Jacquetta of Luxembourg v. Patriarchal Fallacy
The deletion of a Dowager Duchess who challenged medieval patriarchal roles
A tenant of modern-day feminism is the value of community and support over isolation and wholly self-reliance; the antithesis of patriarchal living which promotes “self-sufficiency” and “independence.” This is not to say either of those qualities are inherently bad, as they are both productive characteristics for a human to have, but when independence looks more like isolation and self-efficiency looks more like selfishness and greed, you start to realize that the patriarchy values these traits because if we are isolated and unaware of the intersection of our shared experiences, then we are more likely to continue to perpetuate the dangerous, limited frameworks we are trapped within today. Independence at the cost of connection and self-reliance that manifests as greed and wealth-hoarding allows the continued preservation of the patriarchy, and women have been trying to dismantle it since the onset.
As we’ve discussed in prior musings, women have been demonstratively diminished within the history books, either through complete erasure or forever altered by the paradigm of patriarchal propaganda. The historical accounts available of England’s civil skirmishes of the 15th century that is now known as the War of the Roses are prolific, “yet the royal women who were so instrumental to these dynasties are almost forgotten,”1 which contributes to the existing patriarchal fallacy that women weren’t incredibly influential to the shaping of our human histories. As Phillipa Gregory aptly states in the introduction of The Women of the Cousins War, “historians would now agree that an account of a society that does not look at the lives of half of the population is only half an account.”2
One such woman who has been systematically vilified and erased from the collective consciousness is Jacquetta of Luxembourg: a Dowager Duchess of England, mother to a Queen, and someone who could trace her lineage through the European royal dynasties all the way back to the mythological. Yet her presence in the history books has been merely that of a supporting character, a catalyst of calamity, or the nefarious ways in which she defied her patriarchal expected social roles. She has been robbed of her wholeness, cast aside as a witch and a convenient scapegoat for the Ricardian society’s resurrection of Richard III’s reputation. Patriarchal propaganda has tarnished how centuries of generations have viewed one of the matriarchs to the English royal dynasty, whose blood still flows within the royals on the English throne today. Our access to Jacquetta is through reading between the lines of the historical record, limited modern publications, and the heavily biased writings of patriarchal male historians. But she is there.
Jacquetta was so much more than the roles which she held that served men. She was more than just a stepping-stone for men’s ambitions. This Substack was born as a result of the last year of my life being spent on deeply researching Jacquetta in the contemporary records and literatures, scouring the histories as I write a biography of this intelligent, loving, progressive woman. I was blown away by the clear bias that clouded the memories of her and her female counterparts. Women who deeply influenced England’s history, women who were present at every chapter, many of whom tried to interject community and empathy in a time of bloody feudalism. These women’s stories deserve to be whole and fully representative of the agency they possessed. My personal drive to document Jacquetta in her wholeness was captured and conveyed beautifully by Helen Castor in her preface of She Wolves: The Women who Ruled England before Elizabeth, “I have sought to root it in the perspectives of the people whose lives and words are recounted here, rather than in historiographical debate, and to form my own sense, so far as the evidence allows, of [her] individual experiences.”
Although the word feminism wouldn’t come about until the mid 19th century, my interpretation of Jacquetta was just that: a woman whose existence left evidence of tiny acts of feminism everywhere. Though I’m interpreting feminist acts within Jacquetta’s life movements, it’s important to keep in mind, as Rosalind Brown-Grant illuminates in her introduction to her translation of Christine de Pizan’s 1405 The book of the City of the Ladies, “in claiming that women can match men in terms of their military prowess, leadership, ingenuity and intelligence, Christine may seem to anticipate some of the key tenets of twentieth-century feminism. However, unlike modern feminists, Christine stopped well short of demanding for her sisters the equality of opportunity...” Jacquetta, being born roughly 10 years after Christine wrote her seminal work and one day being a documented reader and momentary owner of that very work, would have had strict confines in which to flex her feministic muscles. However, where she did show up in this way, it is reminiscent of the 21st century version of the movement. My book seeks to bring Jacquetta back to her much deserved wholeness, and bring to light the ways in which feminist practices shaped the lives of everyone Jacquetta encountered and even so much as informed the behavior of later documented acts of feminists, both male and female. Thank you for supporting this Substack, and ultimately my dream of realizing Jacquetta.
In honor of this year’s Women’s History Month, I wanted to take the time to bring to life some of the women that were characteristically censored within the historical documents of the War of the Roses. Last week we took a closer look at a woman who has been perpetually cast as a temptress-Eve type, Elizabeth Lambert, and next week we’ll explore the life of Jacquetta’s first-born daughter, Elizabeth Woodville (Wydeville.) Though today’s post will be but an introduction to Jacquetta’s powerful journey, I hope to illuminate some of the medieval experiences in which I’ve interpreted feminism within and encourage you to look at the ladies of the Middle Ages through a different lens, one without the patriarchal blur added.
Jacquetta was born in Luxembourg between 1415 and 1416, “this uncertainty as to her date of birth is not uncommon for women of this period… Girls were not valued in the fifteenth century, and nobody could have predicted that the oldest daughter of the heir of Luxembourg would be a leading English woman through two reigns and two regencies, a witness to some of the most significant events of two wars, the mother of a queen and the founder of a royal dynasty, and a powerful actor in her own right.”3 Unlike her female English peers, Jacquetta was raised and educated by her own mother in her northern France, English-held home of Luxembourg. Jacquetta’s education was clearly vast, as indicated by later court records, and we can interpret a strong will and sense of self within her later determination and actions. It was standard practice for a girl of Jacquetta’s status to be betrothed or married young, permissible age of consummation being 14, however, Jacquetta didn’t enter her first marriage until the age of 17. This allowed Jacquetta time to develop a sense of self and not be tied down by the identity-stripping role of being someone’s wife in the Middle Ages.
Jacquetta’s influence and magnetism can be read into the way her first husband, John Duke of Bedford, brother to King Henry V and uncle to young King Henry VI, approached their nuptials as well as how he executed his will just a few short years after their marriage. John’s beloved and, in her own right, powerful first wife, Anne of Burgundy, had passed only 5 months before Jacquetta and John’s wedding which took place on April 20th, 1433. An offensively short mourning period for the time. John was 43 and war-worn, Jacquetta was a 17-year-old described as ‘lively, beautiful, and gracious.’ (Monstrelet, La Chronique) This is to be the most we know about Jacquetta’s physical appearance as no known likeness or further physical description survives of her.
As Jacquetta’s new husband was the heir to the English throne, this made her the first lady of England, and she quickly fell into the role. Applying for denization (English citizenship) in July of 1433 and being inducted as a Lady of the Garter in 1434, she was ingratiating herself into her husband’s life, which would have been the role she was taught to fulfil since childhood.
John and Jacquetta’s marriage was to be a short one, as John passed but two years later. “There can have been no quarrel between him and his young wife for he made her his sole heir in his generous will, which left her all his land for life (excepting one estate) and also gave her his famous and treasured library, including the romances of Camelot”4 and a compendium of Christine de Pizan texts. John must have felt strongly for his young wife, whether that feeling was one of love or admiration, for leaving all his worldly treasures and properties to Jacquetta would have made her perhaps the wealthiest peeress in England. Potentially giving Jacquetta power beyond the expected female presence of the time, and most assuredly providing power to her next crown-approved-husband who would benefit from her vast lands and income. John would have been very aware the position her grand inheritance would have put Jacquetta in upon his death and the execution of his will, yet he did it anyways; there must have been deep trust there.
Jacquetta’s thirst for knowledge and extraordinary intelligence can be glimpsed through this act of John leaving his entire library to his then 19-year-old widow. This library included a written history of Jacquetta’s mythical ancestor, Melusine, who had been a powerful water goddess that had fallen for a mortal man.
Though there are only potential nods to this ancestral tie throughout Jacquetta and her daughter Elizabeth Woodville’s lives, one wonders if there was a sense of internal power, being certain that their lineage stemmed from a courageous, powerful goddess. One who created boundaries for her loving marriage, and then promptly removed herself when those boundaries were crossed. May we all learn to be as intolerant of crossed boundaries as Melusine was.
Because of her status within the English nobility, Jacquetta was forbidden to remarry without permission of the crown, additionally, the crown was likely to use her next marriage as a political pawn that was advantageous to their own goals and greed. Jacquetta, refusing to be anyone but her own woman, defied the crown and married a squire for love. This squire’s name was Richard Woodville.
Though Richard’s family were active within the Lancastrian political sphere, he was still far below Jacquetta’s station. Not only was Jacquetta’s defiance an act of patriarchal rebellion, she went on to love Richard passionately, as made evident by their 14 children. Jacquetta’s role as a wife in the Middle Ages would have taught her motherhood was her purpose, however, I believe their active physical relationship is indicative of love and attraction, which in itself was rebellious for the time.
Richard, who was later made a Baron to elevate his status to be more appropriately matched to Jacquetta, settled on the name Baron Rivers, potentially a nod to his wife’s ancestry. Jacquetta was clearly an influential woman, garnering deep love and loyalty from those in her sphere.
We know that Jacquetta not only inherited works of Christine de Pizan from her first husband, but there is evidence that she found it an informative read, as she inscribed it with her name and personal motto: ‘sur tous autres’ (above all others.) Does this personal motto give us insight into how Jacquetta felt about her self-worth and agency? It’s conjecture, but I believe it absolutely does alongside the evidence of her life.
“As “ambassadors of culture” and “arbiters of lay culture” in Susan Groag Bell’s influential terms, and “disseminators of culture” as per Sharon Michalove, women profoundly shaped medieval literary culture, particularly in terms of geographic and transhistorical access to books as well as their dispersal… female book owners’ tendencies to pass on books to their sons and daughters ensured the transhistorical transfer of reading material down family lines. By inheriting books and marrying into new families, subsequent generations of female readers further widened existing social networks.”5 Jacquetta’s eldest surviving son, Anthony, inherited her copy of Christine’s feminist work, and was also a documented reader of the work, having inscribed it much like his mother before him and later translating a few of Christine’s other pieces into Middle English. He was clearly a fan.
There are many ways in which feminist networks and influences reveal themselves, and the transfer and encouragement of feminist learning to offspring is one of them. I know as a feminist mother I share the power and accomplishment of women openly with my daughter, and I dare to say that Jacquetta also did this with her children though in the 15th century way. The importance of knowledge transfer from mother to child can not be understated here, as it shaped the man Anthony was to become.
Anthony went on to be a writer in his own right and a patron of the printing press, which made valuable, informative texts available on a larger scale. An apparent personal purpose of Anthony’s was to translate works he deemed important for his royal ward, Prince Edward (Jacquetta’s grandson,) into Middle English. One of these translations being the Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers. This translation is particularly important as it offers us a glimpse into Anthony’s feminist paradigm, likely encouraged by his mother. William Caxton, the printer, mentions Anthony’s behavior as an anomaly and perhaps a mistake, ultimately making jest of his views. For within the translation, Anthony left out pieces that he felt were a misrepresentation of women’s nature, insinuating that Socrates was purposefully propagandizing against women. Caxton noted in his epilogue:
Wherein I find that my said lord hath left out certain and divers conclusions touching women. Whereof I marvel that my said lord hath not written them, nor what hath moved him so to do, nor what cause he had at that time. But I suppose that some fair lady hath desired him to leave it out of his book, or else he was amorous on some noble lady, for whose love he would not set it in his book, or else for the very affection, love, and goodwill that he hath unto all ladies and gentlewomen, he thought that Socrates spared the sooth and wrote of women more than truth, which I cannot think that so true a man and so noble a philosopher as Socrates was should write otherwise than truth. For if he had made fault in writing of women, he ought not nor should not be believed in his other dictes and sayings. But I apperceive that my said lord knoweth verily that such defaults be not had nor found in the women born and dwelling in these parts nor regions of the world. Socrates was a Greek born in a far country from hence, which country is all of other conditions than this is. And men and women of other nature than they be here in this country. For I wot well, of whatsomever condition women be in Greece, the women of this country be right good, wise, pleasant, humble, discreet, sober, chaste, obedient to their husbands, true, secret, stedfast, ever busy and never idle, attemperate in speaking, and virtuous in all their works, or at least should be so. For which causes so evident my said lord, as I suppose, thought it was not of necessity to set in his book the sayings of his author Socrates touching women.
Caxton speculates that Anthony’s omission must be due to having amorous feelings towards a woman and not wanting to upset her, but I believe it was more than that simplistic view. I believe Anthony was influenced by, if not his mother directly, the written texts she passed on to him that exposed patriarchal propaganda within the classics. It is unimaginable to Caxton that Anthony could have seen women as something akin to equals. However, it’s not a stretch to assume Anthony witnessed women’s power through firsthand experience via his mother, thus being reaffirmed through Christine’s written representations.
During a subsequent downfall of king Edward IV, Jacquetta’s son-in-law, she was accused of witchcraft by the ever-greedy Earl of Warwick, who had just beheaded her beloved husband Richard and younger son John. Jacquetta was not only able to overcome these accusations and prove her innocence, she ensured that there was a parliamentary record of her proven innocence. She did this through her own agency, not beholden to anyone’s interjection on her behalf. Jacquetta’s self-preservation and worth showing through here, as she would have witnessed the earlier downfall of her once sister-in-law Eleanor Cobham through similar accusations. All of this determination and action while grieving deep loss. The woman was unstoppable.
Patriarchal propaganda has ensured that Jacquetta has gone down in history as nothing more than a witch that held roles in service to the patriarchy, but the scant evidence left behind by her nay-sayers reveals why they needed to erase her: she was a powerful woman that was influential enough to change the course of English history. The patriarchy could not allow women to receive this messaging, thus, her erasure and endless vilification ensued.
In my book, which I’m not yet ready to share the title of, I explore Jacquetta’s life through a feminist paradigm and peel her tarnished memory away from the deeply layered patriarchal misrepresentation that exists. Jacquetta deserves to be known. Subscribing and sharing this Substack helps me achieve that goal, so thank you for your time with my words and the energy of your thoughts.
Royal Witches From Joan of Navarre to Elizabeth Woodville By Gemma Hollman · 2019
The Women of the Cousins' War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King's Mother By Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin, Michael Jones · 2011
See above note, page 49
See note 2, page 64
Behind Every Man(uscript) Is a Woman: Social Networks, Christine de Pizan, and Westminster Abbey Library, MS 21 , MS 21 Elizaveta Strakhov Sarah Wilma Watson