The typical image of a medieval princess often comes from fairy tales. They are seen as damsels in distress, waiting in a tower for their charming prince to whisk them away to create power alliances between their two countries and live happily ever after. Let’s be real, this is nothing but a fantasy. Some princesses did have happy marriages, but they weren’t wasting away in towers. They were learning how to be diplomats and rulers of their own domains, whether countries or counties. The stories of the Plantagenet princesses are especially colorful, and Sharon Bennett Connolly continues to tell their tales in the second book in her duology, “Princesses of the Later Middle Ages: Royal Daughters of the Plantagenets.”

I would like to thank Pen and Sword Books for sending me a copy of this book. I enjoyed the first book in this duology, “Princesses of the Early Middle Ages,” so I wanted to see how she would conclude the duology. I know more about the later Plantagenets, so I was interested to see what new information Connolly would provide to this field of study.

This title traces the daughters of King Henry III to the daughters of King Edward IV. As those who study the Plantagenets already know, two, technically three, kings did not have daughters during this period: King Henry V, King Henry VI, and, if we extend the timeline past the reign of Edward IV, Richard III. We begin with the daughters of Henry III and his wife Eleanor of Provence, who often do not get much attention since Henry III had to deal with Simon de Montfort, rebuilding Westminster Abbey, and the Provisions of Oxford. They had three daughters, Margaret, Beatrice, and Katherine (who died young). Margaret would marry Alexander III of Scotland, and Beatrice married John II, Duke of Brittany. After the death of Henry III, his son Edward I became king, alongside his wife and queen, Eleanor of Castile, whose death would later be immortalized through the Eleanor Crosses. The couple would only have one living male heir, the future Edward II, but they did have five daughters who survived infancy: Eleanor, Joan of Acre, Margaret, Mary of Woodstock, and Elizabeth of Rhuddlan. Mary of Woodstock was the only daughter who did not marry, as she was reluctantly destined to be a nun. Eleanor married twice, to King Alfonso III of Aragon and Count Henry III of Bar; Joan of Acre married Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and then married secretly to Ralph de Monthermer. Margaret married John II, Duke of Brabant, a strong alliance marriage. Finally, Elizabeth of Rhuddlan married twice, to John I, Count of Holland, and to Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford.

Edward II would marry Isabella of France, and amidst the conflict with the favorites Piers Gaveston and Hugh le Despenser the Younger, the couple would have an heir, Edward III, John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall, plus their two daughters, Eleanor of Woodstock and Joan of the Tower. Joan of the Tower would marry King David II of Scotland, while Eleanor of Woodstock would marry Reynald II, Count of Guelders. Edward III and his wife Philippa of Hainault would have five daughters, but only one of them reached her forties. Isabella, the eldest and the one who took the longest to get married, finally tied the knot with Enguerrand VIII, Lord of Coucy. Joan of the Tower was betrothed to Pedro, Prince of Castile, but on her way to Spain, she died of the Black Death. Blanche died as an infant, and Margaret of Windsor would be a child bride of John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, before she died at a young age. Finally, Mary of Waltham would marry John IV, Duke of Brittany.

Connolly explores the life of Richard II before his cousin Henry Bolingbroke became Henry IV. Before he was created king, Henry IV and his first wife Mary de Bohun had two daughters, Blanche and Philippa, whose lives would change forever once their father became King of England. Blanche married Louis III, Elector Palatine, and Philippa married Eric Pomerania, King of Denmark and Sweden. Finally, Connolly explores the lives of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville’s daughters. Before their father Edward IV died suddenly in 1482, they each had a different path than the one they actually took. Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter, would marry Henry VII and help found the Tudor dynasty. Cecily of York married twice, to Ralph Scrope and John, Viscount Welles, while Anne of York married Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey and Duke of Norfolk. Catherine of York married William Courtenay, Earl of Devon, and Bridget of York would become a nun.

This just scratches the surface of the amount of information Connolly includes in this book. She also includes illegitimate daughters, which adds even more depth to the past. I loved learning about the daughters of the later Plantagenet kings, and now I want to learn even more. If you enjoyed reading the first book in this duology or if you just want to learn more about Plantagenet princesses, I highly recommend you read “ Princesses of the Later Middle Ages: Royal Daughters of the Plantagenets” by Sharon Bennett Connolly.