Don't Defame The Dead (2)

Why do some people make it their life's mission to invent hurtful rubbish about people who are no longer here to defend themselves, and get all snidey and huffy when you politely point out that, just maybe, trashing people's posthumous reputations is not very fair?  Why do some people make it their life's mission to get offended by absolutely anything or anyone at all that even slightly disagrees with their opinion, and bang on about another person's respectfully-expressed point of view as though it's a personal attack on them?  Anyway, continuing the Don't Defame The Dead campaign, here are some excellent contributions by friends of mine, and please see also the terrific cards on A Nevill Feast's own Don't Defame The Dead post and Undine's great post Speaking Up For Those Who Can No Longer Speak For Themselves on her equally great World of Edgar Allan Poe blog.  EDIT: Hannah at the Thomas Cromwell Experience has also done a great post on her blog.

To everyone who drones on tediously about poor Isabella and her tragically awful sex life with Edward II, when, dammit, she was desperate for so long for a real manly strong virile man, I give you this:

I still get a good laugh at the statement posted on Facebook a while back with as much as certainty as though there was a video camera on the wall of Edward and Isabella's bedchamber: Edward II was "a fastidiously gay guy who begat children on her - note not with her - as a painful duty."  Classic.

"One of the strongest men of his realm."  Not that you'd know it from some books and films.

My card about Joan de Geneville, based on my annoyance at novels which turn her into a grossly overweight, unattractive, sexless bore (when they even bother to mention her in the first place):

My card about Isabella (which could also apply to Margaret of Anjou):

My card about a novel which maligns a fifteenth-century man beyond all my previous notions of maligning by choosing to ignore this essential difference:

My friend Rachel's card about Isobel MacDuff (of Fife), countess of Buchan (with ref to a novel which turns her husband John Comyn, earl of Buchan into a thuggish rapist who beats her up even when she's pregnant):

Also from Rachel, Joan de Geneville's card to Isabella of France:

Blogger is up to its usual tricks and being weird so I can't put spaces between some of these cards - that last one was made by my friend Hannah.  You can probably guess who it's about.  :-)

Two made by my friend at A Nevill Feast:

This is about Richard Nevill, earl of Warwick (1428-1471), though could also apply to other men of the Middle Ages deemed 'cruel' for arranging their daughters' marriages (though not their sons' for some reason):

Rachel's card featuring Thomas Boleyn (who has already featured on my blog as one of the indignant people maligned in histfict): 

Lovely Ashmodiel's card about our beloved Piers Gaveston: