Book: The Red Queen (NEW: August 2010) by Phillipa Gregory

Boy, for a small island, and a relatively brief history (after all we don’t know much about them before the Romans) the British sure have had a lot going on.  For all those who despair of ever figuring out all those branches of the royal family and the numerous (numbered) Henrys and Williams and whatever, historical novels come to the rescue.

The Red Queen, by Phillipa Gregory not only introduced me to a formidable British woman, but helped me sort out the lengthy, and sometimes seemingly pointless War of the Roses. And sorting out British history becomes essential if you want to enjoy the many castles and shires and Royal roads of England.

Tower of London

The new historical novel reminded me that the Big Red Bus took me to the Tower of London. Those who went to the Tower of London in olden days did not have the privilege of riding in a double-decker sightseeing bus. And their “ticket” did not include a river cruise on the Thames.

We arrived at Heathrow at 6:00 a.m., stowed our luggage at the airport and took a train in to town.  With only one day to get for our first visit to London, we chose the zippy way. We found the bus a block away and rode through the drizzle, half  listening to the recorded spiel while we gaped at all the history around us.

Jet lag soon began to win out over my usual excitement at seeing new things, and the Tower remains a bit blurry in my mind. I do recall that the gray walls looked even gloomier in the rain on the day we visited.

I also remember the low passageway leading to the river from within the walls.  Prisoners could be brought in quietly at night and dead bodies spirited away.  That setting plays a part in the book The Red Queen. Margaret Beaufort, our heroine, wears the red rose of Lancaster. The other Queen–the one who married a York–is tossed into the Tower.  (Gregory wrote about The White Queen in a previous book.)  A visitor reports back to Margaret that the York Queen communes with the River Spirits, beings still be be feared in the fifteenth century.

Margaret,  determined to become Queen, or a very least Queen Mother, gained later fame as the matron of the Tudor line (mother of Henry Tudor) and one of those rarities of the middle ages–a female scholar. As the rival armies of York and Lancaster go marching back and forth, Phillipa Gregory gives us quite the tour of England, which underlines why this makes a good addition to a traveler’s library.

Unlike some historical novels that get waterlogged in detail, The Red Queen skims through Margaret’s life and keeps the reader turning the pages to see when she and her house will finally triumph. The novel is a story told by Margaret, from her strong-willed point of view, in the present tense, which helps build suspense–even for those well versed in British history.

You may find The White Queen a more sympathetic character when you realize that it was her two little boys who were imprisoned by Richard III and then disappeared. Shakespeare talks about them in his drama, Richard III, and Gregory, true to historical fact, throws plenty of false clues around but does not give us a firm answer as to what happened to the unfortunate children.

Gregory has more than 25 novels to her credit, but is best known for her series on the Boleyn sisters, particularly after The Other Boleyn Girl became a movie. Her attractive web site includes a nice interview with CNN. She has a Facebook page, too, if you want to keep track of her on the Internet. Once you’ve read The Red Queen, you may want to go back and dip into more of her views of British history, particularly if you are traveling to England.

The Red Queen was provided by Simon and Schuster for review purposes. The gloomy picture of the Tower comes from Flickr with Creative Commons license. Click on the picture to learn more.

Our first choice of sights in London, was The Tower.  It might have been the British Museum, but I knew that I would be frustrated if I had only a few hours there.  I think I was influenced by Shakespeare’s dramas. Anybody who was anybody wound up in the Tower. What is the first thing you wanted to see–or want to see–in London?

Other reviews: The Book Bluff, a personal review Book Addict, another blog review.

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Chateau de Versailles

Destination: France in the 17th Century

Book: Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland (Paperback released in May, 2009)

NOTE: Please check out Sandra Gulland’s response in the comment section, and further travel advice on her web site.

I thoroughly enjoyed Mistress of the Sun. Because:

• I’m planning my first trip to France, and I’ll be visiting Versailles.
• Sandra Gulland writes well researched historical novels.
• A moving romance dominates the story line.

Add to that, a well chosen heroine who in real life became the mistress of King Louis XIV, who would come down in history as The Sun King.  At the beginning of their story, he was handsome young Louis and she was Petite. Both of them loved to ride. In fact, Louise de Valliere (Petite) attracted his attention more for her horsemanship– excelling most of the men at court–than for her feminine beauty. She even had one leg shorter than the other, and later in life wore a special shoe to equalize her gait.

Throughout their relationship, in this novel at least, Louise loved Louis, but did not care for The King, and we see the young Louis evolve from the carefree romantic young man to a demanding and self-absorbed adulthood, facing foreign enemies and internal schemers at the court.

Louise evolves less dramatically, and her changes seem to be foretold from her childhood. As a young girl she loves a wild white stallion known as Diablo, and with a combination of gypsy magic and horsewhispering, she tames him, but at a terrible price. The young Petite winds up living in a nunnery.  When she gets a job at the court, Louis sees her and remembers her from an early encounter. She falls in an impossible love with Louis, but he reciprocates her love and takes her as one of the earliest of his many mistresses. He turns out to be as untameable as Diablo, and she ends her life back in the nunnery.

It is interesting that we see this spirited young girl become docile in love and then come to the conclusion that her only real freedom is to take the veil.

Because the records are incomplete, Gulland adds fictional touches (the creation of the character of Louise’s maid and the blending of several characters into one), but no one has accused her of historical inaccuracy. Her research shines through, but does not weigh down the fast-paced story and interesting characters.

She does not gloss over the sometimes repugnant details of 17th century life, telling us about illnesses, the rats and the filth in even grand palaces. Her description of everyday life in the palace makes me wonder why as a girl I ever wanted to be a princess.

Most fascinating to me, we see Versailles (called Versaile in the novel) morph from a rural hunting camp to a glamorous center of court life, more like what we see outside Paris today.

I intend to read this book again before I go to France, to fix real historic details that I skimmed over in my rush to read the fascinating story.

(The picture above is obtained from Flickr, and if you click on it, you will learn more about him. The publishers, Simon & Schuster’s Touchstone imprint, gave me a hard-cover copy of this book to read.)

Have you read Gulland’s trilogy on Josephine Bonaparte? Or perhaps you beat me to Mistress to the Sun. What other historic novels do you recommend for a traveler to France?

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.