The Winchester Goose

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Nope, nope, NOPE! This book has teeth. It has meat, and Arnopp pulls off pulls off a redemption that is jaw-dropping. Now... the plot...

The Medieval Housewife and Women of the Middle-ages; 2009 (updated 2015) Richard III King of Controversy; 2013 Dare they be Doctors. Amberley Publishing: Far from being displeased by the presence of these licentious houses, the good bishop taxed them with gusto – as recorded in the court rolls. Next on this [west bank of the Thames] was sometimes the Bordello, or Stewes, a place so called of certain stew-houses privileged there, for the repair of incontinent men to the like women... I have heard of ancient men, of good credit, report, that these single women were forbidden the rites of the church, so long as they continued that sinful life, and were excluded from Christian burial, if they were not reconciled before their death. And therefore there was a plot of ground called the Single Woman's churchyard, appointed for them far from the parish church. [6]

Set in Tudor times, during the latter years of the reign of Henry VIII, 1540, the book uses first person and, to commence, four different voices to tell a tale of love, lust, hope, marriage, desperation, loss and tragedy. The main protagonist is Winchester Goose, Joanie Toogood (great name) who, due to the death of her parents when young, gained responsibility for her two younger siblings turning to the oldest and only profession available to her as a single woman of a certain class. Big of heart, popular among locals and with oodles of common sense, Joanie is a delight. When she falls for the rather shady but young and dashing Francis Wareham, a gentleman who seems to stumble from bad choice to poorer ones, her life changes. But so does that of two other women from a completely different class who also encounter the dashing courtier: Evelyn Bourne and her sister Isabella. I earned my Masters Degree by Research from the University of Kent in 2009 through study of a medieval medical manuscript held at the Wellcome Library in London. My BA (with First-class Honours), my Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing and my Diploma in European Humanities are from the Open University. My Cert. Ed (in Post-Compulsory Education and Training) is from the University of Greenwich. I liked how Ms Arnopp placed Isabella as one of the women attending Katherine during her imprisonment, a clever idea and completely feasible; I assume those women were not named, in accounts of the time. This enabled us to see how Anne and Katherine were perceived by those around them. The descriptions of Joanie's meagre life on the other side of the river (literally and metaphorically) sat in stark comparison, though Joanie did not seem any less happy than Isabella; they're both gutsy, likable characters, and their situations give a clear illustration of the lot of women in those days.

The Sebastian Foxley Medieval Murder Mysteries series: 2016 The Colour of Poison; 2016 The Colour of Gold; 2017 The Colour of Cold Blood; 2017 The Colour of Betrayal; 2018 The Colour of Murder; 2018 The Colour of Death; 2019 The Colour of Lies; 2020 The Colour of ShadowsCross Bones is a place of complex modern rituals, meant to remember the women and children buried here, as well as mark recent history. the word “sauce” instead of “good”. I’ve no idea where the idea of cooking someone’s goose comes from, nor why anybody thinks that a goose step

bitten by a Winchester goose was to contract a venereal disease, and goosebumps became a slang term for the symptoms of some such This book was well written, not over descriptive and the characters are nicely developed through the various events that they endure. For those interested, The Winchester Geese was the collective name for the prostitutes who worked this part of London, hence the title refers to Joanie. I liked the way the author shows the gritty side of Tudor London and the hard life that these women endured, along with the risks that they took on the job. We also see that the rich Court that everyone wanted to attend was just as deadly for hooking you up with the wrong men and losing your head at the whim of the King. Cross Bones Graveyard". Southwark Council. Archived from the original on 30 December 2007 . Retrieved 25 December 2007.Pratt, David (3 October 2019). "Reg Meuross: Raw - Folk Radio". Folk Radio UK . Retrieved 29 June 2020. Lovely young gentlewomen, they are brought to the Tudor court to join the maids serving Henry VIII’s new queen, Anna of Cleaves. Hoping their prospects for marriage will improve through exposure to the royal court and eligible bachelors and widowers, the young sisters could never have foreseen the way their lives were to be changed. a b Constable, John (1999). The Southwark Mysteries. London: Oberon Books. pp.264–265, 304–305. ISBN 9781849438537.

goose. If it’s fair to give two people the same thing (and especially if one might consider not doing so on account of their sex), you might say that what’s good The first half features the King's divorce from Anne and her fear for her life as seen through Isabella's eyes but most of the story features on Francis and his women. Eve for me was a dumb airhead who was determined to marry a rogue because she was in love, despite an honourable match with a decent man being offered to her. While I understand the wish to avoid an arranged husband and marrying for love, she was really blind to who her love was. Isabella is the strong but plain sister who would have loved the match that her sister spurned but soon forgets romance when she is moved to serve Katherine Howard. I liked the relationship between Isabella and Katherine, the way they had little time for each other until Isabella was there for her during her fall from grace. Medieval attitudes to prostitution seem to be mixed. Sex was clearly for procreation but these fallen ladies seem to have been viewed as a way of preventing good Christian men falling into even worse practices – like sodomy or masturbation (seen as mortal crimes by the church). and I don’t know why. The shape of the plant isn’t particularly similar to that of a goose’s tongue, so I think it might instead relate to the effect of chewing the leaves, which In 1351, the City of London passed an ordinance that ‘lewd or common women’ must wear a striped hood to identify themselves and refrain from beautifying their clothes with any fur trim or fancy lining. At that time, any woman not of noble birth could be described as ‘common’ so the ordinance seemed to cover almost every female in the city. London’s proud womenfolk weren’t going to have men dictating what they could wear, so most ignored the ordinance and challenged any constable to arrest them, if he dared. When Edward III added his own authority to this law three years later, he was careful to specify it applied only toIt is the second half of the book where things really hot up. Eve discovers a lot of her husbands secrets and is about to meet Joanie, Isabella is torn between serving the Queen and her new husband who wishes his wife to abandon Katherine. The dark deeds of Francis put Eve and Joanie in danger and Joanie is forced into a horrific situation which brings her closer to Eve. Katherine confesses all her sins to a horrified Isabella who tries to advise her and help her avoid death. It is a rollercoaster with lots of action and intrigue involving all of our main characters and I was interested to see where it was going to lead. Our readers will remember that, in the account we have given of the Stews on Bank-side, mention is made of a piece of ground, called the Single Woman’s Burying Ground, set apart as the burial place of those unfortunate females; we are very much inclined to believe this was the spot, for in early times the ceremony of consecration would certainly not have been omitted; and if it had been performed, it would doubtless have appeared by some register, either in the possession of the Bishop of Winchester, or in the proper ecclesiastical court. We find no other place answering the description given of a ground appropriated as a burial place for these women, circumstances, therefore, justify the supposition of this being the place; for it was said, the ground was not consecrated; and the ordination was that they should not be buried in any spot so sanctified. [7] Europeans believed that they grew out of a kind of barnacle called a goose barnacle, whose shell pattern… kinda, sorta a b Mikulski, R. (28 March 2007). "Cross Bones burial ground", Museum of London Archeology Service. All four of the main characters, Joanie, Francis, Evelyn and Isabella are given voice in this novel and such different and compelling voices they have. The common denominator in their stories is Francis. As a reader, you think you see where these women’s relationships with handsome, swaggering Francis will lead, but nothing prepares us for the brutal and heart-wrenching reality.