Krishna
The story starts with Mary, the daughter of Katherine of Aragon, telling a very young Elizabeth that Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Bolyn, was just executed for treason. Elizabeth does not understand what treason is and what even death is.
She is taken to the court when King Henry has married Jane Seymour and is relieved to be warmly welcomed by her dear daddy the King. Mary is also back in favour after she gave in writing that her own mom Katherine of Aragon, is a traitor, much against her real feelings and knowing that with her mom dead there was no repercussions and that this was the only way to avoid further estrangement with her father the King.
Elizabeth is warmly welcomed by the King who marries Jane Seymour and is esctatic when she bears him a male child, William.
Lady Bryan, her servant, is reassigned to care for Prince Edward, the new boy and Elizabeth feels betrayed. But the new governess, Kat, instantly wins her heart!
The storytelling prowess of the author still keeps us inspired. What do I mean by that? If you had read The Six Wives of Henry VIII by the same author, you know the stpry of Henry VIII fully. This is the same story (at least initially for a substantial portion of the book) but told from the point of view of the young child Elizabeth.
Even Weir can’t expel the feeling you get of reading the same story twice, but comes very close to it. At least she keeps us reading on.
She goes through the four wives of Henry after Anne Bolyn was executed. Four step mothers, two of whom were beheaded, one (Jane Seymour) who died in childbirth and the last Katherine Parr, who survived, albeit with a near scare of being arrested for daring to argue with the King. We also enjoy the interplay of the Catholics rising in power once and falling the next.
So far, so familiar if you have read the other book mentioned above. But then Lady Elizabeth’s life with the crown prince Edward comes to the fore as Henry’s health declines precipitously.
Meanwhile John Seymour, the rogue, marries Katharine the Queen in an unseemly haste but ties to be improper with Elizabeth, who seems helpless as she is smitten with him, much to her governess Kat’s annoyance.
Even when Kat complains to the queen and she accompanies him, he continues to be brazen.
He once catches her alone in the garden, declares his love and makes a pass at her. She, conflicted, goes away. When the Queen has watched it all from her balcony, unexpectedly, he lies through his teeth. Though the Queen suspects what has happened, she does not want to know the truth, lest it shatter her “happy marriage”.
Next time Elizabeth goes to court to greet Edward, the new King, she finds the boy King unbending and not cheerful and throwing his weight around. Lord Protectorate, a stern man who is also the brother of John Seymour, would have it no other way.
One day, Elizabeth gives in to the evil plot of the Admiral and he comes and forces himself into her, and the Queen finds out slightly later! They both lie saying that she had not been impregnated but Elizabeth is asked to leave the house and be with Katherine’s sister and brother in law.
It is there that Elizabeth finds that she is pregnant! A horrified Kat has to confide to the master and mistress of the abode, much to Elizabeth’s shame. She knows it is the Tower for both her and the Admiral if this ever comes out.
Reads like a novel and you are stunned to find that the ‘Virgin Queen’ was at the very mercy of her desires and gave in to a handsome and womanizing rogue.
Denny, the master of the house, tells her coldly that they will wait until the baby is born and she then needs to leave his house. This is only because of his loyalty to the throne. She also needs to stay away from everyone if her condition becomes visible.
The baby is to be put up for adoption as a foundling, in an appropriate house.
But she miscarries and is relieved to be reprieved from scandal. She is now determined to flaunt her “virginity” before the world and remain celibate. Meanwhile the Queen gives birth to a girl and dies in childbirth. The sad news comes to Elizabeth.
The admiral meanwhile goes into the King’s bedchamber stealthily at night and is arrested and sent to the Tower for plotting to assassinate the (young) King. He used an illegal copy of the key to the bedchamber to enter and even shot dead the dog that barked. Elizabeth now realizes how shallow and selfish the Admiral is.
The investigation tries to trap Elizabeth but she, knowing that her ally did not disclose her pregnancy to the council, is determined to stand firm, even though she is shocked to hear that Kat and her husband have been arrested and taken to the Tower for treason.
What intrigue! When the King dies, both Mary and Elizabeth fear plotting by the council members who were wielding real power to kill them and the little girl Jane Seymour is married off to the Lord of Northumberland’s son so that, after killing Mary and Elizabeth the throne can go to them and through them to him – as the power behind the throne.
They also try to plead that both Mary and Elizabeth being bastards cannot be Queens even if King Henry had decreed so.
Mary manages to rally the crowd to her and gets herself proclaimed the queen. Northumberland is arrested and sent to the tower. So is her son and Jane Seymour.
It does not take long for Mary to try to force her Catholic faith on Elizabeth and when Elizabeth pointedly refuses, she turns cold. She is also ‘advised’ by the Spanish man Renard, who has her ear to stand firm in her faith.
Mary wants to marry the Spanish prince or even a Catholic clergy with the Pope’s approval for him to forsake celibacy to get a Catholic male heir to the kingdom. Even though she wanted to convert England back to the ‘true faith’ or Catholicism and pledged that she would not coerce anyone to obey and only ‘persuade’ them, soon laws were passed where it was illegal to preach the Protestant faith openly and those who did so found themselves in prison.
Now Elizabeth is under pressure to attend the Catholic mass. Her advisors are spewing venom into Mary’s ears, making her suspicious of her sister Elizabeth, who, according to them, is biding her time to capture the throne on the head of a Protestant rebellion.
Mary ultimately tries to force Elizabeth to attend mass with her. She does and even promises Mary that she has seen the error of her ways and will make a public proclamation that she is converting to the ‘True Faith’. Mary rejoices but her advisors are unconvinced. They convince Mary that Elizabeth is not fit to be queen after Mary if she dies without an issue.
Mary falls into the trap and even tells her advisors that Elizabeth may not be the true child of her father, given Anne Bolyn’s marauding ways for which she met her death.
But the advisors, realizing the risks, shoot the idea down. They ask her to marry either the King of Spain or Courteney who is now wooing her after just two days after courting Elizabeth. She is irresolute and they, behind her back, say that being a woman, she can’t, by nature, make decision. She needs a husband to direct her to the correct path.
She agrees to marry the Spanish king Phillip and even hand over the reins of the Kingdom to him, and be ‘an obedient wife’. This sparks rebellion which is ruthlessly crushed and Elizabeth comes under increasing suspicion, with Mary saying that ‘she cannot even think of her as a sister anymore’ and believing that she is plotting with the Protestants to depose Mary.
Elizabeth is ordered to come see Mary even when she is terribly sick and Mary’s doctors visit her and pronounce her fit for travel. She is sure that she is going to lose her life when she sees her sister and is in abject terror, especially when she hears that young Jane Grey has been executed, even though Mary had previously promised her mercy.
Reads like a thriller. Elizabeth is interrogated by the clique around Mary and informed brusquely that she is denied permission to see the Queen. She holds her own in the discussions but is shocked to hear that she is to be sent to the Tower the next day. Her memories of her mother and Jane Grey come flooding forth and she is convinced that she is not going to return, ever, from the Tower or worse.
When they could not find any evidence against her, the judging panel refuses to condemn her and the reasons are not only that she is found guilty unfairly; Mary is old and not in good health. If she should die in childbirth or otherwise, with no issues, and if Elizabeth is dead, they feared a civil war for the throne suddenly left vacant.
When finally Mary hears that no evidence was found, she disregards Renard’s advise to kill Elizabeth anyway. She is blackmailed initially by Renard that Prince Phillip of Spain, whom Mary is desperately hoping to marry will not visit England as long as Elizabeth is alive and the protestants have a lightning rod to protest. Meanwhile the debauchery of Prince Phillip is carefully hidden from Mary and he is presented as an ideal man (not true) and a devout Catholic (true) and Mary knows that soon she will convert England to the ‘True Faith’ again. Ironic that Mary forgot the persecution she was under when Protestant religion was the ‘official’ religion under her father and now plans to forcibly convert England to Catholicism.
She gives Elizabeth to the Care of William, a loyal and honest (if a bit stupid) councilor to keep Elizabeth in a house arrest under her care. Even though the news was kept secret, Elizabeth is touched with the groundswell of support and the crowd cheering her all the way to her prison!
William is upset and worried. He did not expect such preparation from the crowd. Elizabeth feels reassured by the popular esteem in which she is held.
Mary marries Prince Phillip from Spain and is ecstatic! But Phillip hates England and knows that he is hated by the English. It is a torture for him to stay with this ‘dried up spinster’ for longer than necessary. He yearns to go back to Spain at the first opportunity. All he is hoping for is to get Mary pregnant.
He also found women to have affairs with in the English court already.
When news comes of Mary being pregnant, and delivered to her in her house arrest by the guardian Sir Henry, Elizabeth is aghast. She never seriously believed that the queen can conceive a heir.
Then the burning of protestants at the stake begins, and Mary’s reign of terror begins. Elizabeth, still under house arrest is helpless not just to help them but even profess her true faith openly.
Prince Phillip first forces Mary to get her to the palace in London and then, against her will and regardless of her fears, decides to go meet this woman who has been the cause of such an uproar. Elizabeth receives him obediently. But flashes her feminine charms at him as much as allowed.
Philip watches Mary’s stomach shrinking and the baby that was due in April did not appear even in May. So he hedges his bets and befriends Elizabeth, just in case she happens to inherit the throne. He forces Mary to make peace with Elizabeth.
Phillip makes a final ploy to force Elizabeth to marry the dim witted twelve year old, his cousin and therefore pliable to his will. Mary, for once, wounded that he chose to openly flaunt his mistress and cousin whom he had brought with him from Spain, defies him and sends Elizabeth back to Hatfield, away from the Prince’s influence.
The massive machinations, the continuous threats, and the final denouement are all told in fantastic detail.
She is, I think, for British monarchy what Pauline Gedge was for Egyptian history (for instance see our review of Child of The Morning by Pauline) – despite that Pauline is not as famous as Alison is.
Do not miss the epilog where the author describes what she needed to dramatize (very little) and how close she has followed evidence is interesting. In spite of this, the fact that this reads like a thriller, even when the first half is the life of Henry VIII and thus known from her earlier book, speaks volumes to her skill as a storyteller. Brilliant!
9/10
— Krishna