Posts by Pamela
History on Display: Beautiful Clothes and Ugly Actions
When I put a History on Display post on my calendar for today, I assumed I was going to write about the exhibit on Mainboucher: a boy from a modest background on Chicago’s West Side who became the first American-born couturier to make an international reputation. One of my sisters was coming for a long…
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Isabella of Castile: Europe’s First Great Queen
A while back I reviewed Sarah Gristwood’s Game of Queens, a wonderful account of the powerful women who ruled (directly or indirectly) in sixteenth century Europe. Giles Tremlett’s masterful biography of Isabella of Castile is in some ways the prequel to Gristwood’s account. Tremlett sums up the theme of his book in its sub-title: Europe’s…
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Swearing Allegiance
Over the last few weeks, I’ve typed the words “swear allegiance” more often than I would have thought possible as I write the stories of the Empress Maud (aka Matilda, Lady of the English), Isabella of Castile, and Tamar of Georgia. In each case, a king forced his nobles to swear allegiance to his daughter…
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