The Nature of Things

My rating: 3 of 5 stars Philippa Gregory's series about the women of the Cousins' War, the 15th century conflict between the Yorks and the Lancasters over who would rule England, continues with this account of the life of Elizabeth of York. Elizabeth was born a princess of the House of York, daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, who we learned about in The White Queen. As a youngster, Elizabeth is betrothed to Henry Tudor, who will become Henry VII and found the Tudor line. Henry and his uncle Jasper had fled to France when Henry was still a child to avoid being destroyed in the cousins' conflict. Eventually, Henry returns to England with an army and manages to defeat Richard III, the last of the York kings, on the fields of Bosworth. In Gregory's telling, the princess Elizabeth had been in love with Richard III, her uncle, and, in fact, was his lover. She grieved for his death at Bosworth. Henry, who took the crown that day, chose to honor his betrothal to El...

My rating: 4 of 5 stars Philippa Gregory's tales about the women of the Cousins' War (or War of the Roses as it later came to be known) continues with this fourth in the series, The Kingmaker's Daughter. The kingmaker referred to was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, whose prowess on the battlefield and in the political arena made him one of the most powerful men in fifteenth-century England. He cast his lot with the Yorks in the internecine war and helped them to gain the throne, but, always, his main aim was to put his own family on that throne. He did not have any sons and so his two daughters were used as his pawns in his political ploys to achieve greatness for his family. Those two daughters were Anne and Isabel and, of course, the only use for daughters was to get them married advantageously. Meantime, he was successful in getting the York son, Edward, onto the throne where he became Edward IV. Warwick's plan was that he would be the power behind the throne, tha...

My rating: 2 of 5 stars Philippa Gregory has made a very successful writing career by telling the stories of strong women in English history, women whose lives are generally overlooked or devalued by traditional (mostly male) historians. Her most notable successes have been in writing about women of the Tudor period in such books as The Other Boleyn Girl , which was translated into a money-making motion picture. Most recently, Gregory has taken on the stories of the women of the 15th century Cousins' War, or War of the Roses as we generally think of it today. I had previously read the first two books of that series, The White Queen and The Red Queen and had enjoyed them. This summer, Starz had a series based on The White Queen . I watched a couple of episodes of it, but I can't recommend it; however, watching it piqued my interest once again in this historical era and I decided to read the next book in the series, The Lady of the Rivers . This book tells the story of Jacquett...

As a child, Margaret Beaufort of the House of Lancaster was obsessed with Joan of Arc. She was convinced that she was called by God to be England's Joan. In the War of the Roses, the cousins' war, she was devoted to the cause of the Lancasters because, obviously (to her child's mind), they were the ones anointed by God to rule. The Yorks were usurpers who were to be resisted unto death. But, of course, it wouldn't  really  be "unto death" because God was on the Lancasters' side and so they would, without a doubt, prevail. Margaret's dream was to devote her life to study and the worship of God. At the age of twelve, her mother disabused her of that dream by informing her that the only purpose, the only duty, of a Lancaster girl was to breed a Lancaster heir, a boy who could sit on the throne. And so, Margaret would be married to Edmund Tudor and she would live in Wales and there conceive and bring forth the next generation. Margaret's marriage to Ed...

I got the feeling early on that this book really wanted to be a historical bodice-ripper, but the narrative voice of Elizabeth Woodville is so laconic, so lacking in passion, that it never quite made it. The lack of passion is especially surprising in a woman who was twice married and mother to about a dozen children. In fact, it seemed that about half her life was spent being pregnant. Woodville was a widow with two young sons at the time that Edward IV came out on top - at least temporarily - in the cousins' war known to history as the War of the Roses. Her husband had fought and died for the Lancasters, the faction that was also supported by her family, the Riverses. Edward was, of course, a York, the other side in the war. But as the newly crowned king rides by her family's holdings, Elizabeth the Lancasterite stands by the road and asks the assistance of the Yorkist king in regaining her dowry lands that have been taken from her. Elizabeth is a beautiful woman and the king...