are there any books you'd recommend for Isabelle of Angouleme?
Hi! I’m really not an expert on Isabella of Angouleme so I'm probably not the best person to ask for recommendations for her. Here are some I've heard of, though I haven't read all of them:
"Isabella of Angouleme: John's Jezebel" by Nicholas Vincent (King John: New Interpretations). I haven't read it myself but I've heard good things!
“Maternal Abandonment and Surrogate Caregivers: Isabella of Angoulême and Her Children by King John” by Louise J. Wilkinson (Virtuous or Villainess? The Image of the Royal Mother from the Early Medieval to the Early Modern Era). It focuses more-so on Isabella's tenure as queen, the period shortly after John's death, and her decision to leave England. Despite what the title may imply, it's sympathetic to Isabella and analyzes her situation in detail.
“Co-Operation, Co-Rulership and Competition: Queenship in the Angevin Domains 1135-1230” by Gabrielle Storey, her PHD thesis which collectively focuses on Isabella of Angouleme along with Empress Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Berengaria of Navarre. You can read/download it here, it's an excellent piece for all four women.
Sally Spong has written/is writing:
Isabella of Angouleme: The Vanished Queen (Norman to Early Plantagenet Consorts). You can see her conclusion here. It's nuanced and sympathetic, though not without its issues and pre-conceived notions.
Isabella of Gloucester and Isabella of Angouleme: Female Lordship, Queenship, Power, and Authority 1189-1220 (PHD thesis University of East Anglia).
“Isabelle d’Angouleme, By the Grace of God, Queen” by William Chester Jordan. You can read it online here, though I will say that it's ... very very questionable, accepting the sensational claims of lot of unreliable sources (including the idea of John abducting Isabella in a fit of uncontrollable infatuation) entirely at face-value.
“The Marriage and Coronation of Isabelle of Angouleme” by H.G. Richardson, available here on JSTOR.
Isabella has also been the subject of two complete French biographies till date:
"Isabelle d’Angoulême, reine d’Angleterre" (Aquitaine: 1998) by Sophie Fougere.
"Isabelle d’Angoulême, comtesse-reine et son temps (1186-1246)" [Actes du colloque tenu à Lusignan, 8 au 10 novembre 1996] by Gabriel Biancotto, Robert Favreau and Piotr Skubiszewski.
There are also a few blog posts about her (here and here) which may help if you want a brief overview of her life, though they can get a little sensationalistic sometimes.
Hope this helps! If anyone knows any others, please feel free to add on!
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Proposal AU
Thena takes care of a very exhausted Gil!
Something sweet and soft 🤭
Gil groaned, trying to turn his face away from the light.
"It's almost over."
He blinked, finding his nose buried in a head of blonde brighter than sunshine. He could have just nestled in further, which was damn tempting of course. But he groaned, adjusting in the...hammock?
"You know, you're actually quite lucky," Thena continued in a whisper. Her fingers ran through his hair. "Had I not joined you here, I'm sure your mother or sisters would have no trouble awakening you for what is actually our own party. But with me in here as well, everyone thinks we're too wrapped up in pre-marital snuggling to bother you."
"You're doing an awful lot of talking for someone determined to let me sleep."
She gave his cheek a poke. "I know very well you're awake. You stopped snoring."
"I do not snore," he grumbled, moving his head so she could pull away and look at him. He pouted.
"You snore a little," she broke it to him gently at least, poking his lip back into place. "But I'll forgive you because you're so exhausted."
He yawned completely reflexively, but he at least pressed it into the shoulder of her cardigan. "How long?"
"A couple of hours."
That scared him. He jolted, not that it did much in their hanging basket arrangement. "No."
Thena nodded, though, confirming the statement that had sent fear shooting through him. "Just over two hours, assuming I found you relatively close to when you fell asleep."
"Thena, no," he groaned again, attempting to drown himself in the fabric suspending them off the ground. "No, no, no--my mom worked her ass off for this party, I can't have been asleep for that long."
"Sh," Thena hushed him from those soft lips again. She was being awfully tender with him. "I told her that I was the one who lulled you into sleep. If anyone is to blame, it's me."
He whimpered, though. "I'm a bad son."
"On the contrary," she had the nerve to laugh at him when he was upset. "You are the son who cooked every morsel of food at this party. If you happened to spend most of it in a hammock with your own fiance, I can't imagine she would have anything to say about it."
Well, she had a point. He did cook all of the food. And Ajak was always telling him to try and relax - with Thena - more. He sighed again, unfolding his arms from around himself and resting one over the curve of Thena's waist. "Guess I can't argue with that."
"You haven't missed much," she informed him. "Ajak announced how pleased she was for us."
Gil snorted, pulling Thena closer to him as a breeze rocked the hammock faintly. "That wasn't what she said when I first told her. Nearly took my ear off demanding to know why I hadn't said anything until now."
"You have a lovely family, Gil."
He opened his eyes again to look at the woman in the hammock with him. Some of their relatives had arrived early for this party. They were distant, some more family friends than anything. But it was certainly an escalation to their little lie. They were having to do couple-y things more often. A 'love you' here, a 'missed you' there. A brush of his hand over her shoulder--that kind of thing. He smiled, "are you actually in here avoiding them?"
Thena didn't deny it, which was basically a confirmation. She slid her hands up his chest and nestled her head closer again, approaching a position to tuck it under his chin. "Your mother knows a staggering number of people."
Gil chuckled, tucking her against him so she wouldn't have to close the gap herself. She happily accepted his invitation, practically settling into him like a cat in a sunbeam. "Sorry I left you to handle them all yourself."
"I gave up rather quickly," she lamented. "Said I had to find you to ask you something for the wedding. It worked to help me avoid anyone for nigh on half an hour."
"We're both bad hosts."
"Indeed," Thena agreed, not seeming all that upset about it. She sighed, her hot breath hitting his throat. "I'll apologise to your mother later."
"I'm pretty sure you can do no wrong in her eyes," he assured her. He had just had a pretty solid nap, but it was way too comfortable to continue lying there with Thena to even think about trying to roll out of the swaying hammock. "You'll be her first daughter-in-law. To her only son, no less. An eldest son I'm pretty sure she was getting worried wouldn't be settling down at all."
"Hm."
"Hey," he called to her before she could slide down that slippery slope of regret. He rubbed small circles in her back, "don't worry about it."
She didn't say anything else, but one of her hands slipped around his side and to his back, clutching a fistful of his shirt. She pressed her face into his shoulder.
He sighed, ready to settle into sleep again, feeling the familiar position of Thena cuddled up to him. He was nearly there when he heard a grating voice getting closer and closer.
"Yoohoo!--lovebirds?"
Gil kept his eyes closed, not in the mood for his showboat cousin who probably wanted to make some dramatic speech about them or drag him up in front of everyone.
"Gil, mom's lookin' for you!"
Thena stirred but he cradled the back of her head with his hand and held the small of her back. "It's a trap."
She puffed out some air at his joke before whispering, "diabolical."
"Very," he whispered back, eyes still closed.
"Here they-oh!"
Gil resisted the urge to tell his brother - in every way that mattered - to fuck off and not wake his fiance. He held Thena firmly, determined to appear asleep.
"It's so sweet!"
"Let them rest, you two--Makkari, put the stick down!"
His youngest sister was no doubt about to poke him in the face with it. His sweet and elegant mother had raised a bunch of animals.
He only cracked his eyes open when he heard them padding away, complaining why he got to skip out on the party duties, like entertaining guests and cleaning up as things started coming to a close.
"We can't sleep in here all night, you know."
"Why not?" he grinned, immediately pulled back into the little world that was the high sides of the hammock bending around his weight. "It's comfy."
"I would hardly call this lumbar support," she argued, although he was pretty sure she wasn't that far from dozing off herself. "And what if it rains?"
"We're in the trees, it's fine," he laughed. They weren't exactly in the depths of the wooded area surrounding the house, but they were away from everything else enough that they weren't the easiest to find in here.
"Gil," she scolded, but made no attempt to get up, or even separate herself from him.
"Mom wouldn't let that happen," he reassured, although it made her go quiet again. "Fine, just a few more minutes."
"Five, not a second more."
"Deal," he smiled. She sounded like she did when they were at work. It felt so far away, they'd been here so long. Not that they didn't deserve the break. And Thena had even more paid time off than he did. He was pretty sure she never took a day off.
Unless she was sick. In which case he would rush home from work and cook up his most healing chicken soup and noodles for her.
Thena didn't stir as he pressed a kiss to her cheek. If anything, she nestled closer to him, "five minutes."
"Five minutes," he repeated, moving his lips down her cheek, closer to her lips. He didn't close the distance quite yet, but Thena didn't pull herself away either. And he didn't need the next five minutes to make his decision.
It was chaste, just the barest brushing of lips against lips. It was like a peck. Thena didn't make any sudden moves or any sounds at all. Only she could lie perfectly still and straight postured in a hammock. "Was that your attempt at bartering?"
He grinned, their heads still too close to really see each other, breath mixing and lips twitching to meet again. "Depends if it worked."
"No."
"Fine," he conceded, moving his hands to her cheeks. He gave her another little peck before she tucked herself into the crook of his neck again. This was just another couple-y thing to add to the list, apparently. Not that he minded.
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