Mary, Mary Quite Contrary

As many of you may have noticed, I'm rather fond of historical fiction.  It's not possible to talk about historical fiction without mentioning Philippa Gregory, author of the absorbing 'The Other Queen', which I have just finished.

'The Other Queen' tells the story of the early years of Mary Queen of Scots' imprisonment.  I say imprisonment, in reality it's more like house arrest for her and a financial trap for her 'jailers', the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury, better known as George Talbot and the legendary Bess of Hardwick.  The book explores the destructive force of a ruler in exile, the damage caused by hearts and minds in conflict and the curse in disguise of a royal houseguest.  From the moment Queen Mary enters the lives of Bess and George, she changes them forever and in ways naively unanticipated by the key players.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I read Ms Gregory's 'The Virgin's Lover' about a year ago and was a bit disappointed by it.  'Historical fiction' is actually quite a broad category and, although I love books which bring historical figures to life and capture the politics and sense of place of an age, I can't bear the romances, which do us all a disservice by eroticizing history rather than helping our understanding of it.  Although there is an element of romance to 'The Other Queen', it is not the whole driving force behind the story, so I found it  more enjoyable.

'The Other Queen' by
Philippa Gregory
(Harper Collins, 2009)

'The Other Queen' has three narrators, Mary, Bess and George, and their voices and stories are brilliantly woven together by the author to give us insight into the internal and external conflicts and contradictions they're each experiencing.  Like a portent, the arrival of Queen Mary seems a catalyst for a series of events that may have been brewing for a long time, such as the Northern Uprising, George's honour being tested and Queen Elizabeth's great spymaster William Cecil tightening his grip on the country's upper classes.

My only (very small) criticism of this book is that there are a few points when the writing seems to slip into a modern style.  For example, at one point George says that he's "fighting for his life here." which jarred with me as a reader and broke the spell.  I'm no expert of Tudor English, but it was hard not to hear George suddenly become a modern American when reading that line.

Overall, I enjoyed this book.  It's three narrators make the story dynamic and tense, while trying to keep up with who is lying to who about what is challenging.  A great introduction to a number of controversial characters that I hope to read more about in future (and probably will due to the fantastic bibliography at the end of the book!).

Now, what next?

There's Something About Mary

Goodness, it's been a long time since I finished a book!  It's taken me about two months to read 'My Heard is My Own', John Guy's biography of Mary, Queen of Scots.  Not a good start to 2013, but nevermind, I'm still determined!

'My Heart is My Own'
by John Guy (2004,
Fourth Estate)

'My Heart is My Own' explores the life of Mary, Queen of Scots, from her birth at Linlithgow Palace in 1542 to her execution in at Fotheringay Castle in 1587.  It's a story full of excitement and intrigue from the very beginning as Queen Mary battles forces seen and unseen to stay on the throne.  As soon as she's born, Mary is under very real threat from the Scottish nobility and they remain a thorn in her side all her life.  The key theme of Queen Mary's life seems to be 'nothing going to plan' or, if you're feeling less generous, 'bad decision-making'.  As well as her efforts to control the bickering nobles in Scotland resulting in uprising and exile, none of her three marriages go as expected and a final appeal for her 'sister Queen' Elizabeth in England ultimately leads to imprisonment and death.  In the end, even her family abandon her.  But despite all this, Mary remains a strong character and, as a reader, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd have done anything differently in her situation.  This is the story of a fallible human being, which contrasts well with the popular myth of almost unimpeachable Elizabeth I.

I didn't know much about Mary, Queen of Scots, before reading this book, which is why I bought it in the first place.  I have a lifelong admiration for Elizabeth I, which led to a less than flattering idea of Mary, a prejudice that I didn't even realise I had.  It just goes to show that powerful. positive image Elizabeth created of herself in the popular imagination has managed to survive more than 400 years.  Just as her grandfather Henry VII rewrote history to make Richard III and his predecessors wicked tyrants, she recreated herself as the venerable 'Gloriana', England incarnate, bold, beautiful, just and bountiful.  Mary, Queen of Scots, is often portrayed on screen as the opposite of Elizabeth, so I'm glad I read this book to realise that things certainly aren't that clean cut.

'My Heart is My Own' is an enjoyable, accessible read right up until chapter 22.  Unfortunately, I really hit a wall with chapters 22 (Mary's Story), 23 (Bothwell's Story), 24 (The Lords' Story) and 25 and 26 (dealing with The Casket Letters).  Up until that point, longer quotes from original sources had been kept to a minimum, so the author was in control of the narrative and able to give it pace and drama.  In these chapters, the pace changes completely and the true historian comes out, so we get longer quotes from the protagonists' letters.  Unfortunately, Mary isn't an easy writer to read and this is a stumbling block I didn't quite get over.  By this point in the book, the narrator has earned my trust and I didn't need to see all of Mary's own words to believe his interpretation of them.

The chapters dealing with the Casket Letters, a cache of probably faked correspondence used to show Queen Mary complicit in murder, was so confusing that I found myself rereading whole paragraphs to try and get to grips with them.  Really, this in depth analysis of the texts could've been consigned to an appendix, so it could still be read, but without interrupting the until then excellent narrative.  As it was, it stalled the story further and meant that the book began to lose my attention.  Reference to primary sources would be important in an essay, but wading my way through the archaic and sometimes incomprehensible language just made me feel disappointed after enjoying the book so much up to that point.

Overall, I did enjoy this book enough to want to read more by Mr Guy, but I am slightly worried that storytelling will be lost to academic analysis in his other publications.  I love history, but have to accept that I'm a casual reader without the time to take in indepth analyses of the evidence.  I need books such as 'My Heart is My Own' to balance readability with fact.  I'm very glad I read this book, however, as I've learned a great deal and gained a new perspective on an oft maligned historical figure.  It's also made me want to find out more about other figures, including William Cecil, who has also changed in my perceptions too.

I would recommend 'My Heart is My Own' to anyone with and interest in the era, but be prepared for the narrative shift in some chapters!

Knight takes Queen, Queen takes Pawn...

Who would've thought it, finishing two books in one week!

I've just finished 'The Virgin's Lover' by popular historical novelist Philippa Gregory.  This is the fourth book of hers I've read, the others being 'A Respectable Trade', 'The Queen's Fool' and (the one she'll probably always be remembered for) 'The Other Boleyn Girl'.

'The Virgin's Lover' tells the story of the illicit love affair between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley in the early years of her reign.  Caught in the middle are Dudley's unfortunate wife, Amy, and the arch-politician William Cecil.

'The Virgin's Lover' by
Philippa Gregory
(HarperCollins, 2005)

Normally, I find Gregory's books hard to get into, but once I'm a few chapters in, I can't put them down.  On this occasion, however, I got into the book straight away... but got a bit bored in the middle.  I really don't like pure historical romance and what felt like chapter after chapter of secret assignations became a bit tiresome after a while.  Gregory's books are at their best when they balance personal and political plots and this is quite a narrow story without a lot of politics in it.  When the court intrigue began to develop towards the end of the book, I began to enjoy it much more.

Elizabeth and Robert are quite hard to get to grips with.  Elizabeth I's story has been told so many times and in so many ways, it's quite difficult to deal with her as a bit of a sap who puts her lust before her belief in her right to rule.  It seems a bit out of character considering how hard she fought for the throne in the first place for her to risk handing it all over to an obvious prat like Dudley.  Then again, maybe once she was finally in power, she almost frightened herself and began to doubt her ability, perhaps regressing until she came to terms with it and regained her confidence.  Or maybe I just find it hard to see what she saw in him!

Now, I'm not a violent person, but I did spend most of the book hoping someone would slap Dudley.  Preferably Elizabeth.  And preferably with a spade.  In fact, the more I think about it, this story wasn't really helped by the fact that the two leads were terribly aggravating for the most part!  Amy was arguably also quite annoying, but on the whole I found I had a lot of sympathy for her and, although I knew things couldn't turn out well for her, I somehow hoped she would find some sort of happiness.

As always, Gregory's great strength is her ability to create an incredible sense of time and place.  It's wonderful to be able to immerse yourself in a different context at the end of a hard day and forget all about the real world for a while.  Thank you, Ms Gregory!

On the whole, I think this was a good book, if a slightly thin story, and well told.  In the hands of a lesser writer, the three leads could have become intolerable, so it's a credit to Gregory that they don't.  But because there isn't a very meaty story here, I think this is perhaps more of a holiday read than her other stories.

I have a copy of Jean Plaidy's 'Lord Robert' on my shelf as well, so I will be interested to see how the two books compare.  I think that will be for a later date, though, time for a change now I think!