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Jun. 23rd, 2024 07:13 pmThis is for real the last post about Scotland I'll make, but I've just finished rereading Quest for a Maid, which was one of my favorite books as a child, which is one hundred percent the result of going to go see the Crown Jewels in Edinburgh and being presented with various tableaux about Significant Moments in Scottish Royal History.
TABLEAUX: here is Robert the Bruce bathed in heroic golden light as he's promoted to King!
ME: so why was Robert the Bruce being crowned WAIT! a faint memory is stirring of the one bit of Scottish history I know, was this the Maid of Norway situation?
BETH: hmmmm maybe? let's consult the family tree over there. Maid of Norway died 1290 .... Scottish ask King Edward of England to decide among a bunch of claims for who should be king ....
ME: what? would they do that. I've spent literally all day hearing stories about England attempting to invade Scotland, why on EARTH would you ask the guy who is constantly invading you to pick his favorite new presumably most-invadeable king.
[one long Wikipedia rabbit hole (highly recommended, that article is extremely funny) and several rooms full of crown jewels and tapestries later]
BETH: .... AND THEN England invaded and Robert the Bruce was crowned in 1306, so yeah, it was basically all still the result of the Maid of Norway situation!
ME: [wild cheering!]
And in retrospect now that I've reread Quest for a Maid the Robert the Bruce hagiographic tableaux is even funnier because the de Bruces do NOT come off well in that book. More importantly, however: book not only as good as I remember it from the last time I read it two decades ago, but indeed perhaps even better.
Quest for a Maid begins: When I was nine years old, I hid under a table and heard my sister kill a king. To elaborate slightly further, at the start of the book, protagonist Meg extremely unambiguously hears her eldest sister Inge murder the king of Scotland with witchcraft for personal gain, and is like "well, I didn't love that, but I do love Inge, so ... not much to do about that I guess ...."
And then after that we get a couple more chapters in which Meg and Inge are both still living with all their sisters in the big medieval household of their father's shipyard before things really start Happening to see why she loves Inge, and that Inge loves her too. It works extremely well to get you to care about the characters, while also confidently immersing you in Meg's twelfth-century world: when I first read the book at age ten, I did not know to particularly pay attention to how Meg and all her sisters are casually doing some kind of textile work in every scene, or how big a deal it is whenever anyone gets a New Garment, but as an adult, I'm admiring it! The first big set piece that happens after the king murder is a whale washing ashore and the whole town turning out to be like "WHALE PARTY," and it's all drawn really vividly and with such affection and understanding for medieval life and communities and the way people have a good time with whatever opportunities are given to them to have a good time with.
Anyway, during and after WHALE PARTY Meg does some accidental heroics and ends up engaged to a merchant's son a couple years younger than her with a severe cleft palate, and then she rescues a runaway servant lad from his horrible situation, and all three of them spend several happy years joined at the hip having some charmingly drawn Kids And Boats hijinks while the political situation in kingless Scotland slides increasingly into chaos.
Then a.) Inge gets accused of witchcraft and b.) Meg's future in-laws get involved in the trip to bring the dead king's preadolescent heir home from Norway, and everything starts going very hard very quickly. Storms! Shipwrecks! Poisoning! Stabbing! Tragic sibling divorce! Extremely good thing those kids spent all that time on boats!
I loved this book to pieces as a kid, and it is a delight to find that as an adult I love it just as much and also think it's genuinely good. I should, someday, probably read another Frances Mary Hendry book -- apparently she wrote several, although none of the others ever came into my hands -- but for now I will continue to cherish this one.
TABLEAUX: here is Robert the Bruce bathed in heroic golden light as he's promoted to King!
ME: so why was Robert the Bruce being crowned WAIT! a faint memory is stirring of the one bit of Scottish history I know, was this the Maid of Norway situation?
BETH: hmmmm maybe? let's consult the family tree over there. Maid of Norway died 1290 .... Scottish ask King Edward of England to decide among a bunch of claims for who should be king ....
ME: what? would they do that. I've spent literally all day hearing stories about England attempting to invade Scotland, why on EARTH would you ask the guy who is constantly invading you to pick his favorite new presumably most-invadeable king.
[one long Wikipedia rabbit hole (highly recommended, that article is extremely funny) and several rooms full of crown jewels and tapestries later]
BETH: .... AND THEN England invaded and Robert the Bruce was crowned in 1306, so yeah, it was basically all still the result of the Maid of Norway situation!
ME: [wild cheering!]
And in retrospect now that I've reread Quest for a Maid the Robert the Bruce hagiographic tableaux is even funnier because the de Bruces do NOT come off well in that book. More importantly, however: book not only as good as I remember it from the last time I read it two decades ago, but indeed perhaps even better.
Quest for a Maid begins: When I was nine years old, I hid under a table and heard my sister kill a king. To elaborate slightly further, at the start of the book, protagonist Meg extremely unambiguously hears her eldest sister Inge murder the king of Scotland with witchcraft for personal gain, and is like "well, I didn't love that, but I do love Inge, so ... not much to do about that I guess ...."
And then after that we get a couple more chapters in which Meg and Inge are both still living with all their sisters in the big medieval household of their father's shipyard before things really start Happening to see why she loves Inge, and that Inge loves her too. It works extremely well to get you to care about the characters, while also confidently immersing you in Meg's twelfth-century world: when I first read the book at age ten, I did not know to particularly pay attention to how Meg and all her sisters are casually doing some kind of textile work in every scene, or how big a deal it is whenever anyone gets a New Garment, but as an adult, I'm admiring it! The first big set piece that happens after the king murder is a whale washing ashore and the whole town turning out to be like "WHALE PARTY," and it's all drawn really vividly and with such affection and understanding for medieval life and communities and the way people have a good time with whatever opportunities are given to them to have a good time with.
Anyway, during and after WHALE PARTY Meg does some accidental heroics and ends up engaged to a merchant's son a couple years younger than her with a severe cleft palate, and then she rescues a runaway servant lad from his horrible situation, and all three of them spend several happy years joined at the hip having some charmingly drawn Kids And Boats hijinks while the political situation in kingless Scotland slides increasingly into chaos.
Then a.) Inge gets accused of witchcraft and b.) Meg's future in-laws get involved in the trip to bring the dead king's preadolescent heir home from Norway, and everything starts going very hard very quickly. Storms! Shipwrecks! Poisoning! Stabbing! Tragic sibling divorce! Extremely good thing those kids spent all that time on boats!
I loved this book to pieces as a kid, and it is a delight to find that as an adult I love it just as much and also think it's genuinely good. I should, someday, probably read another Frances Mary Hendry book -- apparently she wrote several, although none of the others ever came into my hands -- but for now I will continue to cherish this one.
