, if you are looking for “good guy” Henry 7, this is the book for you!