Silken Bonds

A few years ago I first bumped into Jane Shore, the celebrated mistress of King Edward IV. She was being examined by a biographer, who was fleshing out a likely picture of her life as a late 15th century courtesan. Recently, however, I met her in a pleasantly lively novel by Vanora Bennett - "Figures in Silk". However, it is her sister Isabel who turns into an achiever of another type - that of a prosperous silk merchant.

Her capability and verve in establishing the prominence of the House of Claver is set against a hopeless and intense affair with an unattainable personage. This is almost a bifurcation, aptitude and cleverness on the one side of her life, and the heartfelt ambivalence in her illicit relationship comprising another side of her life.

Jane and Isabel are quite different, in appearance, attitude and modes of survival. However, they near each other by story's end. This is a good story although some of the character depictions may be a little of a stretch. It is a fine look at the merchant class in 15th century England, however, and worth reading for that reason included.

And Those of Us Who Do Love Jane...

The title of this post was a phrase used by someone in the Jane Austen Society to preface a great truth about literary folk.  I have forgotten the pronouncement, but I remember her.  The Jane may have been Jane Austen, but I am thinking of another Jane, a Jane who wasn't really a Jane but an Elizabeth.  Jane Shore.  And, having read a short study concerning her, I can say that I really do love her.

Jane, or Elizabeth, didn't cash in on her dalliance with Edward IV.  Initially trapped in a marriage with William Shore, a goldsmith, she was then able to divorce him armed with the fact that the he was impotent.  Then she was free to be scooped up by Edward.  "Of his loves, she was the merriest."  Their pleasant relationship lasted until his death at the age of forty.

It fell to Richard III to make an example of her by making her walk through London in a shift carrying a lighted taper.  I suppose it was part of the package of discrediting his elder brother, but the shaming backfired, as was reported, when the people of London cheered her instead of reviling her.

Her fortunes improved.  While she was in Ludgate Prison, Thomas Lynam, a solicitor and right arm of Richard, was captivated by her and took her to wife, as they say.  Richard needed Lynam's service so much that he had to put up with the marriage.  Jane must have again become penurious upon his death.  She lived far into the 16th Century, impoverished and defeated.

However, Jane lived on in ballad and anecdote.  She was an example of wantonness coming to a bad end.  Her story was often told, with embellishments in literature and later on, in film.

I suppose the only way for a woman to enjoy some sort of power and influence in the Middle Ages was to become a concubine of a royal.  A mistress sometimes had more influence than a queen.  The only physical description in the literature painted her as being blond, short and pleasantly plump.  I find her to have been a figure of courage and forthrightness.  May her story live on.

(the work was "The Mysterious Mistress" by Margaret Crosland)