Cecily Duchess of York - by J L Laynesmith (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This is the first scholarly biography of Cecily Neville, duchess of York, the mother of Edward IV and Richard III. She was said to have ruled Edward IV 'as she pleased' and Richard III made his bid for the throne from her home. Yet Cecily has been a shadowy figure in modern histories, noted primarily for her ostentatious piety, her expensive dresses, and the rumours of her adultery.

Here J. L. Laynesmith draws on a wealth of rarely considered sources to construct a fresh and revealing portrait of a remarkable woman. Cecily was the only major protagonist to live right through the Wars of the Roses. This book sheds new light on that bloody conflict in which Cecily proved herself an exceptional political survivor. Skilfully manipulating her family connections and contemporary ideas about womanhood, Cecily repeatedly reinvented herself to protect her own status and to ensure the security of those in her care.

From her childhood marriage to Richard duke of York until her final decade as grandmother of the first Tudor queen, the story of Cecily Neville's life provides a rich insight into national and local politics, women's power and relationships, motherhood, household dynamics and the role of religion in fifteenth-century England.

Review Quotes

[A] a richly detailed book ... Laynesmith's qualities as a scholar are evident on every page ... [A] comprehensive and meticulous study of one woman's exercise of power within the limits of medieval gender expectations and will serve as the standard account of Cecily Neville.
Journal of British Studies

An outstanding picture of one of the most important figures, male or female, during the fifteenth century ... It may be a term deprived of meaning by overuse, but Joanna Laynesmith has set a benchmark with this work, not only in the study of Cecily Neville, but in the study of medieval women more generally. It is a benchmark I can't see being reached by many.
Ricardian Bulletin

For many years this new and so far unique biography of Cecily of York will remain definitive. It's scholarship is impeccable and its style very readable.
The Ricardian

About the Author

J. L. Laynesmith is Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading, UK. She is the author of The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship, 1445-1503 (2004), joint winner of the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Award 2005.