The Beauforts Re: reverse dictionary (was: "Herb - Now Aluminum")

[Carol]

Carol:
> > I did think of John of Gaunt when I first read the chapter title
"House of Gaunt," and given the depiction of the Gaunt family, I got
the idea that JKR is no Lancastrian! (Which is good; neither am I. I
wear my roses white, meaning, I'm a Yorkist.)
> 
> Debbie:
> I had the same reaction.

Carol:
Good. BTW, I think that Jane Austen wrote an amateurish defense of
Richard III when she was young. Mayber JKR read it. (?)
> 
> Carol:
> > Anyway, the Beauforts came earlier, not later. 
> 
> Debbie:
> But not earlier than John of Gaunt, because the first Beauforts were
his children.

Carol:
True. But I was thinking of Richard III's generation. He was only
about four years older than Margaret Beaufort's son, Henry Tudor. She
was a member of the second or third (and last!) generation. The male
line died out rather quickly (at Tewkesbury in 1471, I think.)
> 
> Carol:
> > Carol, who has a theory that Lewis Carroll was also a Yorkist but
> won't go into it here
> 
> Debbie:
> This sounds spot on!  The White Knight was himself, wasn't he?
> 
> Debbie
> who would like to hear more about Carol's Lewis Carroll theory
>
Carol:
Well, simply put, "painting the roses red" suggests changing white
(Yorkist) roses to red (technically, the Tudor symbol but taken to be
Lancastrian as well) to placate a bloody-minded queen. (I had in mind
Margaret of Anjou, wife of the feeble-minded Henry VI.) "Off with her
head!" suggests "Off with his head! So much for Buckingham!" a line
added by Colley Cibber to Shakespeare's "Richard III," which Lewis
Carroll (or rather, Charles Dodgson, had recently seen performed (with
little girls in the role of the Princes in the Tower, to make them
seem more innocent and defenseless). If Dodgson/Carroll was a
Ricardian, he might have wanted to give that line to a Lancastrian
stand-in, the Red Queen. I don't remember reading that Carroll viewed
the White Knight as himself, but if you're right. . . .

Anyway, I haven't explored the theory (if it can be called that) or
checked his diaries to see whether the RIII performance was before or
after he wrote the Red Queen scenes in "Alice." (Margaret of Anjou
does have a role as a kind of Greek chorus in the play even though,
like much else in Shakespeare's so-called history plays, her presence
is historically inaccurate. Shakespeare also has Richard and his
brother George fight in a battle that occurred when they were eight
and eleven respectively and had been sent to Burgundy to keep them safe.)

Carol, glad that someone thinks her theory isn't completely off the wall!