You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
Bitchery reader Emmy writes:
I have this book that’s been bothering me for years now. All I can remember definitely is one scene in which the heroine is practicing/learning archery and the hero is off with his men building something? Maybe they are playing with their swords or something. The heroine ends up shooting the hero. But he’s such a tough guy that he just pulls this arrow out of him and shrugs it off, only the heroine freaks out that she shot the hero. He likes her and realizes he can take advantage of her guilt and compassion and pretends it hurts and allows her to “help” him. I very clearly remember scoffing at the idea of a guy so tough that he wouldn’t even be concerned about an arrow getting embedded in his person. It would have been one thing if it just grazed him.
I have a couple of other things that I think I remember. I think there was a young person learning archery with the heroine, a son or daughter of the hero maybe. I think the story was a medieval. I think the hero captured the heroine. I think the hero was called the Black Something or Something. I thought it might be Julie Garwood (I have a bunch that my grandfather found at a garage sale and bought for me), but I can’t find any that have that scene.
I’m seriously hopped up on flu medication, so please excuse anything that doesn’t make sense. And I’m sorry it’s kinda sketchy on the details.
Ok, that’s tickling my memory – anyone know this one?
I’m pretty sure that’s Teresa Medeiros’s CHARMING THE PRINCE.
I know Jude Deveraux has a book called “The Black Lyon” which this sounds similar to, but there was no child of the hero…
This is a crazy guess, but is it a Madeline Hunter? It sounds really familiar, as in, read it in the last three months familiar, and I recently glommed her backlist.
This really sounds like a Julie Garwood to me. I’ll have to look into it and check back.
It’s absolutely Charming the Prince. I just read this a month or so ago (of course, I still wouldn’t have been able to come up with the name unless someone else said it first).
Veering off topic (sorry), but inquiring minds, and all that rot…
I am wondering: what is the life expectancy back in medieval times?
I’ve never read the book, but looked up Charming the Prince in my database. I just gotta ask… TWELVE KIDS?! How many wives/mistresses/whathaveyou has he already been through, and how old is this dude anyway?
He may be gone a lot but he returned home regularly enough to procreate in a big way.
Diane
The blurb reads:
A tale of a bold baron who’s afraid of nothing on earth—except for his twelve unruly children and falling in love with the bride he buys to care for them.
————————————————
He never lost a battle until he met the one woman who might succeed in… CHARMING THE PRINCE.
Dear Reader,
My enemies know me as Lord Bannor the Bold, Pride of the English and Terror of the French. Never in my life have I backed down from any challenge or betrayed so much as a hint of fear—until the war ended and I found myself a reluctant papa to a dozen unruly children.
Realizing that I couldn’t lop their little heads off or throw them in the dungeon, I sent my steward out to find them a mother and me a bride—an attractive, meek, maternal creature too plain to tempt me to get her with child. You can imagine my horror when he returned with Lady Willow of Bedlington, a spirited beauty who made me think of nothing else!
With her cloud of dark curls and the sparkle of passion in her eyes, Willow was everything I’d sworn to resist. I never dreamed she would join forces with those mischievous imps of mine to teach this cynical warrior just how sweet surrender can be.
Bannor the Bold,
Lord of Elsinore
I haz a book here: “Life in the Middle Ages” by Paul C. Newman. It’s not totally trustworthy but the statistics are as reliable as any other source.
It says that life expectancy in Western Europe for those who survived to five years of age was about 25. If you were a man and made it to age 20, though, your life expectancy (depending on the country and especially the social class) could be as high as 65.
If you were a woman, on the other hand, your life expectancy was somewhat shorter unless you were childless. The most common cause of death of adult women was childbirth and its complications, followed by cooking burns.
Most live-born babies didn’t make it to age five, though, so those statistics may be misleading. One study I’ve seen claims that 95% of live-born infants in England in 1500 didn’t make it to age one.
Of course, it’s difficult to extrapolate from statistics to fiction since most fiction (and especially romance fiction) concerns itself only with the nobility and gentry, who were protected from famine and most diseases of want and whose midwives were relatively well-trained (in other words, they didn’t try to pull the placenta out by the umbilical cord or pack a pudendal tear in bacteria-laden herbal compounds).
The reason for all those short “average life spans” in earlier centuries (and in some part of the world today) is infant, or childhood, mortality. Think about it. If you have six kids, and three of them die in infancy and the other three live to be 70, their average life span is 35. That doesn’t mean that people were old at 35, though bad teeth didn’t improve their youthful appearance.
“Realizing that I couldn’t lop their little heads off or throw them in the dungeon”
I need to read this book as I feel this way about my own ‘darling’ children on a regular basis lol.
I remember that scene. She’s using a child’s bow and arrow if I remember right, so it doesn’t hit with much force, wasn’t very sharp and not very big.
I think they were using the daughter’s bow anyway. Maybe not.
Is it possible that some of the kids in Charming the Prince are wards instead of biological children?
Scouring the internet very lightly, I’ve discovered that reviews peg the number of kids at anywhere from 9 to 12, so it’s possible that a few of those kids aren’t his. And according to this review, he’s buried two wives.
Still pretty surprising if he managed to father some of those kids while he was in France, though. And if he’s under 40.
Thanks for the info, Charlene and JaneO— I have learned something today!
Diane
More reading of reviews on Amazon has revealed this:
“Lord Bannor apparently is father to many bastards whom he takes in and raises as his own. And his children are all sorely in need of discipline.”
So apparently he’s madly virile, but responsible enough to take in his many blanket blunders. That’s pretty swell of a medieval guy.
I haven’t read the book, but it’s really not that hard for a man to father 12 children, especially if, as someone here indicated, some of them are illegitimate. Think about. He could have two women pregnant at any given time, and if even one of them had twins…well.
Not to mention the fact that there is NO birth control whatsoever…if you’re a fertile and lucky woman, you could keep breeding them until you die of it.
The real miracle is that all the kids are alive.
Don’t quote me on this but I remember hearing that a woman is capable of having up to 18 children during her fertile years.
Considering that my grandfather was the thirteenth child out of fifteen, having eighteen pregnancies doesn’t seem that out of line. He was born into a peasant Armenian village in the early 1900’s.
He was also the third “Armenag” in the family, as the previous two died in infancy. His parents kept naming their children the same name until it “stuck”. His little brother died while a refugee, but my grandfather had I believe six older brothers and one sister live to adulthood.
When Grandpa came to America, his teacher asked for his birthdate, which caused a huge fight between his parents that evening. Mother insisted he was the Spring Armenag, while Father insisted he was the Fall Harvest Armenag. (One of the two had died and the parents couldn’t decide which one it was.) The two of them never settled the argument. Grandpa chose November 15 as his birthday. He figured if they couldn’t decide what time of year it was, they’d never get around to figuring what his baptismal date was. (Although he visited his village a number of times as an adult, he never checked church records. He realized as an adult that his father was most likely wrong, but out of loyalty he never went to gather the proof.)
So twelve kids from a man? Yeah, no problem.
Thank y’all so much! I’ll have to track down Charming the Prince now. I must have lost it when I moved after college, because I’d gone through all my Medeiros and Garwood and Deveraux books looking for this one.
I have to say though, I completely don’t remember the 12 kids. How on earth did I remember the archery but forget about the 12 kids?? (Maybe because I wasn’t shocked by them. My mom was 5th out of 10.)
In fact, not nearly all of the children are his. But he’s the lord of the area, and the only one capable of taking care of them. So when anyone leaves a baby on his doorstep he says, “Look everyone: I’ve fathered another child!”. And the child is saved from starvation.
I thought the whole arrow thing was terrifying, but there are so many more terrifying details in these comments!
Yes, I agree it’s Charming the Prince – I remember the arrow shooting scene well. I read this last summer, it stuck in my mind because I almost didn’t pick it up because I HATE the cheesy Hero write letter to reader bit on the back cover (I think the bitches did a rant on this very concept right around the same time I read the book. Turned out to be a fun read (I liked the bit where the heroine and the kids rage war against the hero) and Chris S is right, most of the kids aren’t his – he just can’t say no to any children left stranded on his doorstep.
And why couldn’t he lop off their heads or throw them in a dungeon? Parents in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance could be quite harsh in discipling their children—who were really viewed more as small adults than actual children; that view didn’t come into vogue until Victorian times.
Our hero could have whipped or starved his children just as he pleased, and no one would have cried child abuse in those days. Of course, he wouldn’t have made a good romance hero, but if historical accuracy is what you’re looking for….
Jane O, adult life expectancy was still much lower than it is now. It’s true that most died in childhood, but the statistics I gave don’t take most child mortality into consideration because they only count children from age five up. Young and middle-aged adult death was far more common then than it is now.
That sounds similar to Laura Matthews “The Aim of a Lady” http://www.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=1340462
Except TAoaL is a Regency not a Medieval… but there was definitely an accidental arrow shooting as a main part of the plot.
Life expectancy was relatively low, but 25 must be an average since infant mortality was extremely high. 60ish might have been considered old, upper class, (though I don’t have numbers on that) and folks in the lower social orders would generally have lower life expectancies. Also add into account that the religiously accepted age of consent was 11 or 12 (if I remember correctly) and children of the high class were married and betrothed extremely early for the sake of alliances. Women – er, girls, could be married and churning out kids at the age of 12, which led to larger numbers of kids (since so many died) and a shorter life expectancy for women than men since women’s bodies were worn out through lots of child-bearing.
It’s also relatively common for fathers in the middle ages to acknowledge and raise (through titles or taking them into households) illegitimate children, particularly sons. Look at Robert of Gloucester, son of Henry I, or Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset, son of Henry VIII (who considered naming FitzRoy his heir due to his lack of male issue, pre-Edward VI’s birth).
Boy, I read this book awhile ago, MamaNice and Chris S. are right – he reveals to the heroine at one point that most of the children aren’t actually his but he had the means to care for them and so did.
I do remember thinking it was fun, if a little cutesy at times 😉
(cough, cough, public service announcement)
Consider becoming a foster parent today!
Disclaimer: Foster parenting does not guarantee the acquaintance of virile lords of the manner or saucy nannies but will make all your friends say, “Bitch, you rock!”
Carita said: “Don’t quote me on this but I remember hearing that a woman is capable of having up to 18 children during her fertile years.”
Well that lady from the Tv show is at 17 and counting, so you certainly not far off base, lol.
I have to go find this book now, it sounds fun….. if a little “Von Trapp Family Singers” ish 😉
man16… I’m sorry but I prefer my men to be a bit farther past puberty than 16.
I’ve read the book and the children are definitely partly foster children. Seems the hero is kindhearted and takes in any abandoned babies as his son or daughter (in fact someone remarks that he must be really good since he was out of the area when one of the babies would have been made). It is pretty improbable but a fun read and cleverly written.
I think the book is actually Julie Garwood’s “The Prize.” Even if that is not the one you were thinking of, it is a good read.
Carita—I’ve read that I woman could have up to 20 (or was it 21?) children.
Even if they were all the hero’s, he could definiately have twelve kids and still be quite young; in the Middle Ages, you pretty much started having kids as soon as your body was capable (I’ve read of young girls who died because their preteen pelvises were too small to give birth, but I don’t remember where I read it).
Louis XIV fathered nine children (most of whom died) between November 1661 and August 1668—and that’s with just one wife and one mistress.
// Mother insisted he was the Spring Armenag, while Father insisted he was the Fall Harvest Armenag.//
Now *that* is a family story.
I read that book, and it was a point of contention, I believe, until the heroine learned that hardly ANY of the kids were actually his.
But I have to say here…he stopped adopting when she moved in, I believe. Can’t have people thinking he’s banging out with the magic hoo-hoo present and accounted for.
It was a fun read, though, but not in any sense of the word related to reality, unless I’m remembering wrong.
married15…only if I wanted to be dead by 30!
I don’t think it’s “The Prize.” I just read that a couple weeks ago, and the only injuries in it are the hero getting knocked out by a pebble from the heroine’s sling in the beginning, and then the heroine gets hit by an arrow shot by her brother as she rushes to save the hero. She’s OK, but fakes a worse injury because she doesn’t want the hero to sex her up. And then later in the book, her arrow-shooting brother punches her in the face because she’s fallen in love with the enemy.
It sounds so much more sordid when I type it all out like that. There’s a lot of violence in that book, as I’ve left out a couple injuries to secondary characters.
Yeah, and ‘The Prize’ doesn’t have any children, ‘cept for some kid the heroine saves from falling into a fireplace. In ‘Saving Grace’ by Julie Garwood, the hero has one child from a previous, um, encounter. But no arrows do I recall. Sounds like the title’s been nailed!