Out of the Shadows: The Ladies of Château Amboise (The Amboise Collection)

This book chronicles the lives of the Valois Ladies of Château Amboise during its heyday. The French Royal House took its name from Valois, a region north of Paris and adopted as its emblem the famous fleur-de-lys (the lily).

Plenty has been written about the Valois Lords of the Château but not much about the Ladies. Some, such as Marie of Anjou, seem to have been almost airbrushed from history, some, such as Anne Neville, were considered so insignificant they never had their portraits painted so there are no known images of them but some, such as the doomed Queen Anne Boleyn and Mary Queen of Scots, unfairly executed by English House of Tudor, are known the world over.

When we think of the French Court, we think of Versailles with its courtly etiquette and elaborate ceremonials but the Court during the time covered in this book was nothing like that. Charles VII was so broke that for many years he had no Court. His son Louis XI, nicknamed The Prudent, hated ceremony. His son Charles VIII preferred converting the ancient Château Amboise into a modern Renaissance Palace rather than holding Court. His cousin and successor, Louis XII, was positively parsimonious. It wasn’t until Francis I, the French Court as we think of it today, began to come into being.