Of all the stories that I could think meet your criteria on such short notice, I find myself remembering a story I read quite a while ago. Like many of the best stories told, it is one based in truth—a story of loss and bloody revenge.
Hundreds of years ago in my world, on an island country by the name of Britain, there was a woman, and her name was Jeanne de Clisson. By all accounts, she merely played a role that she was born into as a young woman of noble birth. By the age of thirty she had been married three times, mothered two children. It was her third husband that gave her the title she would be remembered by—as well as the rest of the story that she would be remembered by.
It was ten years and yet five children more before the state of Britain was thrown into question. A question of succession turned into a war, and the family that this woman belonged to supported a man backed by the foreign country of France. He fought for this cause, though was captured and ultimately accused of not fighting as fervently as one should.
These were the rumors that would consume him. Upon the very coattails of peace between Britain and France, this woman's husband and several over Breton lords were called to France for a tournament—where they were subsequently arrested and, with heated words of treason penned in ink of the axeman's warrant, executed by beheading.
Jeanne de Clisson received this news and was spurred to action. She took two of her eldest sons with her to France to see the head of her deceased husband and, filled with rage for this injustice, swore vengeance against the French king and the man her husband had died vying to take the British throne.
And so this woman, who had, until that point, fit perfectly into high society as a dutiful wife and mother, received help from the British crown and was given three ships, painted in black and crimson. Her flagship she named "My Revenge," and for thirteen bloody years she sailed the seas of the channel between Britain and England, killing entire crews of French sailors and sending a handful of witnesses back to the French king. It was her viciousness in how she raided both French ships and coastal villages that she became feared as the "Lioness of Brittany."
Her piracy ended all those years later when her flagship was sunk. She and her two sons who had left for France with her were stranded on debris, one of them succumbing to exposure.
She and her other son, however, were rescued by British forces. With her privateer force beneath the waves, she returned home. She remarried—as was custom for a woman at the time—and only a few short years later died on those island shores.
I am fond of this story for the reason I am fond of humans. There is such a great potential for change, given just a few circumstances in one's life. Certainly, the Lioness would never had need to bare her teeth and claws had her husband never been executed. But history has shown us such interesting permutations such as this. They are always exciting to watch.
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Of all the stories that I could think meet your criteria on such short notice, I find myself remembering a story I read quite a while ago. Like many of the best stories told, it is one based in truth—a story of loss and bloody revenge.
Hundreds of years ago in my world, on an island country by the name of Britain, there was a woman, and her name was Jeanne de Clisson. By all accounts, she merely played a role that she was born into as a young woman of noble birth. By the age of thirty she had been married three times, mothered two children. It was her third husband that gave her the title she would be remembered by—as well as the rest of the story that she would be remembered by.
It was ten years and yet five children more before the state of Britain was thrown into question. A question of succession turned into a war, and the family that this woman belonged to supported a man backed by the foreign country of France. He fought for this cause, though was captured and ultimately accused of not fighting as fervently as one should.
These were the rumors that would consume him. Upon the very coattails of peace between Britain and France, this woman's husband and several over Breton lords were called to France for a tournament—where they were subsequently arrested and, with heated words of treason penned in ink of the axeman's warrant, executed by beheading.
Jeanne de Clisson received this news and was spurred to action. She took two of her eldest sons with her to France to see the head of her deceased husband and, filled with rage for this injustice, swore vengeance against the French king and the man her husband had died vying to take the British throne.
And so this woman, who had, until that point, fit perfectly into high society as a dutiful wife and mother, received help from the British crown and was given three ships, painted in black and crimson. Her flagship she named "My Revenge," and for thirteen bloody years she sailed the seas of the channel between Britain and England, killing entire crews of French sailors and sending a handful of witnesses back to the French king. It was her viciousness in how she raided both French ships and coastal villages that she became feared as the "Lioness of Brittany."
Her piracy ended all those years later when her flagship was sunk. She and her two sons who had left for France with her were stranded on debris, one of them succumbing to exposure.
She and her other son, however, were rescued by British forces. With her privateer force beneath the waves, she returned home. She remarried—as was custom for a woman at the time—and only a few short years later died on those island shores.
I am fond of this story for the reason I am fond of humans. There is such a great potential for change, given just a few circumstances in one's life. Certainly, the Lioness would never had need to bare her teeth and claws had her husband never been executed. But history has shown us such interesting permutations such as this. They are always exciting to watch.
So? What do you think?