Philippa Gregory's Tudor Court 6-Book Boxed Set (400 page)

No! I think one of the amusing things about films—even well-researched historical films—is that they tell us far more about the period in which they are made than the period that they describe. I do love the Elizabeth in
Shakespeare in Love
.

Bess of Hardwick, despite what some may see as hard-heartedness, displays a shrewd intelligence and bold independence that many readers may not expect of a sixteenth century woman. Have you found evidence of many women like her in your research?

The fascinating thing is that in this time, when women had no legal rights at all, we see an upflowering of women’s self-determination. I think this is partly the impact of Protestantism, which made the church’s learning accessible to women since it was now published in English; the rise of printing itself; the emphasis on individual conscience; and of course the need to make up your own mind in a society which had changed its religion four times in the last forty years. But there were very, very few women who made their money and kept it as Bess did.

Bess and Mary are similar and yet also entirely opposite in many ways. With whom did you find yourself sympathizing more as the novel progressed? Did you genuinely like either of them? Did you feel sorry for George, or were you as disappointed in him as Bess ultimately was?

I found I really genuinely liked both women, for their own very different qualities. I liked Mary’s sense of her self and her unremitting courage and determination, and probably the same qualities in Bess. My sympathies were pretty equally divided except I think it would have been right for Mary to have gone back to Scotland, as Elizabeth promised. And I saw George as an ordinary man trapped between three extraordinary women, trying to do his best.

The locations described in
The Other Queen
, such as Chatsworth, Tutbury Castle, and Bess’s masterpiece, Hardwick Hall, are all still standing. Have you been to these estates?

I always go to places that I describe—I think it is the only way to get the atmosphere. I even went to the ruins of Wingfield Palace and followed the course of the river, as Bess does on her approach.

What kind of research did you do in writing this novel? Do you have a particular process for all your projects, or is each book different?

Each book is different as it offers new challenges. The difficult bits of this book were the gaps in the story. We really don’t know what went on privately between Mary and Bothwell, but I deduce from her letters to him, which we know of but don’t have on record, that their relationship continued when it would have been easier for her not to write. Also the whole of the rising of the North is almost missing from conventional histories of the reign of Elizabeth; they overlook it because it did not create great change. But at the time it must have been terrifying.

One of your bestselling novels,
The Other Boleyn Girl,
was recently made into a movie. Were you at all involved in the making of the film? What did you think of it?

I was consultant on the film and involved in the early writing of the script and visited the locations and set. I thought it was a wonderful version of the Hollywood big historical movie. I thought the performances were tremendous and the filming very beautiful.

Your most popular works have focused on Tudor England. Did you choose this period for its rich history, or were you more drawn to the people who lived through it? Are there other periods
of English history, or other nations, that command your interest enough to become subjects for future books?

I started work on Tudor England with
The Other Boleyn Girl
because I discovered the character of Mary Boleyn and saw that she could be a wonderful character for a novel. From that starting point I seem to discover more and more fascinating characters, and my next books will take me back a generation to the Tudors’ predecessors on the throne of England, the Plantagenets.

Your Tudor novels are written from the perspective of much-discussed women. Do you think your portrayal of these infamous figures is dramatically different than what most readers have been taught? Was there a sense of righting the wrongs done by male historians who shaped these women’s reputations?

I feel very strongly that history has mostly been written by men, and even when it is not prejudiced against women it is dominated by a male perspective and male morality. Some of my heroines have been considered simply unimportant—like Mary Boleyn or Katherine Howard—and some of them have been stereotyped—like Anne of Cleves and Katherine of Aragon. I don’t start with a determination of putting the record straight, but when I read terribly prejudiced misjudgments of women I cannot help but consider what they would really have been like—and writing them back into the history.

The conflict between Papists and Protestants during Elizabeth’s reign plays a critical role in the unfolding tragedy of Mary, Queen of Scots. In
The Other Queen,
you present both perspectives through characters like George, Mary, and Bess. What opinion did you form about this struggle as you brought it to life? Do you see moments in history where things rightfully should have been different?

I think history is always about moments when things should have been different, or could have been different—that’s what makes the study so fascinating. I try not to be particularly attached to one side or another. I have to be both Bess and Mary while I am writing in their voices and seeing through their eyes, so I have to be not unbiased but capable of committing to contradictory positions. I think that we lost a great deal at the Reformation, but we gained the wonderful opportunity of Protestantism—so I really do see both sides of the argument.

Your website notes that you have begun work on a series about the Wars of the Roses. Can you tell us a little bit about this forthcoming series?

I am working on the first of a series of novels set in the time of the wars that are now known as the Wars of the Roses, with particular interest in the wonderful women who were behind the military leaders. Elizabeth Woodville married Edward VI and was the mother of the princes in the Tower. Her great enemy and sometime ally was Henry VII’s mother, Margaret Beaufort. They are typical of women who try to survive and succeed in a world made dangerous and uncertain by constant wars and changing of alliances. It’s a complicated and fascinating period, and my first novel in the series will be published in fall 2009.

1. The Shrewsburys and Queen Mary trek back and forth across the English countryside multiple times throughout the novel. Make a map tracing their journeys with a timeline of dates to get a representation of how unsettling this time period must have been for the entire household.

2. 
The Other Queen
presents a darker Elizabeth than has currently been popularized in movies such as
Elizabeth
(1998) and
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
(2007). Watch these films with your book club and compare their portrayal of various historic figures to their counterparts in Gregory’s novel.

3. Get a better sense of the time period in which this novel takes place by doing a little research on Tudor England. You can start with
www.localhistories.org/tudor.html
. You can also read more about some of the estates that served as settings for this novel, including Chatsworth, Tutbury Castle, and Bess’s own home of Hardwick Hall at:
www.chatsworth.org/learn/find-out-more
;
www.tutburycastle.com
; and
www.derbycity.com/derby2/hardwick.html
.

The Cousins’ War

The Kingmaker’s Daughter

COMING FROM TOUCHSTONE IN AUGUST 2012

May 1465
The Tower of London

My lady mother goes first, great heiress in her own right, and the wife of the greatest subject in the kingdom. Isabel follows, because she is the oldest. Then me: I come last, I always come last. I can’t see much as we walk into the great throne room of Westminster Palace, and my mother makes her curtsey to the throne and steps aside, Isabel sinks down low, as we have been taught, for a king is a king even if he is a young man put on the throne by my father. His wife will be crowned queen, whatever we may think of her. Then, as I step forward to make my curtsey, I get my first good view of the woman that we have come to court to honor.

She is breathtaking: the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. At once I understand why the king stopped his army at the first sight of her and married her within weeks. She has a smile that grows slowly and then shines, like an angel. I have seen statues that would look stodgy beside her; I have seen painted Madonnas whose features would be coarse beside her pale luminous loveliness. I rise from my curtsey to stare at her as if she were an exquisite icon; I cannot look away. Under my scrutiny her face warms, she blushes, she smiles at me, and I cannot help but beam in reply. She laughs at that, as if she finds my open adoration amusing, and then I see my mother’s furious glance and I scuttle to her side where my sister Isabel is scowling. “You were staring like an idiot,” she hisses, “embarrassing us all. What would Father say?”

The king steps forwards and kisses my mother warmly on both cheeks. “Have you heard from my dear friend your lord?” he asks my mother.

“Working well in your service,” she says smartly, for Father is missing tonight’s banquet and all the celebrations, as he is meeting with the King of France himself and the Duke of Burgundy, meeting with them as an equal, to make peace with these mighty men of Christendom now that the sleeping king has been defeated and we are the new rulers of England. My father is a great man: he is representing this new king and all of England.

The king, the new king—our king—does a funny mock bow to Isabel and pats my cheek; he has known us since we were little girls too small to come to such banquets. Meanwhile, my mother looks about her as if we were at home in Calais Castle, seeking to find fault with something the servants have done. I know that she is longing to see anything that she can report later to my father as evidence that this most beautiful queen is unfit for her position. By the sour expression on her face I guess that she has found nothing.

Nobody likes this queen; I should not admire her. It shouldn’t matter to us that she smiles warmly at Isabel and me, that she rises from her great chair to come forwards and clasp my mother’s hands. We are all determined not to like her. My father had a good marriage planned for this king, a great match: a princess of France. My father worked at this, prepared the ground, drafted the marriage contract, persuaded people who hate the French that this would be a good thing for the country, would safeguard Calais, might even get Bordeaux back into our keeping, but then Edward the new king, the heart-stoppingly handsome and glamorous new king, our darling Edward—like a younger brother to my father and a glorious uncle to us—said, as simply as if he was ordering his dinner, that he was married already and nothing could be done about it. Married already? Yes, and to Her.

He did very wrong to act without my father’s advice: everyone knows that. It is the first time he has done so in the long triumphant campaign that took the House of York from shame, when they had to beg the forgiveness of the sleeping king and the bad queen, to absolute victory and the throne of England. My father has been at Edward’s side, advising and guiding him, dictating his every move. My father has always judged best for him. The king, even though he is king now, is a young man who owes my father everything. He would not have his throne if it were not for my father taking up his cause, teaching him how to lead an army, fighting his battles for him. My father risked his own life: first for Edward’s father, and then for Edward himself—and then, just when we had won, and Edward was crowned king, and everything should have been wonderful, forever—he went off and secretly married Her.

She is to lead us in to dinner, and the ladies arrange themselves carefully behind her; there is a set order and it is extremely important that you make sure to be in the right place. I am very nearly nine years old, quite old enough to understand this, and I have been taught the orders of precedence since I was a little girl in the schoolroom. Since She is to be crowned tomorrow, she goes first. From now on she will always be first in England. She will walk in front of my mother for the rest of her life, and that’s another thing that my mother doesn’t much like. Next should come the king’s mother, but she is not here. She has declared her absolute enmity to the beautiful Elizabeth Woodville and sworn that she will not witness the coronation of a commoner. Everyone knows of this rift in the royal family, and the king’s sisters fall into line without the supervision of their mother. They look quite lost without the beautiful Duchess Cecily leading the way, and the king loses his confident smile for just a moment when he sees the space where his mother should be. I don’t know how he dares to go against the duchess. She is as terrifying as my mother, she is my father’s aunt, and nobody disobeys either of them. All I can think is that the king must be very much in love with the new queen to defy his mother. He must really, really love her.

The queen’s mother is here, though, no chance that she would miss such a moment of triumph. She steps into her place with her army of sons and daughters behind her, her handsome husband, Sir Richard Woodville, at her side. He is Baron Rivers, and everyone whispers the joke that the rivers are rising. Truly, there are an unbelievable number of them. Elizabeth is the oldest daughter, and behind her mother come the six sisters and five brothers. I stare at the handsome young man John Woodville, beside his new wife, looking like a boy escorting his grandmother. He has been bundled into marriage with the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, my great-aunt Catherine Neville. This is a disgrace; my father himself says so. My lady, great-aunt Catherine is ancient, a priceless ruin, nearly seventy years old, and John is a young man of twenty. My mother says this is how it is going to be if you put a gannet on the throne of England—she will gobble up everything.