Weekly Reader Philippa Gregory Edition: The King's Curse (The Plantagenet and Tudor Court Series Vol. VII) by Philippa Gregory; Dark End to the Plantagenet Family Focuses on Survival in Drastically Changing Times
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: Historians know Lady Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury for how she left the world rather than her involvement in it. The oldest of King Henry VIII's victims, she was executed in the Tower of London at age 67. When she was ordered to lower her head on the execution block, she refused and ran shrieking through the Tower. The executioner finally caught up to her and killed her on the spot. Ghost hunters, paranormal investigators, and believers of the supernatural have reported hearing, and sometimes seeing, her ghost haunting the Tower and reenacting her grisly death.
Philippa Gregory gives Lady Margaret great significance to her life than just her death. Instead she is the last remnant of the old guard: the final member of the Plantagenet immediate family that was directly involved in the War of the Roses (some descendants still remain to this day.) who sees the world that she once knew slowly dying around her, making way for a world she doesn't recognize.
In the previous books, Margaret was a supporting player in other's stories. She started out in the White Queen as the daughter of George Duke of Clarence, younger brother of King Edward IV. She was very young when her father was embroiled in an attempt to seize the throne and was executed by drowning in a vat of malmsy wine. In the White Princess, she was the friend and companion of Elizabeth of York as her brother became the center of a conspiracy to take the throne from Henry VII. She was then forced to watch as history repeated itself and her slow-witted brother was executed. Finally, in The Constant Princess, Margaret is older and charged with guarding the newlyweds Prince Arthur and Princess Katherine of Aragon forming a strong bond of friendship with them though they are the son and daughter-in-law of the king that executed her brother. In her old age, she learned to forgive.
Because that part of the story is well documented in the other books and doesn't offer anything new in the way of her friendships with Elizabeth of York and Katherine of Aragon, Margaret's chapters with the royals are probably the least interesting aspects of the book with one notable exception which I will get to later.
The more interesting parts to this book are the chapters in which Margaret is away from the Royal family and is involved in conflicts within her own family and the people on her lands.
Similar to Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the protagonist of Lady of the Rivers, Margaret spends a great deal of time helping her children receive advantageous positions and marriages. She is also in despair after the death of her husband, Sir Richard leaves her destitute. She appeals to King Henry VIII for help. In exchange, he appoints her oldest son, Henry 1st Baron Montague to become his friend and confidante and her second son, Reginald to Oxford to become a scholar for the king. These positions become useful after the king's noted marital troubles become public and Henry decides to declare his marriage to Katherine no longer valid. Montague becomes Margaret's palace insider letting her know the situation with the royals and Reginald gives her the official opinion from the Catholic Church.
Much of the book deals with the conflict of staying silent or speaking out. Margaret lies when she is asked whether Katherine and Arthur consummated their marriage. She tells the court that it was never consummated so Katherine can be cleared to marry Henry, even though she knows full well that it was.
She also claims to not know anything about whether Elizabeth Woodville and her daughter, Elizabeth of York cursed the Tudor family as the murderers of the Princes in Tower. She says this despite Elizabeth of York confessing to her about the curse.
Margaret has to make a difficult choice when everyone in England is forced to swear an oath that Henry's marriage to Katherine was invalid so he can marry Anne Boleyn. Margaret swears the oath and feels guilty because of her friendship with Katherine. However, she does this to protect her family.
She also questions when family members become more vocal against Henry. Her cousin, Edward Stafford is executed for treason and her son, Reginald becomes an outspoken critic against Henry when the king declares himself Supreme Head of the Church in England putting him in direct conflict with the Pope. The events with Stafford and Reginald put Margaret's family under suspicion and both times she reluctantly distances herself from them. Margaret's despair is particularly felt when she mourns her estrangement from Reginald who was her quiet serious boy that she can no longer associate with.
It makes sense that Margaret is not willing to lose any more family members after the loss of her parents and brother. Her strong familial relationship propels her to sacrifice the truth, honesty, her friendship with Katherine, when the former queen is exiled and her relationship with her cousin and one of her sons for the rest of the family. For Margaret survival of her family is first, last, and always the most important goal.
Much of the book deals with the conflict of staying silent or speaking out. Margaret lies when she is asked whether Katherine and Arthur consummated their marriage. She tells the court that it was never consummated so Katherine can be cleared to marry Henry, even though she knows full well that it was.
She also claims to not know anything about whether Elizabeth Woodville and her daughter, Elizabeth of York cursed the Tudor family as the murderers of the Princes in Tower. She says this despite Elizabeth of York confessing to her about the curse.
Margaret has to make a difficult choice when everyone in England is forced to swear an oath that Henry's marriage to Katherine was invalid so he can marry Anne Boleyn. Margaret swears the oath and feels guilty because of her friendship with Katherine. However, she does this to protect her family.
She also questions when family members become more vocal against Henry. Her cousin, Edward Stafford is executed for treason and her son, Reginald becomes an outspoken critic against Henry when the king declares himself Supreme Head of the Church in England putting him in direct conflict with the Pope. The events with Stafford and Reginald put Margaret's family under suspicion and both times she reluctantly distances herself from them. Margaret's despair is particularly felt when she mourns her estrangement from Reginald who was her quiet serious boy that she can no longer associate with.
It makes sense that Margaret is not willing to lose any more family members after the loss of her parents and brother. Her strong familial relationship propels her to sacrifice the truth, honesty, her friendship with Katherine, when the former queen is exiled and her relationship with her cousin and one of her sons for the rest of the family. For Margaret survival of her family is first, last, and always the most important goal.
Margaret's despair and loss throughout her long life and her nostalgia for days that will never return make The King's Curse one of the darkest books in the Plantagenet and Tudor Court Series.
Margaret holds onto the ideal that she is from an old royal family of the Plantagenets, so she bears a lot of animosity towards the young upstarts like Anne Boleyn. There is a real strong sense of the old generation dying and forced to make way for the young ones.
While the other books speak of horrible things like war, infanticide, spousal and child abuse, most of them carry a sense of hope and pride, particularly in the ambitions of the characters. Most of these ladies are not content to wait for better days. They take charge and make them happen. But with Margaret, there seems to be little that she can do, thereby increasing the hopelessness that someone in her position feels as the world changes without her involvement or input.
This helplessness increases the darkness in this book as we see the world not from the throne but the people on the outside.
Since Margaret is a Countess not a Queen, we get to view the people dwelling in her lands and learn how the instability in the Royal household affects them. Priests refuse to compromise their beliefs despite threats. Tenants worry when crops decrease and prices go up. Family members argue and break ties with each other over the oath.
All Margaret can do is help her people as much as she can.
Besides the outsider perspective, this book fills another need, one that Philippa Gregory omitted. Gregory never wrote a book from the perspective of Jane Seymour, feeling that her story had been told in The Other Boleyn Girl. Unfortunately, we get very little sense of her as a person in that book.
We finally get that much needed portrayal as Margaret gets to know Henry's third wife. As compared to the firy Katherine and the conniving Anne, Jane Seymour is depicted as a shy mousy girl who is kind but terrified of her new role and with good reason after one wife was exiled and another beheaded. Margaret is very protective towards her like a surrogate daughter that she feels is in over her head particularly when she asks for pardons for the participants in the Pilgrimage of Grace, a Catholic uprising against Henry. Jane also gives Henry, the long awaited legitimate son, Prince Edward before dying of childbirth.
Among the darkest aspects of the book is the repetition of the family tree. In most books in the series, a family tree is only in the frontispiece. But in The King's Curse, it is present throughout the book with roses colored in black to represent Plantagenet family members that die. As various members die either from illness, execution or other means another rose is darkened. When Margaret's youngest son, Geoffrey is arrested for treason, (it becomes punishable by death to speak against the king), he implicates his brother, Montague and other family members based on various conversations. All but Geoffrey are executed and the black roses continue.
Finally, Margaret is arrested, stripped of her title and land, and held in the Tower to meet her grisly final end. It is no surprise that the final page is the Plantagenet family tree filled with black roses as if sounding the death knell for the family.
The title the King's Curse is fitting not just for the curse that Elizabeth Woodville and Elizabeth of York give the Tudors that their oldest son and grandson will die young (Prince Arthur and King Edward VI) and end with a barren girl (Queen Elizabeth I). But the curse is also within King Henry VIII and how he curses his own people and himself. Lady Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury certainly saw that.
Margaret holds onto the ideal that she is from an old royal family of the Plantagenets, so she bears a lot of animosity towards the young upstarts like Anne Boleyn. There is a real strong sense of the old generation dying and forced to make way for the young ones.
While the other books speak of horrible things like war, infanticide, spousal and child abuse, most of them carry a sense of hope and pride, particularly in the ambitions of the characters. Most of these ladies are not content to wait for better days. They take charge and make them happen. But with Margaret, there seems to be little that she can do, thereby increasing the hopelessness that someone in her position feels as the world changes without her involvement or input.
This helplessness increases the darkness in this book as we see the world not from the throne but the people on the outside.
Since Margaret is a Countess not a Queen, we get to view the people dwelling in her lands and learn how the instability in the Royal household affects them. Priests refuse to compromise their beliefs despite threats. Tenants worry when crops decrease and prices go up. Family members argue and break ties with each other over the oath.
All Margaret can do is help her people as much as she can.
Besides the outsider perspective, this book fills another need, one that Philippa Gregory omitted. Gregory never wrote a book from the perspective of Jane Seymour, feeling that her story had been told in The Other Boleyn Girl. Unfortunately, we get very little sense of her as a person in that book.
We finally get that much needed portrayal as Margaret gets to know Henry's third wife. As compared to the firy Katherine and the conniving Anne, Jane Seymour is depicted as a shy mousy girl who is kind but terrified of her new role and with good reason after one wife was exiled and another beheaded. Margaret is very protective towards her like a surrogate daughter that she feels is in over her head particularly when she asks for pardons for the participants in the Pilgrimage of Grace, a Catholic uprising against Henry. Jane also gives Henry, the long awaited legitimate son, Prince Edward before dying of childbirth.
Among the darkest aspects of the book is the repetition of the family tree. In most books in the series, a family tree is only in the frontispiece. But in The King's Curse, it is present throughout the book with roses colored in black to represent Plantagenet family members that die. As various members die either from illness, execution or other means another rose is darkened. When Margaret's youngest son, Geoffrey is arrested for treason, (it becomes punishable by death to speak against the king), he implicates his brother, Montague and other family members based on various conversations. All but Geoffrey are executed and the black roses continue.
Finally, Margaret is arrested, stripped of her title and land, and held in the Tower to meet her grisly final end. It is no surprise that the final page is the Plantagenet family tree filled with black roses as if sounding the death knell for the family.
The title the King's Curse is fitting not just for the curse that Elizabeth Woodville and Elizabeth of York give the Tudors that their oldest son and grandson will die young (Prince Arthur and King Edward VI) and end with a barren girl (Queen Elizabeth I). But the curse is also within King Henry VIII and how he curses his own people and himself. Lady Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury certainly saw that.
