Wonderbringers Newsletter with Monica Parker
Hello Wonderseekers!
Due to a technical hitch, only a portion of you received last week’s Wonderbringers. I’m so sorry! Please enjoy my tribute to International Women’s Day!
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard historian specialising in early American women's history, is credited with the phrase, "Well-behaved women seldom make history.” In honour of International Women’s Day this past weekend, whose theme was ‘Give to Gain’. I want to give six badly behaved women their due for making her-story. Women whose stories were new to me, and perhaps you as well!
Jeanne Hachette — The Hatchet Woman of Beauvais
In 1472, Charles the Bold of Burgundy launched an assault on the French town of Beauvais with a large and well-equipped army. When Burgundian soldiers scaled the walls and a soldier planted his banner on the battlements (the traditional signal of victory) a young woman named Jeanne Laisné ran forward with a small axe (hachette), cut down the banner and struck the soldier holding it. Her act of defiance rallied the exhausted defenders, and after eleven hours of furious fighting, Charles was forced to retreat. King Louis XI rewarded her with a pension for life and instituted an annual procession in her honour in Beauvais. It’s a parade still held today, making her one of the best-documented heroines of medieval France.
Chand Bibi — The Regent Who Held Off the Mughal Emperor
Chand Bibi was the regent of the Deccan sultanate of Ahmednagar in India when the Mughal Emperor Akbar, arguably the most powerful ruler on earth in 1595, sent his forces to annex it. With her male commanders dead or fighting elsewhere, Chand Bibi reportedly dressed in armour and personally led her soldiers in the defence of Ahmednagar Fort, famously repairing a breach in the walls under direct enemy fire. Contemporary Mughal court chronicles written by the enemy describe her courage in such admiring terms that historians regard her bravery as particularly praiseworthy. She negotiated a peace deal that ensured Ahmednagar's independence, the only Deccan sultan ever to successfully resist Akbar's forces in the field. She was later assassinated by her own courtiers who feared her power.
Marie-Madeleine Fourcade — The Woman Who Ran the Largest Spy Network in Occupied France
During the Second World War, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was the only woman to be appointed chef de réseau, head of an entire French Resistance network. Her network, called Alliance, is documented by the French National Archives as having supplied more crucial military intelligence to British and American Allied forces than any other single network in France. The Gestapo nicknamed Alliance "Noah's Ark" because members used animal code names (Fourcade's was "Hedgehog"). She was captured by the Nazis twice and escaped both times — on one occasion wriggling naked through the bars of her prison cell. She survived the war and published her memoirs, Noah's Ark, and later helped return General de Gaulle to power in 1958.
Lady Mary Bankes — "Brave Dame Mary" of Corfe Castle
When the English Civil War broke out in 1642, Lady Mary Bankes was left alone at Corfe Castle in Dorset while her husband, Sir John Bankes, joined King Charles I. In May 1643, a Parliamentary force of between 200 and 300 soldiers arrived and demanded she surrender; Mary refused, and held the castle with just her daughters, female servants, and five soldiers, pelting the attackers with stones and hot embers. She successfully repelled the siege for six weeks until Royalist relief arrived. She held out a second time after her husband's death in 1644, until a Parliamentary soldier smuggled himself in disguised as a Royalist and betrayed Lady Mary from within the castle walls. Parliament was reportedly so impressed by her tenacity that they allowed her to keep the castle keys, which her descendants still hold to this day.
Yaa Asantewaa — The Queen Mother Who Shamed an Army Into Fighting
In 1900, the British Governor of what is now Ghana, marched into Kumasi and demanded that the Ashanti hand over the Golden Stool, which was the most sacred symbol of their tribal sovereignty. When Ashanti chiefs wavered in their response, their Queen Mother, Yaa Asantewaa, stood up and reportedly declared, "If you, the men of Ashanti, will not go forward, then we will. We, the women, will. I shall call upon my fellow women. We will fight the white men." At approximately 60 years old, she was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Ashanti army. The first and only woman ever to hold that role in Ashanti history, Yaa led 5,000 soldiers in laying siege to the British fort at Kumasi for several months. The British eventually suppressed the revolt and exiled her to the Seychelles, where she died in 1921 after 20 years in captivity. The Golden Stool, however, was never surrendered. Her bravery allowed it to be hidden and survive.
Kenau Simonsdochter Hasselaer — The Timber Merchant Who Defended Haarlem
Kenau was a widowed timber merchant in the Dutch city of Haarlem when Spanish forces under the Duke of Alba laid siege to it in 1572–73. She is confirmed by name in a contemporary Latin eyewitness account from Delft, which described her as "an unusually fearless woman who worked night and day carrying earth to the city walls to rebuild the defense line". Her story grew with the telling, with later accounts crediting her with leading 300 women armed with axes and boiling tar. Her name became so synonymous with fierce, defiant womanhood that in Dutch the word kenau is still used today as a term for a formidable, indomitable woman.
Wishing all kenau and other badly behaved women a year of making history!
Some wonderbringers for me this week:
Watch: How gender equality leads to longer life expectancy: People in more gender-equal countries live longer, and women benefit the most.
The ‘Silent’ X chromosome gives the aging female brain a boost: The dormant X chromosome in females can reawaken late in life to keep the brain healthy.
Why do females respond better to stress? University study suggests it’s because of estrogen in the brain.
This is the last week before I close the Wonderbringers survey. I want the newsletter to be worthwhile for all of you who have been so loyal to it for the last three years. Thank you to everyone who has shared their thoughts so far! You can find the short survey here. I will randomly select three participants to receive a free, signed copy of The Power of Wonder. Thank you!
With wonder,
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