Just Finished Reading: The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory (FP: 2010)

England, 1453. Margaret Beaufort believes herself to be special, special in the eyes of God and with a special destiny ahead of her. Already known for her piety at an early age she models herself on her hero Joan of Arc and expects either to lead a great crusade or possibly be a great Abbess. Her mother, however, has other ideas. Margaret is to do her duty to the family by producing an heir to the Beaufort fortune. To do so she is married to a wealthy and highly positioned Welsh landowner at the age of twelve. Quickly pregnant she goes through a dangerous birth to produce a boy which she names Henry in honour of the King and her cousin Henry VI. Convinced that she has given birth to a future king of England and head of the Lancaster family she is determined to bring up her son herself. The reigning House of York have no intention of allowing Henry to grow up as a threat to their rule and quickly pack him off to a foster family with a proven loyalty to the Yorkist regime. Not to be outdone Margaret begins a lifetime of plotting to put her beloved son on the throne no matter the opposition or the consequences.

You can certainly see why George Martin used the historical example of the Wars of the Roses as an example of the plots and counter plots so prevalent in his Game of Thrones series of books and TV series. The activities of the Houses of York and Lancaster in the mid-15^th century are a master class in duplicity, double dealing, double crossing and the timely stab in the back (both metaphorical and literal). Margaret’s fortunes rise and fall like the tide and despite being on the defensive for most of the time she never totally gives up on her ambition. But unlike her enemy Elizabeth Woodville (portrayed in the authors previous book The White Queen) Margaret Beaufort comes across as anything but a likable character. Actually I actively disliked her despite starting the book expecting to find myself naturally on her side (being from Lancashire I naturally identified with the Lancastrian side of things – helped by the fact that ‘we’ won!). She was, by all accounts, not a very nice person. If there is much historical accuracy in this novel then I am not in the least bit surprised. But despite not liking the main character I did find the book a worthy successor to The White Queen. Running almost in parallel with the first book it looked at many of the same events but from the Lancastrian point of view. Cleverly it did not fall into the error of being simply a mirror image of the earlier book but managed to both open out and deepen the reader’s appreciation of those turbulent times. I shall look forward to reading the other books in this series. Recommended.