Summary
A #1 New York Times Bestselling AuthorThe final novel in the Cousins' War seriesRegarded as yet another threat to the volatile King Henry VII's claim to the throne, Margaret is buried in marriage to a steady and kind Tudor supporter -- Sir Richard Pole, governor of Wales. But her quiet life is changed forever when she becomes the trusted friend and advisor to Arthur, the young Prince of Wales, and his beautiful bride, Katherine of Aragon. Margaret destiny, as an heiress to the Plantagenets, is not for a life in the shadows.
Author Notes
Philippa Gregory was born in Nairobi, Kenya on January 9, 1954. She received a B.A. in history at Sussex University in 1982 and a Ph.D. in 18th-century literature from the University of Edinburgh in 1984. She has taught at numerous universities and was made a fellow of Kingston University in 1994.
Her historical novels include: Wideacre, The Queen's Fool, The Virgin's Lover, The Constant Princess, The Boleyn Inheritance, The Other Queen, The White Queen, The Red Queen, The Lady of the Rivers and The White Princess. She has also written several contemporary fiction works including Perfectly Correct, The Little House and Zelda's Cut. She adapted her novel A Respectable Trade, about the slave trade in England, into a four-part series for BBC television. Her script won an award from the Committee for Racial Equality. She won the Feminist Book Fortnight Award in 1990 and the Romantic Novelist of the Year Award in 2002. Her book, The Other Boleyn Girl, won the Parker Romantic Novel of the Year award and was adapted into a major feature film in 2008 starring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson. The White Queen was adapted into an original cable series on the Starz nertwork in 2013 starring Max Irons and Rebecca Ferguson. Her title The Kings Curse made the New York Times bestseller list in 2014. Her title, The Taming of the Queen, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2015. Her latest bestseller is Three Sisters, Three Queens.
Gregory also writes children's books, is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines, a frequent broadcaster for radio and television, and runs a small charity that builds wells in schoolyards in Gambia.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Gregory adds to her Cousins' War series (after The White Princess) an illuminating portrait of historical figure Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, whose royal Plantagenet lineage was both a blessing and a curse. Gregory's carefully researched story line begins in 1499 with Margaret in mourning for her brother Teddy, who was beheaded by King Henry VII because he was a rival for the throne. Margaret has already been "stuffed into obscurity," married to an ordinary knight with whom she's had five children. When Prince Arthur, the King's son and heir, marries Katherine of Aragon, Margaret becomes lady-in-waiting to the Spanish princess. When Arthur dies, Margaret loses her position; not long afterward, she is widowed and struggles financially. Matters temporarily improve for Margaret with the ascension of the new king, Henry VIII, who appoints Margaret governess to his daughter Mary. But the moody and volatile ruler also forces Margaret and her family to jockey for favor at court. Gregory moves confidently through a tangle of intrigue, revenge, and tyranny toward a shocking betrayal that brings Margaret face-to-face with the king's ire. Agent: Anthony Mason. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
Lady Margaret Pole is a Plantagenet by birth and therefore an enemy to the house of Tudor when Henry Tudor wins the throne. Margaret's husband tries to distance her from Henry's court, but after Lord Pole's death, she is summoned back to court to serve Prince Arthur and his new wife, Katherine. After Arthur dies, Katherine marries his younger brother, Henry VIII. This draws Lady Margaret into a long and difficult balancing act while Henry VIII spirals out of control-divorcing Katherine, declaring himself head of the Church of England and therefore divine, disposing of his wives when they fail to produce sons, ignoring the rule of law, and allowing Thomas Cromwell to arrest, torture, and execute anyone for any reason. Eventually, Margaret becomes a target when her son accuses her of treason to secure his own life. Gregory has written this story before (The White Princess) from other points of view. Here she once again has captured the era's tragedies and terrors and the political ups and downs of the royal court. Reader Bianca Amado brings Lady Margaret to life and to death with skill and sympathy. VERDICT Recommended to listeners of Gregory's previous work and of historical fiction. ["Gregory offers a fresh perspective on well-known British history. This gripping and detailed chronicle, with plenty of court intrigue and politics to spice up the action, will be sure to please any historical fiction fan," read the review of the Touchstone hc, LJ 8/14; see a Q&A with Amato on page TK.]-Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
The King's Curse WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, 29 NOVEMBER 1499 In the moment of waking I am innocent, my conscience clear of any wrongdoing. In that first dazed moment, as my eyes open, I have no thoughts; I am only a smooth-skinned, tightly muscled young body, a woman of twenty-six, slowly waking with joy to life. I have no sense of my immortal soul, I have no sense of sin or guilt. I am so deliciously, lazily sleepy that I hardly know who I am. Slowly, I open my eyes and realize that the light coming through the shutters means that it is late in the morning. As I stretch out, luxuriously, like a waking cat, I remember that I was exhausted when I fell asleep and now I feel rested and well. And then, all in a moment, as if reality had suddenly tumbled down on my head like glossy-sealed denouncements from a high shelf, I remember that I am not well, that nothing is well, that this is the morning I hoped would never come; for this morning I cannot deny my deadly name: I am the heir of royal blood, and my brother--guilty as I am guilty--is dead. My husband, sitting on the side of my bed, is fully dressed in his red velvet waistcoat, his jacket making him bulky and wide, his gold chain of office as chamberlain to the Prince of Wales splayed over his broad chest. Slowly, I realize he has been waiting for me to wake, his face crumpled with worry. "Margaret?" "Don't say anything," I snap like a child, as if stopping the words will delay the facts, and I turn away from him into the pillow. "You must be brave," he says hopelessly. He pats my shoulder as if I were a sick hound puppy. "You must be brave." I don't dare to shrug him off. He is my husband, I dare not offend him. He is my only refuge. I am buried in him, my name hidden in his. I am cut off from my title as sharply as if my name had been beheaded and rolled away into a basket. Mine is the most dangerous name in England: Plantagenet, and once I carried it proudly, like a crown. Once I was Margaret Plantagenet of York, niece of two kings, the brothers Edward IV and Richard III, and the third brother was my father, George, Duke of Clarence. My mother was the wealthiest woman in England and the daughter of a man so great that they called him "Kingmaker." My brother, Teddy, was named by our uncle, King Richard, as heir to the throne of England, and between us--Teddy and me--we commanded the love and the loyalty of half the kingdom. We were the noble Warwick orphans, saved from fate, snatched from the witchy grip of the white queen, raised in the royal nursery at Middleham Castle by Queen Anne herself, and nothing, nothing in the world was too good or too rich or too rare for us. But when King Richard was killed, we went overnight from being the heirs to the throne to becoming pretenders, survivors of the old royal family, while a usurper took the throne. What should be done with the York princesses? What should be done with the Warwick heirs? The Tudors, mother and son, had the answer prepared. We would all be married into obscurity, wedded to shadows, hidden in wedlock. So now I am safe, cut down by degrees, until I am small enough to conceal under a poor knight's name in a little manor in the middle of England where land is cheap and there is nobody who would ride into battle for the promise of my smile at the cry of "À Warwick!". I am Lady Pole. Not a princess, not a duchess, not even a countess, just the wife of a humble knight, stuffed into obscurity like an embroidered emblem into a forgotten clothes chest. Margaret Pole, young pregnant wife to Sir Richard Pole, and I have already given him three children, two of them boys. One is Henry, named sycophantically for the new king, Henry VII, and one is Arthur, named ingratiatingly for his son Prince Arthur, and I have a daughter, Ursula. I was allowed to call a mere girl whatever I wanted, so I named her for a saint who chose death rather than be married to a stranger and forced to take his name. I doubt that anyone has observed this small rebellion of mine; I certainly hope not. But my brother could not be rechristened by marriage. Whoever he married, however lowly she was, she could not change his name as my husband has changed mine. He would still hold the title Earl of Warwick, he would still answer to Edward Plantagenet, he would still be the true heir to the throne of England. When they raised his standard (and someone, sooner or later, was bound to raise his standard) half of England would turn out just for that haunting flicker of white embroidery, the white rose. That is what they call him: "the White Rose." So since they could not take his name from him, they took his fortune and his lands. Then they took his liberty, packing him away like a forgotten banner, among other worthless things, into the Tower of London, among traitors and debtors and fools. But though he had no servants, no lands, no castle, no education, still my brother had his name, my name. Still Teddy had his title, my grandfather's title. Still he was Earl of Warwick, the White Rose, heir to the Plantagenet throne, a living constant reproach to the Tudors, who captured that throne and now call it their own. They took him into the darkness when he was a little boy of eleven and they did not bring him out until he was a man of twenty-four. He had not felt meadow grass under his feet for thirteen years. Then he walked out of the Tower, perhaps enjoying the smell of the rain on the wet earth, perhaps listening to the seagulls crying over the river, perhaps hearing beyond the high walls of the Tower the shouts and laughter of free men, free Englishmen, his subjects. With a guard on either side of him, he walked across the drawbridge and up to Tower Hill, knelt before the block, and put his head down as if he deserved to die, as if he were willing to die; and they beheaded him. That happened yesterday. Just yesterday. It rained all day. There was a tremendous storm, as if the sky was raging against cruelty, rain pouring down like grief, so that when they told me, as I stood beside my cousin the queen in her beautifully appointed rooms, we closed the shutters against the darkness as if we did not want to see the rain that on Tower Hill was washing blood into the gutter, my brother's blood, my blood, royal blood. "Try to be brave," my husband murmurs again. "Think of the baby. Try not to be afraid." "I'm not afraid." I twist my head to speak over my shoulder. "I don't have to try to be brave. I have nothing to fear. I know that I am safe with you." He hesitates. He does not want to remind me that perhaps I do still have something to fear. Perhaps even his lowly estate is not humble enough to keep me safe. "I meant, try not to show your grief . . ." "Why not?" It comes out as a childish wail. "Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I grieve? My brother, my only brother, is dead! Beheaded like a traitor when he was innocent as a child. Why should I not grieve?" "Because they won't like it," he says simply. Excerpted from The King's Curse by Philippa Gregory All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.