My copy is undated, although it must be after 1842 as Mrs Bennett is described as the authoress of 'The Cottage Girl', published in that year. As is my wont, I looked up the Database of Victorian Fiction - At the Circulating Library - for any information about Mrs. Bennett. Born Mary E. Saunders in 1813, in Exeter, she was the sister of the novelist John Saunders. Early on, she wrote low-grade fiction, such as The Jew's Daughter (1839). In the 1850s, she married printer and publisher John Bennett. This suggests Jane Shore was published after that date. Another copy has an owner's inscription dated 1853. Mary died in 1899. Many of her publications cannot be traced (in fact, Jane Shore is not on the Database).
Although only one volume, it felt very much like a three-decker - the 362 pages were in smallish font and had narrow margins. However, I plodded on, taking several days to get to the end. The novel begins in September 1468, at the house of Mr. Winstead, a mercer living in Cheapside. The mercer is honest and upright, but his wife is forever scheming to use her daughter as a passport to wealth and fame. There are four men vying for his beautiful 15 year-old Jane's attention. There is a graceful personage in a masquing dress...talking promiscuously to the ladies present; there is a ridiculous little tailor, the butt of the city; the third is none other than the gallant, winningly noble Lord William Hastings; finally, a well-dressed citizen, standing apart from the rest, eyeing the beauteous object of his honest love with jealous looks, Matthew Shore, of Lombard-street, a worthy man and a prosperous goldsmith.
The tale slowly evolves: Jane marries Shore; Hastings withdraws - not his love (or lust?) - in favour of the masked man, who turns out to be King Edward IV! We follow the vicissitudes not only of Matthew Shore, who loses his wife to the monarch (who sets Jane up in some splendour at Tottenham Court Mansion) - but also of Edward himself, who has to flee abroad from the Lancastrian/Earl of Warwick fracas of 1470-1. Jane is portrayed as someone with a genuine conscience over her betrayal of her husband but who also reveres the king. She uses her 'power' to save Clarence (albeit temporarily) and is a good mistress to her servants.
Mrs Bennett has definite opinions about the real-life characters.
Edward is ruled by his carnality but neither does Hastings come out of the story well. He plots against Matthew Shore, is ruthless, ambitious and a womaniser, called a snake by some. The Duke of Clarence is simply shifty, but his wife genuinely befriends Jane.
Matthew Shore's vengeful cousin (she wants to marry him herself and schemes against Jane) Cecily, is one of the bête noires of the tale. She inveigles a Welsh cove, Owen Lewellyn, to spread scandal and rumour about Jane and others. Both meet a deserved end: she, bound to a mast, drowning in the Channel; he struck down and buried in a London back garden.
There is 'Welsh' sub-plot, based around Abergavenny castle, involving Owen's sister Nesta. Lollardy rears its head, with a friar coming to Wales, selling in secret written Welsh copies of the blessed Scriptures, prepared by learned and enlightened men of the English universities, holders of the pure faith which Wickliffe taught. Nesta, her parents and her boyfriend Leolin, a skilful harper, all subscribe to Wycliffite views. Jane's crippled sister Isabel, also had an interdicted Lollard Testament which is passed on to Jane at the latter's death. The author, surely, gives way to her own feeling and opinions in this paragraph:
We who have had the Scriptures with us all our days - who have it daily read in our own tongue in the churches - and find it in every home a familiar household companion - can little estimate the intense curiosity and the ardent eagerness with which the first translations were perused in England. All honour to Wickliffe! the "Morning Star of the Reformation"...Never - never - may we forget what we owe to the first English champion of unshackled Christianity!
Richard, Duke of Gloucester and later King, is presented as Sir Thomas More's (he is directly quoted more than once) and William Shakespeare's caricature. At Tewkesbury, he buried his dagger in the bold heart of the youth (Prince Edward). The author has Hastings immediately saying to Edward IV, I will avow that my lord duke I like not - he is crafty, and there is some hidden design brooding in his breast...He is the murderer of Henry VI and, probably of Clarence: succeeding ages have laid the odium of the barbarous deed on his brother Gloster. Chapter XLVII is simply headed The measures taken by the Duke of Gloster to supplant his nephews. He creeps silently and noiselessly toward his prey like the cunning serpent... The last chapters, which includes Hastings' execution, are simply based on More's account. Richard exhibits a shrunken and distorted arm, which all knew had been so from his birth and blames the witch Shore for this.
As unpleasant as Richard, is his sidekick Catesby - who turns traitor to his erstwhile master Hastings - I am necessary to the Duke of Goster, and will make myself, more so; and when he is on the throne, as he shall be... Catesby has a crime-stained bosom...
On the other hand, the Bishop of Ely was an excellent old man, learned charitable, and of blameless life. Try telling that to a Richard III Society supporter!
There are brief accounts of the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, but the author is far more interested in the interchange between the characters. The novel, although generally following actual events and with a surfeit of real historical personages, is not a reliable History. There are too many examples of a disregard, even falsification, of facts - he has Richmond slay Richard at Bosworth, for instance..
Two minor asides. Did Englishmen wear wigs in the late 15th century? Certainly, Jane's father Mr. Winstead appears to have done. Secondly, were there black servants in those days in London? Cassandra, who crops up several times as Jane's closest aide and confidant, is an African.
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