Reviewed by:

• The Letters of Margaret of Anjou ed. by Helen Maurer and B. M. Cron
• Michele Seah

Margaret of Anjou was the queen consort of Henry VI, the last Lancastrian king of England, who lost the throne in 1461 to his Yorkist rival who became Edward IV. Her reputation as a vengeful woman, coupled with the role she undertook during the struggle known today as the Wars of the Roses, has made her an enduringly fascinating figure to researchers and the general public alike. This book is a new edition of the surviving correspondence of Queen Margaret, and aims to provide an up-to-date study of all of her extant letters and bring them together in one place. These letters were written between 1445 and 1461, spanning the period during which Margaret was queen consort, and testify to a variety of different interests and activities undertaken either on her own behalf or on behalf of others.

Scholars of this queen have long known of and utilized this cache of material in their research. The bulk of the extant letters are preserved as copies in a late-fifteenth century commonplace book that currently resides in the British Library, London. Most of Margaret’s letters from said book were first transcribed and published by Cecil Monro in 1863, and it is that source that many scholars have, until now, turned to in lieu of consulting the commonplace book itself. Monro, however, chose not to include seven of the letters from the late-medieval book, probably considering their content to be unimportant, although he made no mention of his reasons for doing so in the preface of his book. The editors of this volume, Helen Maurer and Bonita Cron, are clearly familiar with the extant letters of the queen, having used the material themselves in their own published research on Margaret of Anjou. [End Page 231]

This volume is divided into two parts; the first part, ‘Great and Good Queen’, contains eight chapters, and the second, ‘Political Queen’, contains four chapters. Each of the chapters corresponds to one of the categories into which the editors have divided the letters. Using their own research and expertise on the queen and her world, the editors have added vibrant and valuable contextual narrative to each of the letters while placing them in a logical and thematic order. This procedure is not without its drawbacks. As the editors themselves acknowledge (p. 2), there are some letters that can be placed in more than one category, but one must perforce be chosen. One example will suffice to demonstrate. In letter no. 79 (p. 149), the queen wrote to the archbishop of Canterbury regarding the king’s pardon granted to a lady named Alice Marwarth (the reason is unmentioned in the letter itself). This letter is included in Chapter 7: ‘Belief and Benevolence’ but can just as easily fit into Chapter 5: ‘Protector and Peacemaker’. Moreover, the structural division into two parts and the categorization of the letters into so many chapters in Part 1 does not appear to be wholly justified. The letters placed in Part 2 are deemed to be the ‘overtly political’ (p. 3) ones. Yet it does not appear to have been entirely necessary to put two parts in place at all, since the chapters adequately convey the thematic underpinnings.

Nonetheless, its structure helps to distinguish this new volume from the 1863 Monro collection and renders it superior in many respects. As other researchers of Margaret of Anjou will know, the Monro collection does not appear to have been arranged with any particular order in mind. Additionally, although Monro added some comments of his own preceding each letter, they are not very extensive ones. The editors’ efforts at historical placement of each included piece of correspondence has substantially added value to this revised edition. The other major improvement is the addition of the seven letters from the original commonplace book that were left out by Monro, as well as seventeen letters...

审核人：

• 安茹编辑的玛格丽特的信。海伦·毛勒（Helen Maurer）和BM Cron
• 米歇尔·西（Michele Seah）

安茹的玛格丽特是英国最后的兰开斯特国王亨利六世的皇后配偶，他于1461年失去王位，成为约克主义者的竞争对手爱德华四世。她作为一个复仇的女人而享有盛誉，加上她在如今被称为“玫瑰大战”的斗争中所扮演的角色，使她成为了研究人员和普通公众永恒的迷人人物。这本书是玛格丽特皇后幸存书信的新版本，旨在提供对她所有现存信件的最新研究，并将它们集中在一起。这些信写于1445年至1461年之间，跨越了玛格丽特担任皇后的时期，并证明了以她自己或他人名义进行的各种不同的利益和活动。

这个女王的学者很早就在研究中知道并利用了这种材料。现存的大部分信件都作为副本保留在15世纪后期的平凡书中，该书目前位于伦敦的大英图书馆。玛格丽特所说书中的大多数信件最早是塞西尔·蒙罗（Cecil Monro）于1863年抄写并出版的，直到现在，许多学者一直以此为来源来代替对这本普普通通的书本的咨询。然而，门罗选择不包括这本中世纪晚期书中的七封信，尽管他的书序言中没有提及这样做的原因，但他可能认为这并不重要。这本书的编辑海伦·莫拉（Helen Maurer）和博尼塔·克朗（Bonita Cron）显然很熟悉女王的现存信，[结束页231]

该卷分为两个部分：第一部分，“大皇后”，共八章，第二部分，“政治皇后”，共四章。每个章节对应于编辑者将字母划分为的类别之一。编辑们利用自己对女王和她的世界的研究和专业知识，在将每个字母按逻辑和主题顺序排列的同时，为每个字母添加了生动而有价值的上下文叙述。此过程并非没有缺点。正如编辑们自己承认的那样（第2页），有些字母可以放在多个类别中，但是必须选择一个字母。一个例子就足以证明。在信号中 79（第149页），女王写信给坎特伯雷大主教，告知国王赦免一位名叫爱丽丝·马沃思（Alice Marwarth）的女士的原因（信中未提及原因）。这封信包含在第7章：“信仰与仁慈”中，但也可以很容易地放入第5章：“保护者与和睦者”中。而且，在第1部分中将结构分为两部分以及将字母分为这么多章节似乎并没有完全的道理。第2部分中的字母被认为是“公开的政治性”字母（第3页）。但是，由于各章充分传达了主题基础，因此似乎根本没有必要将两个部分都放在适当的位置。“保护者与和平缔造者”。而且，在第1部分中将结构分为两部分以及将字母分为这么多章节似乎并没有完全的道理。第2部分中的字母被认为是“公开的政治性”字母（第3页）。但是，由于各章充分传达了主题基础，因此似乎根本没有必要将两个部分都放在适当的位置。“保护者与和平缔造者”。而且，在第1部分中将结构分为两部分以及将字母分为这么多章节似乎并没有完全的道理。第2部分中的字母被认为是“公开的政治性”字母（第3页）。但是，由于各章充分传达了主题基础，因此似乎根本没有必要将两个部分都放在适当的位置。

尽管如此，它的结构仍有助于将这一新作品与1863年的Monro系列区别开来，并使其在许多方面都出类拔萃。正如其他Anjou的玛格丽特研究人员所知道的那样，梦露的收藏似乎没有按照任何特定的顺序排列。此外，尽管Monro在每个字母前都添加了一些他自己的评论，但它们并不是非常广泛的评论。编辑人员为每封所含信函的历史位置所做的努力，极大地增加了该修订版的价值。另一个重大改进是增加了梦露遗漏的原始平凡书中的七个字母以及十七个字母...