Publisher's Synopsis
"Revealing the truth behind the life of a royal princess in medieval England, the colorful story of the five remarkable daughters of King Edward I. Virginal, chaste, humble, patiently waiting for rescue by brave knights and handsome princes: this idealized--and largely mythical--notion of the medieval noblewoman still lingers. Yet the reality was very different, as Kelcey Wilson-Lee shows in this vibrant account of the five daughters of the great English king, Edward I, often known as Longshanks. The lives of these sisters--Eleanora, Joanna, Margaret, Mary and Elizabeth--ran the full gamut of experiences open to royal women in the Middle Ages. Living as they did in a courtly culture founded on romantic longing and brilliant pageantry, they knew that a princess was to be chaste yet a mother to many children, preferably sons; meek, yet able to influence a recalcitrant husband or even command a host of men-at-arms. Edward's daughters were