Royal witches Witchcraft and the nobility in fifteenth-century England

A history of the 15th-century political and societal events that put four royal women on trial for witchcraft. Joan of Navarre, Eleanor Cobham, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, and Elizabeth Woodville were the wives of nobility and the mothers of kings and queens; they sat at the top of a hierarchical society and ruled over vast tracts of land. Yet when the interests of the men of their time warranted it, each, in turn, was accused of witchery, whether it was the use of love potions or something more nefarious. Hollman, who has a master's degree in medieval history, provides an in-depth account of each woman's rise to power and then chronicles, in occasionally excessive detail, the events of the time. This sometimes leads readers away from the direct stories of the women as the men in their lives launched wars and engaged in political battles for power. Thankfully, each narrative eventually returns to the women, who fulfilled their duties as wives and were often used as pawns by the many manipulative men in their lives. However, as Hollman amply shows, they were not without their own powers. The comprehensive details might overwhelm those looking for a more sensational history of royalty and witchery, as the author's painstaking work, which reads like a textbook at times, is focused on historical accuracy rather than the scandalous nature of the accusations leveraged against these women. "The reality is that these women were real, living, breathing human beings whose lives some 600 years ago we can touch through surviving documents," writes Hollman. "It is overwhelmingly certain that these women were not the wicked schemers they have been portrayed as across the centuries, and almost certainly, they were all overwhelmingly good people." Most readers will be convinced of the veracity of that statement. A meticulous historical analysis that will appeal most to students of British royal history. (b/w images, family trees) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.