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Joan of Kent, the first woman to hold the title ‘Princess of Wales’, lived a life that should be thrilling: romance – three marriages, at least one of which was probably a love match; scandal – one of those marriages was bigamous, another clandestine – topped off with the glitter of royalty as the daughter-in-law of Edward III and mother of Richard II. Therefore it’s surprising that Penny Lawne is the first to write a full-length bibliography of Joan.
But where are the lines drawn between non-fiction work aimed at a more general audience, and clearly academic work?
The dilemma is this: Lawne has written the only biography of Joan of Kent, the mother of the king Richard II. But it reads more like popular history than an academic tome, and I’m struggling to know whether it’s acceptable to refernce in academic writing.
To start with, the cover doesn’t help: it’s pretty much an example of the current vogue in historical romance covers (think Philippa Gregory): headless woman in vaguely historical dress.But since there aren’t really any contemporary images of Joan herself, other than one small manuscript illustration and possibly a stone head, I can’t really blame the publishers for using a fictional image.
Lawne’s book is based on her own PhD thesis, so the research is solid. The problem is, there is very little surviving evidence, so much of her descriptions and suppositions are based on the people around Joan: her husbands, chiefly Edward, Prince of Wales; her sons, and other nobles who led lives at a similar social strata. This is helpful for drawing a fuller picture of medieval life for the casual reader, but less useful for the historical researcher. Unfortunately, it also leads to many uses of the phrases ‘she must have…’, ‘probably…’. This was offputting to me, although I will admit to being alone in that problem; as I already hold a degree in medieval history, I probably know more than the average reader.
Another problem (to me, at least), is that Lawne is very definitely in love with her subject, to the extent that she also wrote an article calling Joan of Kent the ‘perfect princess‘. Enthusiasm for your subject can never be a bad thing, but it runs the risks of becoming blind to their faults.
The book is published by Amberley Publishing, a delf-described specialist in history books, and retails at £20 for hardback and £9.99 for paperback, much more approachable than the £40, £50 or higher required for an academic tome. Fortunately, I was able to borrow it from my library. Despite my reservations, it’s certainly a good starting point for research on Joan’s life, even if I don’t always agree with Lawne’s deductions, and for that, it will remain in my bibliography… for now.