Gone Medieval - Edward III, His Queen & His Mistress

Episode Date: February 4, 2023

Edward III wed Philippa of Hainault when they were both teenagers. It was a marriage of deep affection lasting 41 years. But when Alice Perrers entered court as a young widow, she caught the eye of the ageing king as Philippa’s health declined. In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis talks to Gemma Hollmann, author of The Queen and the Mistress: The Women of Edward III about how two very different women used their skills and charms to navigate a tumultuous royal court – and win the heart of the same King.This episode was edited and produced by Rob Weinberg.If you’re enjoying this podcast and are looking for more fascinating Medieval content then subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here >If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android > or Apple store > Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. Today we've got a returning guest on the podcast. Gemma Holman operates a fantastic blog called Just the History Posts and was here last time to talk about royal witches. Gemma's new book, The Queen and the Mistress, the Women of Edward the third is out now and deals with the colliding lives of two women in the 14th century. One a queen, one a mistress.

One celebrated, one often vilified. But who were they really? Did they deserve their reputations? And what can their stories tell us about attitudes to powerful women? Welcome back to Gone Medieval, Gemma. Thank you very much for having me. Nice to chat. It's a pleasure to have you back. Can you tell us a little bit, first of all, about the queen part of the queen and the mistress?

who is the queen? So the queen is a woman called Philippa of Hainaut and she was the wife and queen of Edward III of England. So yes, as you said, we're in the 14th century in England now and her connection to England starts in the sort of middle to late 1320s. And I guess that of Hainaut gives away where she's from? So where is Hainaut and who are her parents? What is her family background? And Philippa is part of this kind of European noble slash royal miniature families that crop up. Obviously, this is a time before lots of huge centralised countries. So there's lots of little territories dotted around. And her father was count of a couple of different territories.

So Hainaut was one of them. He also covered Holland and Zealand and a few other territories later on. But yeah, he's mostly based in what was called the low countries. So it's regions of modern day, Belgium and France and the Netherlands, that kind of area. But her mother was actually part of the French royal family. So she had connections to the French royalty from her side. And through her various siblings later on in life, she was connected to lots of other royal and noble families in Europe.

All of that intermarriage went on. She was probably the third daughter of her parents. Her birthday is actually a bit of a mystery. Although she's this really important lady who's Queen of England, at this time, the births of lots of children and even royal children was not always recorded. So there's been quite a bit of guesswork by historians to figure out when exactly she was born. But she was probably born around 13, 14, so right near the start of the century. It's crazy how often we just don't even know a Queen of England's date of birth.

It's amazing how those things just slip and we never get them. Yeah, it is, as you say, you think today it's like such a huge occasion when anything like that happens and you think everybody must be writing it down. But a lot of the time, that's not even the case. And as I said, in her family's case, barely any of her siblings are recorded. So we just have to guess based on when people were getting married and dying, what order people might have even been born in. So we don't even necessarily know who's the oldest and who's the youngest.

So it's a big shock sometimes to see that, as you say, people who are so important, we don't actually know the basic thing like when they were born. And how does she end up married to Edward III? How does she become Queen of England? As is typical for lots of women in her position at that time, her marriage was a political deal, a bit of an alliance. but a bit more unusually, it's a bit more of a sort of tumultuous situation than others. Often these marriages would happen just as political alliances to tie two territories together

or to help create peace. So basically, Edward the second was currently king of England. And he had been ruling for quite a few years, but he'd had a bit of a controversial reign. He had lots of male favourites who he lavished a lot of attention on. And these men took over control of the court, and he ended up alienating a lot of his nobility. and quite a lot of them had actually fled to the French court to try and escape the negative aspects of these favourites who they'd fallen foul of.

And as you get to the mid-1320s, one of these people who falls foul of the favourites is Edward II's wife, Queen Isabella. And she had also come up with some clashes against them. She was losing power at court and she actually had a lot of her land confiscated by Edward II. And the sort of pretences were that war with France was on the horizon and her territories were in danger,

so he was taking it to look after it. But really, the Queen without her lands is quite a powerless person, and she was not very happy that she was being treated this way. She was also a member of French royalty and had this sense of importance that went alongside that, and she wasn't happy with how she's being treated. So she ended up going to the French court, and initially it was meant to be a diplomatic mission

to try and create peace between England and France. And she did fulfil her duty. She came up with this peace treaty between the country, countries. But part of this peace treaty was that Edward II had to come over to France and he had to the French king for his lands that he had that the French kingdom was laying claim to. But Edward wasn't really keen with this idea because he knew that if he left the country, that his favourites would be in danger from all the nobles left behind in England who really didn't like them. So Isabella comes up with this perfect plan and she says,

why don't you send our oldest son Prince Edward over? He can pay homage on your behalf and then you don't have to leave the country. Edward naively in retrospect said, yep, this is a great idea. I'll send my son over. And as soon as Prince Edward is in possession of his mother, she has a very dramatic about face and she does a fantastic PR campaign where she puts on all of her widow's clothing. And she says that these favourites have come between her and her husband so much so that it's as if she is a widow. She's not even married anymore. And she says that she's not going to let Edward go back home until these favourites are removed. So this is a big disaster for King Edward because now his son and heir is in foreign lands in the control of his mother. And there's just basically lots of

back and forth across pretty much a whole year between the two of them to argue what should happen. And Edward demanding they come home and Isabella saying, no, I'm not going to. And eventually Isabella comes up with this idea where that Christmas at the French court, one of her cousins, who is Philip's mother has come to the French court at Christmas time and the two of them meet up and they start to think about ways that they might be able to resolve the situation. And the two of them basically come up with this idea that Prince Edward and Philip of Haino will get married. And as part of this deal, obviously Philip's father's really happy because his daughter at some point will become Queen of England. So it's a good deal for him

and his daughter. And as the dowry, which is the gift that the fathers would give, for their daughters being married, he would supply some ships and an army for Isabella so that she could go over to England and sort out these favourites and get herself sorted out. So it seems to be a great deal that benefits both sides. But in reality, it is very controversial and they don't really have the power to make this marriage. King Edward is the only person who can give permission for his son to marry. And because their mothers are cousins, their second cousins, so they were also too closely related under church laws, so they needed the permission of the Pope as well. And neither King Edward nor the Pope were giving permission.

But they go ahead with this deal anyway, and they make some contingency plans so that if Edward isn't able to marry Philippa within the next couple of years, he has to pay a really big fine to the Count of Hainaut. And then Prince Edward and Isabella sail off with these ships and men that Philippa's father have provided. And once they land in England, as they say, the rest is history. The rebellion turned out to be wildly successful, because all of the... these nobles who were still in England, wanted to join Isabella's side, and they basically

managed to capture Edward and his favourites. The favourites very quickly got executed, so they got their just deserts in the rebel's eyes. And suddenly Isabella and Prince Edward have had a taste of being able to rule without Edward II getting in the way, and they can do whatever they want, and they think that actually this is quite a good deal, and it's eventually decided by Parliament that Prince Edward should take over instead and become king. So, yeah, this marriage was actually really crucial part of English history. It completely changed the course of what happened in the country. And Philippa finds herself right at the heart of it.

I'm aware we're skipping ahead a little bit. But talking in general terms, as queen, I mean, Philippa is queen for quite a long time? Is she generally well liked? Is she considered a successful queen? Yeah, definitely. I think in many ways, Philippa has helped by how completely contrasting she is to her mother-in-law. Although Isabella's rebellion had been really successful and she was really popular at the time of the rebellion

because she was seen as suffering with everybody else and she was almost the saviour of England. Once Edward II is deposed, she rules for the next few years effectively in Edward III's name and she takes this opportunity to get quite greedy really. She takes a lot of land and money for herself. She's parading around as if she is the sole queen, the ruler queen, and she does lose a lot of popularity from this

in many ways towards the end. is this sort of bad woman. This is why women shouldn't have power because she's ruling with her lover and her son is off living in rags with no money. And so then Philippa comes along and she's a teenage girl. She's got time to learn the customs of the country. She's a good wife to Edward. She has lots of children. She's not too political. She's not getting involved in politics. She's not doing what Isabella was doing and trying to bend things to her will or if she was doing it appropriately behind the scenes where things aren't always seen. And so, yeah, she's definitely seen as this great queen. She gives money to religious foundations. She supports education.

She helps to found a college at Oxford University. She patronises poets and writers. And she's just seen as a really good support for Edward. So yeah, she really gains quite a good reputation. Fabulous. So what do we know then about the lady who is the mistress part of? of the story. Who is she? The mistress is a lady called Alice Perez and she, by contrast, is quite an enigma. We really haven't known much about who she was for basically the past 600 years since she was around and kicking. She was quite mysterious in herself. She seems to have purposefully downplayed her origins because she's of a much lower class than everybody else at court. But what it seems to be is that she came from a family of goldsmiths in London. And so

in terms of the entirety of society, she's doing quite well for herself. She's part of the mercantile class in London who's really seen an upturn in fortunes during Edward's reign. People in that class have been getting a lot more wealthy. There's a lot of trade going on. There's lots of goods coming in from France from when we've been winning the wars over there. So she's doing quite well in terms of the whole of society. But obviously she's in terms of the court and the nobility, she's nobody. She's very low down in the rungs. But by fatal fortune, she manages to find her. her way to the royal court and she finds herself working as a lady in waiting to the queen, to Philippa. And so suddenly she's dived right into the midst of this glamorous court that's been the big court in Western Europe throughout the 14th century. And Edward is seen as this really

chivalric king and he hosts all of these tournaments and parties. And by the time she comes to court, which is the 1360s, so a lot later on than everything that happened when Philippa was coming to England. By this time, the 100 years war has been going on with France. There have been lots of wars with Scotland. And Edward had actually captured both the kings of Scotland and of France. So as Alice joins the royal court, there's loads of captured nobles who are at the court being held as prisoner. The French king is there for a time. He ends up being let back into France, but a load of French nobles come back as prisoners for ransom in England. So she's at this court with all of the greatest and brightest of Western Europe, basically,

with loads of parties, loads of feasts, those of tournaments, and this great king who's being hailed as an absolutely legendary man, the new King Arthur kind of thing. So it's basically the greatest time of her life. She's doing really well. Even better than that, at some point after she joins the court, she catches the attention of the king. This man who, as far as we're aware, has been completely loyal to his wife for 30 years

and has never had eyes for anyone else, suddenly she's caught his attention and they start a relationship. And so this must have been quite significant for Alice as it can really potentially change her fortunes even more than being at court already has. There's a quote by Thomas Walsingham, I think it is, who says, you know, Alice Perez was just a nobody,

she was horrible, she wasn't even beautiful. None of that can be true because otherwise what would Edward possibly have seen in her, you know, I think we'll probably get to it later, but there's this idea that she tricks here, But as you kind of alluded to there, she must be the one who was dazzled by everything that was going on around her. He's the one in a position of power. She's walking into this world of glitz and glamour, which must have been beyond anything she's ever experienced or imagined.

Yet we're given the image that it's her that's driving what's going on rather than Edward driving what's going on. Yeah, definitely. And a lot of that's rooted in contemporary sexism that has carried on throughout the centuries to modern day. I love the quote by Walsingham because he just absolutely hates Alice, but he loves to hate her. He can't stop talking about her. And as you say, he calls her every name under the sun and says how horrible and awful she is. But as you say, that can't really be the case. If this king has been a loyal husband for decades and decades, and then suddenly she catches his eye,

he's been surrounded by hundreds of women throughout the time on the throne. So there must have been something special about her to make her different and stand out. and that is something that I try and pick up on throughout the book is making these comparisons with her and Philippa, what qualities did they hold in common that might have attracted Edward to Alice? But as you say, it is quite an unequal relationship. Edward is a lot older than she is. He's probably at least twice her age, if not more, 20 to 30 years older than her. And he is the king, as you say, she's a goldsmith's daughter from nowhere,

and he is the king of England. So, yeah, he definitely holds the cards. She could have been a seductress for all we know. She could have been playing her hand. I think a lot of the evidence shows that they had quite an equal and loving relationship. And she was very headstrong and independent herself. Everything she does throughout her life is to have that independence for herself so that she doesn't have to rely on a man.

She wants to be the owner of lands and castles in her own name. So she definitely would be a good opponent for him to bounce off of. Sex. It might surprise you to know that, oh, it's been around for a while now. In fact, we are all the living, walking, breathing, talking proof that sex has been around for a long time. And over on the Betwixt the Sheets podcast with me, Kate Lister, I will be rooting around for the kinkiest, quirkiest stories in the history of sex, scandal and society. Or in other words, the best bits. Well, at least I think so.

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And that university professors once moonlighted as grave robbers. We were executing less and less people. So there was a real shortage. If you want to hear about all of this and more, then join me betwixt the sheets today, wherever it is that you get your podcasts. Brought to you by History Hit. Is it fair to say that as Philippa's health wanes

and she moves towards eventually passing away, Alice's influence grows. Or is it more to it than that? I think it's a bit of a mix. I think we can't downplay the role of Philippa's health, particularly because Alice and Edward's relationship does coincide very strongly with Philippa's health failing. And it does provide a reason for Edward's eyes to wonder

when he's never had reason to before, that he might not be getting his kingly satisfaction in the marriage and so is looking elsewhere for certain things that Philippa can't give him. And that's not to say that his love for Philippa had waned at all. There's no evidence of that. They seem completely close and inseparable. up until her death. It's just that there's now also someone else. As time goes on and Philippa does get sicker, Alice does get more and more powerful. But I think it's not quite as

straightforward as that, because Edward and Alice were very discreet during the lifetime of the queen. They did keep the relationship very quiet. And it does seem that very few people really probably knew about the relationship until after the queen was dead. I'm sure that there must of being people at court who were aware of it and this certainly would have helped Alice in building up her relationships but a lot of this increase in power as Philip is getting

sicker is actually from Alice herself as I said she's very headstrong she's very keen to have her own independence and so she's doing everything she can to make all these connections at court and she's taking advantage of that she's talking to people

she's making business deals she's calling in favours Lots of these people that she does early deals with are lower knights and men who are part of Edward's household. So people she's around every day. And as she gets more powerful, she can start to move up to these more powerful lords and earls and dukes because she's built up the resources to be useful to them. So a lot of it is her own ingenuity in getting that extra power. And I think part of that really is shown by the fact that the first business deal she does

is within about a year of her being at the wrong. royal court. And we don't even know if her relationship with the king had started by that point. Because they were so discreet, we can't quite tell exactly when it started. And the relationship might have started very soon after she got there, but it might have been a couple of years in. So she's already taking advantage of her position at court even potentially before she is being with the king. So that really does show that she's really got the business head on. But yes, once the queen is gone, then there's not as much need for their relationship to be secret and discreet. And as soon as everybody knows that Alice is the King's Mistress, that's when her power

really takes off. And also, I guess, when people start to come after her a little bit as well, because she's getting all of that power. Definitely, yeah. Around the 1370s, so once Philippa has died and her relationship with Edward becomes a lot more widely known, that's the real height of her power. And although certain people didn't like her, because she was so powerful, there wasn't really much that they could do with it. So part of the reason that Thomas Walsingham hates her so much is that he is a monk at St. Auburn's Abbey and St. Alban's Abbey and Alice Perez

are both laying claim to this same piece of land. And because Alice is the king's mistress, she's winning the fight. So he doesn't like her because he's, oh, she's stealing this land that's rightfully ours and it's just because she's sleeping with the king. But that's really highlights it, although there might have been people who felt

that they were being let out of pocket by her or that she wasn't holding up her end of the business deals. At that time, there wasn't really much that they could do about it because Edward is a strong, powerful king. He really likes Alice and clearly doesn't really want anything bad to be said about her. So they're a bit powerless. But people definitely held on to their grievances to call in at a later date. It strikes me that both of these women kind of performed very similar role.

So they owned land. They gained incomes. they secured favours for their friends. They had influence over the king. Why do you think it is that Philippa is generally seen as good for doing that? And Alice has traditionally, at least, been seen as bad for doing almost exactly the same thing. A lot of it comes down to contemporary suspicions of women that then get written down in the record and then passed on to us and repeated

without people necessarily interrogating the people who are writing those sources. 14th century Europe is very much a patriarchal society And obviously there were lots of women who could and did hold power and wealth and all of that in their own right There's lots of female inheritance across Europe You still have some female queen regnance in certain countries So it's not the women couldn't be powerful, but generally society understood that men should be in charge That was the best thing And women are often seen as temptresses, they're seen as emotional, they're seen as seductresses,

are seen to be the sex that's much more interested in sexuality and more likely to tempt men to sin. And even queens have this same suspicion. I was saying earlier about how Isabella was acting after she took over regency. She's seen as falling into these temptations of a woman that this is why a woman can't rule because she just gets too tempted by all the power and the glamour rather than thinking about the greater country.

So queens definitely were vulnerable to this. but it was seen as a necessary evil. We have to have someone to provide heirs, so someone has to marry the king and has to sleep with him. But as part of that role of queen, women had so much expectations put on them. They were supposed to act in very specific ways. They were meant to be really good at diplomacy

and they were meant to be able to persuade their husbands and certain things, but they weren't meant to overstep the line. They weren't meant to be too involved in politics. They were meant to be quite meek and subservient to the king, and anything that they did do was meant to be for the good of others. So obviously in practice they held a lot of power and they would use that for their own uses and their own wealth. In theory, they're only meant to be helping out those less fortunate

and that's when their power's meant to come in. So they can't use their power to say, oh, we should start war with France, but they could say, oh look, there's this child who's been sentenced to death for stealing some sheep. Maybe we should let them off. That's seen as the appropriate use of power. And Philippa plays this role.

perfectly throughout her life. She knows what to use her power for and what not to use it for. And she is able to enjoy all of the luxuries that come with that. Whereas Alice, because she's a mistress, she's not this official wife of the king. She's not a noble, she doesn't have any of this noble blood in her that sort of makes her a better woman. She's seen as really subversing these gender roles and stepping out of line. And a lot of this comes from the fact that she is a single woman. She doesn't have a man there to control her. But she publicly had a powerful husband who was doing lots of things as well. She probably wouldn't have got quite as much of this hate because there's this idea that she's being controlled by someone. But here she is a woman who wants power for powers sake

and quite openly about that. And she's not acting as ideally as Philippa. So she makes promises to people. People will give her land or give her a really good deal on a business transaction in the hope that she'll talk to the king for something and help them out. And she takes these deals, but then doesn't necessarily follow through with talking to the king. So it's just very clear that she's doing everything for her own gain rather than for the good of the kingdom. And this kind of becomes really clear later on when Parliament starts to complain about

her. And one of the things they say is she's taking thousands of pounds from the English coffer for no benefit. So it was all right for Philippa to take some money because people knew that they would get things from her in return. but Alice is taking the money without providing that social contract. And so that is part of the big difference between the two is that Philippa is sanctioned by the church

and Alice is a very immoral woman who's transgressing societal norms. It always seems to me that women in power in particular are always a good target to blame for things as well. So Philippa, her time with Edward, coincides with his golden years, his real achievements and attainments, whereas Alice arrives when things start to go worse, for Edward, his health starts to fail as well. So it's easy to blame her for all of the things that go wrong in the kingdom as well.

You know, as you say, women have this reputation as being a temptress and all that kind of thing. And invariably, you know, they're blamed when things go wrong. So perhaps Alice just gets the raw end of Edward's life, if you like, and it's easy to blame her. Although it sounds like she did also have some motives that were a bit shadier than Philippa's. Yeah, definitely. I think that's a really good point. And one of the eulogies that's written about Philippa when she dies, definitely summarizes that point. They say, as long as she lived, England flourished. And as you say, she happened to be there. As fortunes were going up, you have the devastation of the black death,

and you have loads of wars and deaths from that. It's also a time where everybody's getting richer. The country is winning these wars, and it's great. And so, yeah, she definitely gets a lot of the good publicity that comes along with that. As you say, Alice is at the height of her power, as Edward is becoming older. He's not able to travel as much. The wars with France aren't going to going very well, the crown's running out of money, so they're constantly having to call parliament. And so all of that negativity then reflects back on to her and the friends around her. And it's always easier to blame the people around the king than to blame the king himself. And yeah, I think she definitely gets a lot of that. And I think it does come down a lot to gender.

And it's not solely gender. There were men around the king who also came off really badly from this and got accused of doing lots of mismanagement. But it's definitely a part of it that she shouldn't be doing these kinds of things as a woman. And the fact that she is seen as greedy for doing this, it's more because she's the only woman who's doing this. If she were a male favourite of the kings, if she was just a man at court who had been doing lots of deals and building up lots of land and getting some power, people probably would have been like, oh, he's really clever. He's managing to work his way up from a goldsmith to a knight to a lord and wow, wasn't that such a meteoric rise and how did he do it? He's really clever. Whereas Alice does it and they go, oh, she's just sleeping with the

king, so that's why she's getting it and there's no other reason. Whereas when you look at what she's doing, it is incredible. Even for us today, it's hard to understand how she managed to work all of these systems in her favour and she was incredibly clever and intelligent and she knew what she wanted and she tried to get it. It's a real shame that all of those aspects of her personality, her intelligence and all of that get overlooked because of this idea that she didn't somehow deserve it. I guess Philippa is a bit of an impossible act to follow and Alice obviously isn't married to the king so she has all of that against her. But as you say, you know, we completely overlook her achievements and her obvious abilities with this idea that she was just a mistress who got the king into bed

and had a wicked way with him and got lots of money and land because of that. There was obviously more to it than that. And the age dynamic between them comes into play as well. There would be lots of things that I would be reading from historians where they're saying, oh, by this point, Edward, he's a senile old man and he's just besotted by love and he's just being led. He's not really a real king. He's a bit of a puppet king and she's telling him what to do and he's doing it.

It's important to take a step back and look at it critically. He's only in his 50s at this point. he dies in his 60s and that is a good age for the time, there's lots of expectation that he could have lived for many more years. We've had previous monarchs who lived up to their 70s and 80s. So although it is a more advanced age, he could have easily carried on going. And the evidence really only shows it's only the last sort of year or two of his life

where he starts to really struggle with his health. He probably has at least one stroke, if not more. That's when you can then start to say, okay maybe he's less in control. He doesn't necessarily know as much what's going on around him. But even in the early 1370s, there's no evidence of that.

He's still travelling the country. He's still taking charge of government. By all accounts, he's still very much a man in his late 50s who knows what he's doing. So this idea that Alice is leading this old man astray, again, really plays into those dynamics

of the only reason a man like Edward could possibly lose control to Alice as if he'd gone a bit old and senile. There's no way, that he could actually love her. That would be crazy. It does all sound like a bit of a cop-out and an easy answer. So what do contemporary and, I guess, modern attitudes to these two women tell us about politics and power in the medieval period

and how people thought about it then and how we think about it now? I think what's really clear is just how important gender roles were to how women were perceived and that if women were seen to be doing what they should be doing, then they would be hailed as the most amazing person that lives. And you can really see that with Philippa. You can't really find any criticisms of her during her lifetime. And when she dies, there's countless writers who write about just how wonderful she was, how amazing she was. And her reputation outlasted her. In one of the last parliaments of Edward's reign, it's about seven or eight years after she's died. And the speaker who opens parliament calls back to Philippa and he says,

Has any king ever had as amazing a wife as Philippa? So she's really being hailed as just this perfect queen. And of course it's quite striking because at the time, this is the height of Alice Peres's power. And so in a way he's saying, oh, remember how great we had it back when Philippa was alive? And she was so wonderful to us. And she helped us out and she was just the perfect woman.

And now we're stuck with Alice. And again, you can really see that in the few bits that do survive about Alice. There's not too much sort of contemporary. opinions on her because she's so powerful people are worried to write anything about her in case she comes after them. But Thomas Walsingham is sort of one of these main people who isn't afraid of her and that's partly because he outlasts her time at court so he has this upper hand. And so he's able to write about just how horrible she is and how awful she is. And because the narrative fits that, she has this great downfall, Parliament confiscate, everything that she owns and she

dies in obscurity. And all that kind of survives are the writings of this monk. And she has. And who hates her and people just take that at face value and bring it to the modern period and a lot of that is based in Victorian historians who really picked up the medieval period and they obviously had very similar ideas of gender roles and that a woman should be submissive and meek and not after power so they reinforce this idea of oh gosh yeah this woman must have been really awful if all these things happened and I think it's really something that we as historians today have to interrogate and go back and say, taking apart whatever we think, what do the sources say? And that can be for both positive and negative.

It can be really easy for us to want to find these amazing, powerful women who have been wronged by history and go, it would be so easy to look at Alice and say, no, actually, she was absolutely amazing and she's a girl boss and like she's a feminist and all of this. But then you have to go, okay, is there any evidence, though, that she wasn't very nice to people and that actually they haven't fabricated all these things against her. Maybe she wasn't great. but then also maybe people have just run with all these evil stories about her and was she really that evil? Would Edward have wanted to have a sort of 10, 15 year relationship with a woman who's utterly vile to everybody around her?

Maybe there's something more there. Yeah, I think it's just really important that we go back and see what exactly is said and what isn't said. And is there any way that we can fill those gaps in there to see, was Philippa as perfect as everybody said she was? or was it just that the person who came after her was so awful that everybody thought she was perfect? And yeah, so it's really interesting to look at the two women side by side. And as I said, see their similarities and their differences and just how important perception plays in their reputations. I think it's a really great way to look at the two women and the problems that men had with their attitude to women at the time. And as you say, the way that history has been constructed over the century since,

that we're only just starting to break that kind of spell that it's had on us, that there are good women and there are bad women. Powerful women are generally bad unless they're being powerful for a man. We're only just starting to break those things down, and it's crazy that it's taken us until the 21st century to get there. So it's really nice to see some of these women emerging from the caricatures that we've had of them, and I think putting Philippa next to Alice and talking about both of them, without pitting them against each other, is a really, really, really,

great way to look at both the women but also the way histories judge them both. I think as well, it's easy when we're writing these histories and you do a biography of someone to look at them in isolation. But it is important to remember that there were other people around and these relationships affected each other. And there was the best part of a decade of overlap of Alice and Philippa both being alive, both being at court, both being in a relationship with Edward. And you get lots of works that focus on Philippa and then just mention, oh yeah, and as she was dying, Edward took on a mistress. And then it's easy to look at works of Alice that are looking at her at the height of her power after Philippa's died. As I said, they were both alive at the same time

and had this real overlap. And there is influences from each other on their lives. And it's important to think about how would they have seen each other. And it can be a bit of a difficult question because the kind of sources that would allow us to know that don't exist. We don't have their diaries or we don't have letters where Philip is saying, oh yeah, Edward's taken up this mistress and I really don't like her. None of that exists. So some of it can be tricky. But yeah, they were alive at the same time and they love the same man. And so you do want to go, what connects them, what joins them together? And as I said, the contemporaries were viewing them as a unit. Why don't we try and have a look at them as a unit too?

It's been absolutely fascinating to talk about them. So thank you very much for joining. us again Gemma. It's been wonderful to talk about these women. Thank you so much for having me and it's always good fun to have a chat about them. Yeah, it's an absolute pleasure. Gemma's book, The Queen and the Mistress, the Women of Edward III, is out now. So grab a copy and see what you make of these two fantastic women's lives. You can join Dr Kat Jarman on Tuesday for another brand new episode. Don't forget to also subscribe wherever you get your podcast from and to tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. If you get a moment, please do drop us a review or rate us anywhere that you listen to your podcasts, it really does help new listeners to find us.

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