The Queen of Last Hopes, by Susan Higginbotham. Book review

Sourcebooks, 2011. ISBN . 332 pages. Uncorrected advance review copy kindly supplied by publisher.

Set in England, France and Scotland between 1444 and 1482, The Queen of Last Hopes tells the story of Margaret of Anjou., the French princess who became queen to Henry VI of England and found herself having to fight for his throne during the power struggle known to history as the Wars of the Roses. The novel covers Margaret’s life from her marriage to Henry until her death. All the major characters are historical figures.

Married at age fourteen to Henry VI of England to seal a peace treaty, Margaret of Anjou finds that although Henry is a good man – indeed, bordering on the saintly – this is not at all the same as being a good king. Simmering conflicts claim the life of Margaret’s friend, and then explode into outright war when Henry suffers a bout of mental illness. With a baby son to fight for as well as her husband and herself, Margaret has to take command, raising armies and on occasion marching with them. Margaret’s indomitable spirit carries her through war, exile, shipwreck and robbery – but her greatest personal cost is yet to come.

If you are familiar with the cruel and vengeful Margaret of Anjou made famous by one William Shakespeare (“O tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide!”), you are in for a surprise. The Queen of Last Hopes undertakes the commendable task of telling the story from Margaret’s side and mainly through her eyes, and presents a much more sympathetic Margaret than Shakespeare’s “…. stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless”. The reader can hardly fail to admire beautiful, unlucky Margaret, battling on with courage and perseverance literally to the last hope.

The Queen of Last Hopes is narrated in first person, mainly by Margaret. Although Margaret played an unusually active role in events, even she could not be everywhere at once, and some chapters are narrated in first person by other characters who were at the centre of the events described. In this way the novel can recount events directly even when Margaret was not present, avoiding the need to have her listen passively while someone else tells her about them, and can also show some other points of view. Each chapter is headed by the narrator’s name and the date, and you do need to pay attention to these to be clear about who is speaking (and the time frame, as sometimes the novel skips forward by several months or even years in one go).

The most successful of the secondary narrators for me was Henry (Hal) Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. Like many of the English nobility he changed sides more than once as the fortune of war ebbed and flowed, and sometimes found himself with friends and family on the opposite side. His narrative touches on the conflicts and divided loyalties inherent in a civil war between two branches of the same family in a way that Margaret, who as a Frenchwoman is outside most of the kinship and obligation networks that criss-cross the English aristocracy, cannot. Hal’s affair with a down-to-earth London confectioner, Joan Hill, is a delightful story in itself, and adds a warmly human counterpoint to the high politics of the rest of the novel. It’s a reminder that while the aristocracy were busy trying to murder each other for a grab at the crown, the rest of the country was getting on with the workaday business of earning a living, regardless of who was calling himself king this week. Anne Neville’s relationship with Margaret’s son Edward is also refreshingly down-to earth, a political alliance that both parties are prepared to make the best of, and with the makings of a successful marriage.

Margaret’s narrative is framed from the perspective of Margaret looking back over her life from old age. Perhaps time and reflection have distanced her from her tumultuous youth and prime. Her narrative is remarkably matter of fact and the emotion is understated, even when she is recounting heartbreaking loss and hair’s breadth escapes. As de facto leader of the Lancastrian party, Margaret had to guard her feelings and put on a brave face in public, and there is a guarded quality about her narrative, almost as though she is maintaining a similar protective shield against the reader. The epilogue, narrated by her lady-in-waiting Katherine Vaux in extreme old age, is an especially poignant vignette. Amidst the celebrations of Henry VIII’s wedding to Catherine of Aragon, Katherine Vaux watches the beautiful, hopeful young foreign princess and, remembering Margaret of Anjou, fears for her future – fears that the reader, who knows how Catherine’s marriage worked out, knows to be all too justified.

A helpful Author’s Note summarises the underlying history and sets out the reasons for any divergences, and a useful list of characters at the front of the book helps to keep track of the large cast (probably especially helpful to readers who are new to the period). A list of Further Reading provides suggestions for interested readers who want to pursue the history in more depth.

Detailed, sympathetic portrait of Margaret of Anjou.

The Stolen Crown, by Susan Higginbotham. Book review

Sourcebooks, 2010, ISBN 978-1402237669, 377 pages. Edition reviewed: uncorrected advance review copy, kindly supplied by publisher.

Set in 1464-1485, with an epilogue covering 1492-1496, The Stolen Crown covers the later years of the Wars of the Roses and the short reign of Richard III, as told by Harry Stafford Duke of Buckingham and his wife Katherine (Kate) Woodville. All the named characters are based on historical figures.

When six-year-old Kate Woodville witnesses her elder sister Elizabeth secretly marrying Edward IV, King of England, she knows her life will never be the same again. The next year, aged seven, she marries the nine-year-old Harry, who is already Duke of Buckingham after the untimely deaths of his father and grandfather and will come into a great fortune when he comes of age. Kate does not particularly like her young husband’s devotion to his hero, the king’s younger brother Richard of Gloucester, though as yet it casts little shadow over her comfortable life and their adolescent happiness together. Harry is annoyed at being excluded from the high office and power that he thinks his rank entitles him to, but his “delicious Kate”, as he calls her, is considerable compensation. Then in 1483 King Edward IV dies unexpectedly, and as Richard claims the throne for himself in place of his two young nephews, Harry suddenly finds himself at the very centre of power. It is the chance he has dreamed of, to make himself indispensable to his hero Richard – but it comes at a terrible price.

The Stolen Crown is narrated alternately in first person by Harry and Kate. I liked seeing two points of view, particularly as Harry is closely involved in the action after the death of Edward IV and so is an actor in events that Kate would have had to be told about at second hand. The tone of the two narrators is rather similar, perhaps reflecting their shared aristocratic upbringing, and I found I had to pay close attention to the chapter headings to check who was speaking.

As with The Traitor’s Wife and Hugh and Bess by the same author, The Stolen Crown is full of historical detail. All the named characters, even down to ladies in waiting and pages, are based on historical figures. The novel covers the intricacies and contradictions of fifteenth-century politics effectively, often by means of older characters explaining matters to Kate when she is a child. It can be tricky keeping track of all the players, especially given the limited number of popular Christian names in use at the time (practically every family had a Margaret, an Anne, an Isabel or Elizabeth, an Edward, a Richard, etc). The lists of characters organised by family at the front of the book are invaluable.

As the book starts when Kate and Harry are both children, for the first half of the book they are often on the periphery of events as observers rather than participants. It was interesting to watch them growing up and being shaped by their families and experiences, particularly the development of their relationship from children through adolescent romance and into a loving marriage. On the other hand, I found this made the book seem rather slow for the first 200 pages or so, until Edward IV dies and the pace steps up a gear.

The key strength of the book for me was the portrayal of Harry’s relationship with Richard III, which on Harry’s side appears to be mainly hero-worship with faintly homoerotic overtones. This fits well with Harry’s character as developed in the story; having inherited his dukedom as a child and (astonishingly, given the political turmoil of the times) never having been seriously threatened, Harry seems to be still an overgrown teenager even in his late twenties. Imperious, with an inflated sense of his own importance and inclined to speak first and think about the consequences later, he is hopelessly unsuited to high politics. (It’s no surprise that he is affectionately greeted in the afterlife with, “Well, Harry, you certainly made a fine mess of things, didn’t you?”). Richard, who is three years older and has been involved in the cut and thrust of war and politics since the age of sixteen, is a stronger, tougher character and it seems natural that the immature Harry would look up to him. I’m curious about Richard’s side of the story, if only to see whether the relationship was as one-sided as it appears. Yes, the book does give an unequivocal answer to the perennial mystery of the Princes in the Tower, and no, I’m not going to tell you what it is.

Kate is sweet and likeable, with the emotional resilience characteristic of Susan Higginbotham’s other medieval heroines. Picking up the pieces to rebuild her life after personal and political disaster, she reminded me of Eleanor de Clare in The Traitor’s Wife.

The novel is written in straightforward modern prose, attractively salted with occasional wry humour. A helpful Author’s Note at the back sets out the historical background and the rationale for some of the author’s decisions about the various unsolved historical problems. It also very helpfully summarises what happened to the various main characters after the end of the story, and in some cases gives some information about the role their descendants played in later history.

Unsentimental portrayal of the turbulent events surrounding the short and ill-starred reign of Richard III, and in particular the dramatic role played by Henry Stafford Duke of Buckingham.