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15th Century
Wars of the Roses (1455 - 1485)
Men of Warwick
   
Simoen (Lynn Moore)
Simoen was born in 1425, near Dover. Her father was a fisherman and she
grew up in a small village learning the skills any girl of her age would
need (cooking, cleaning, sewing, tending animals and gardening), until
at the ripe old age of 14 she was married to a lad of 16 who, like her
father (and his before him), was a fisherman. By 1438, at the age of 17,
Simoen's husband was caught in the channel in a terrible storm and drowned,
leaving her widowed and, as the last few years have proven her to be barren,
with little prospect of remarriage.
Even Simoen's father refused to take her back, for she was the eldest
of four daughters, and he a fisherman with little enough dowry to endow
her three sisters. So she packed what few belongings she had and headed
north, earning her keep at alehouses and taverns along the way as cook,
maid, or with whatever of her womanly skills that would keep food in her
belly.
By 1460, she had been in London nearly ten years. A large, bustling
city, there was no lack of alehouses and taverns in which to ply her trade,
though she had grown tired of the grime of city life, and when soldiers
from Warwick's forces who were garrisoned nearby began to visit her alehouse
in July of that year, Simoen was quick to befriend a likely prospect (an
older career soldier with some money and the possibility of advancement),
and when the troops moved out, Simoen gladly left with him.
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