This installment of Summer Reads is a bit on the serious side, because early in the summer I’m still picking through my history reading pile. The first book is historical fiction; the second, narrative non-fiction that is partly biography, and partly a great deal of information on Elizabethan building techniques. Taken in chronological order, let’s start with Philippa Gregory’s Three Sisters, Three Queens (2016)

I doubt if any woman in the Plantagent or Tudor families has escaped Gregory’s in-depth perusal. In Three Sisters she turns her focus on Margaret Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York; Mary Tudor, their youngest daughter, and Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first queen.

The story is told from the Margaret’s point of view. When the story opens, Margaret is an opinionated, arrogent twelve-year-old princess preparing for the wedding of her brother Arthur and Catherine of Aragon, and sister Mary is age five.

This is Margaret’s story: her marriage to James IV of Scotland and subsequent widowhood; her shortlived Regency for her son; and her impetuous, ill-advised second marriage to Archibald Douglas, the sixth Earl of Angus which quickly went downhill. Eventually there’s a divorce and second marriage. From first to last, this is Margaret’s story.

As for the sisters, Catherine’s fate is fairly well-known. Married to Arthur, she becomes an impoverished widow. Married to Henry VIII, Catherine shines as queen, until Henry rejects her and sends the one-time queen back into poverty.

Mary Tudor is a the shadowy figure. Her brother Henry VIII sends her into marriage with Louis XII of France. For three months, Mary is an admired queen. Taking advantage of her widowhood, Mary elopes with Charles Brandon, her brother’s friend, and has four children. Of the three, Mary seems to be happiest with her life.

I enjoyed the book, though I found Margaret to be self-centered and annoying. Other than Margaret’s granddaughter Mary, Queen of Scots, few stories have been told about the queens of Scotland.

As always, Gregory’s reseach is thorough, and her storytelling skills adept

Authors of non-fiction books have a different challenge, becasue no matter how well they can weave a story, they are still bound to the record. The subjects can’t express themselves, unless the diaries or letters that make up the record share the innermost thoughts of the subjects.

Devices and Desires: Bess of Hardwick and the Building of Elizabethan England (2019) by Kate Hubbard takes Bess of Hardwick as its subject. Bess isn’t too good about sharing her thoughts, but meticulous in her accounts and frequent in correspondence. She was a consummate builder. Among her projects was the first iteration of Chatsworth House. And she outlived four husbands, each of whom lifted her further up the social scale until Bess was a confident of Queen Elizabeth I and one of the wealthiest women in England.

Queen Elizabeth selected Bess’s last husband, George Talbot, the sixth Earl of Shewsbury, as guardian of Mary,  Queen of Scots. An expensive honor.

Bess excelled as a business woman. She lent money at interest, advised her husbands on financial matters, and made advantageous marriages for her children, including a marriage between two of her children with two of Talbot’s children. Bess believed in keeping property within the family, and this was the most efficient way to do it.

Building projects were Bess’s true passion, particularly Chatsworth House which she began with her second marriage to William Cavendish and continued with funding from her third and fourth husbands. That structure was demolished in the 18th century to make way for the current Chatsworth House.

In her discussion of Bess’s projects, Hubbard’s attention diverts to architecture, construction practices, and the men who created great houses of the Elizabethan era.

Bess kept records of daily life in these lavish houses. At Hardwick in the 1590s, Bess wrote about the sale of cattle and sheep, the blue cloth she bought to make livery, the oysters sent by her son-in-law, the herrings purchased from Hull. The detail is fascinating.

Filled with detail of society, marriage politics, and domestic arrangements, Devices and Desires is an engaging read, but as non-fiction, it can’t lift the people out of their of their documents.

For an aerial view of Bess’s masterpiece, enjoy this quick video

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Margaret Tudor by Daniel Mytens

Katherine of Aragon by Michael Sittow

Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon by Jan Gossaert

Bess of Hardwick by rowland Lockey

Hardwick Hall by Thomas Allom

The post Summer Reads: Prominent Women Lost in Shadow first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

Today I want to introduce you to the two living authors who influence my writing: Antonia Fraser and Philippa Gregory. Both are prolific writers and excellent researchers. Both bring their subjects to life with descriptions that give the readers a “you are there” feeling. Allow me to introduce them to you.

ANTONIA FRASER

Antonia Fraser read History at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She writes History, not historical fiction, about women, men, and events. Her first book Mary, Queen of Scots, appeared in 1969 and broke all sales records for a book about a historical woman written by a female author.

The Weaker Vessel: Women’s Lot in Seventeenth Century England came out in 1984 and is an important book for the field of women’s history. As Fraser wrote about James I, Oliver Cromwell, and Charles II, she found many glimpses of women’s lives and compiled them by occupation. Wives, widows, noblewomen, preachers, writers, actresses, businesswomen, nuns, and midwives all appear in The Weaker Vessel.

Fraser’s writing style brings historical documents to life. For example: “At Francis Coke’s marriage, James I himself gave away the bride. Splendid court festivities ensued and the King rounded off his own enjoyment of the proceedings by sending a directive to the newly married pair to the effect the they should be in no hurry to end their wedding-night. He intended to visit them personally, lying in bed, sometime after noon the next day, to hear details of what had transpired. Such visits were a royal hobby.” [1]

Fraser’s daily writing routine is mornings from 9:30 until lunch. Her writing room is at the top of the house, her cats banished to wait outside the door. At noon she goes to a local Italian restaurant and has a glass of pinot grigio with lunch. If it’s been a good morning, the wine is celebratory. If the morning hasn’t gone as well as she hoped, the wine is in consolation. Fraser doesn’t work after dinner.

PHILIPPA GREGORY

Philippa Gregory is a more controversial figure among historians because she writes historical fiction, which of necessity is less anchored to the historical record than narrative history. She read history at the University of Sussex, and completed a doctorate in 18th century literature at the University of Edinburgh. Gregory expected to get an academic position, but after the success of her fist novel, Wideacre (1987), she began writing full time.

Gregory is best known for her fifteen Plantagenet and Tudor novels. I’ve read about half of them. Most are written in the first person which makes events immediate for the reader, as in this example from The King’s Curse written from the perspective of Margaret Pole.

“My son Arthur, Sir Arthur as I delightedly remind myself to call him, rows in the regatta and beats four other boats before coming in second to a brawny waterman with arms like legs of ham. My son Montague takes bets on the riverbank and wins a purse of gold from the king himself. The happy, noisy court ends the day with a battle of boats with the king’s barge leading the charge against a small flotilla of wherries.” [2]

If you compare this excerpt with the one from Fraser, the difference between narrative history and historical fiction becomes clear.

Gregory’s writing day begins after breakfast when she edits her work from the day before. Then she moves the story forward. Gregory begins her research with a total biography of a person, and focusses on interesting aspects of the individual’s life that become the foundation for the novel.

My recent books aren’t set in England, but Antonia Fraser and Philippa Gregory’s commitment to solid research and good writing influence my work, because it’s not about the setting or the subject, so much as a commitment to excellence.

1. Fraser, Antonia. The Weaker Vessel. NY: Alfred A. Knoph. 1984. p13.
2. Gregory, Philippa. The King’s Curse. NY: Simon & Schuster. 2014. p291.

Illustrations

Woman Reading by Kuroda Seiki. Public Domain.

Antonia Fraser by englishpen. Creative Commons Attribution.

Philippa Gregory. Attribution: Larry D. Moore

Jester reading book. Public Domain.

Philippa Gregory

Antonia Fraser. “I was forced to learn typing.” The Guardian. Nov. 11, 2017.

The post LAST OF THE SUMMER READS first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.