It is time for me to leave behind, for a moment, the Victorian novels and return to the present… tense. I reluctantly purchased The White Queen shortly after I finished Lady of the Rivers. The White Queen is the second novel, chronologically, of this series from Philippa Gregory but it is the first one of that pair that she wrote. It is also this title that was converted to a BBC TV series – one that I have been tempted to watch but didn’t manage catch before it disappeared* for me. I read Lady of the Rivers before I started Stormbird and probably would have stuck with Gregory’s works, were …Rivers a better novel. Whatever else might be wrong with it, I can’t abide with the first-person singular writing.
As I read The White Queen, though, I found it worse than that. Flaws abound that I don’t remember encountering when I read Lady of the Rivers. I, of course, knew that The White Queen was written before Lady of the Rivers, despite it taking place immediately afterwards. Could it be that Gregory’s writing matured after some stumbles on an early novel so as to account for the difference?
Unfortunately, this doesn’t make sense. Looking at her series The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels, The White Queen was written just about in the middle of the lot. Having been published in 2009, it was the 7th out of 15 in that series, which also puts it about the middle when considering all of the author’s fictional works. Lady of the Rivers was written but two novels later, in 2011. So expecting a lot of growth between books doesn’t seem reasonable.
Remember that it was back at the start of this year when I read Lady of the Rivers so I’m not really comparing these two books side-by-side. One difference I am pretty sure I saw is the way the battles are handled. I mentioned, when contrasting Gregory and Iggulden, how the warfare in Lady took place off stage, if you will. This character-centric focus helped justify (insomuch as it could ever be) the first person language in that it reads like a diary. In The White Queen, the battles which White Queen Elizabeth does not witness are still described in present tense – just now in third person.
I’m starting to think of Gregory as a kind of anti-Clancy. Her flowery, repetitive prose might work alright when reproducing for the reader the emotional turmoil of a love-fevered mind. Apply the same to the men swinging swords, though, and it sounds at least as silly as Clancy’s SEALs’ patriotism-and-family inner dialog. An excerpt describes York’s crushing of Lancaster’s right wing during the Battle of Tewekesbury:
There is a yell, a cold terrifying yell of determined men from the wood to the left of the battle, where no one knew that soldiers were hiding. And two hundred, though it looks like two thousand, spearmen, deadly armed but lightly footed, come running rapidly towards the Lancastrians, the greatest knight in England, Anthony Woodville, far ahead in the lead. Their spears are stretched out before them, hungry for a strike, and the Lancastrian soldiers look up from their slugging battle and see them let fly, like a man might see a storm of lighting bolts: death coming too fast to avoid.
from The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
Which offends me more, the writing style or the factual errors that could have been clear up with a quick skim of Wikipedia?
The key to Gregory’s literary success seems to be centered on The Other Boleyn Girl (2001), the first novel she wrote in the P&T series, the first in what was originally and simply the “Tudor” series, and her most successful novel to date. I suppose it should go without saying that I’ve not read it. I probably don’t want to although I must acknowledge that it is NOT written in present tense. The success of the novel led to the creation of a BBC series (2003) and then a feature-length film (2008). Their success likely drove creation of the 2013 TV adaptation of the Cousin’s War books (i.e. The White Queen, The Red Queen, and The Kingmakers Daughter). It leaves me wondering how this level of writing became popular enough to invest that kind of big money on production.
Is the answer that I’m just so unfamiliar with the style of the “historical romance” genre that I’m judging these books by the wrong yardstick? I’ve grumbled about it before but the fact is the romance novel genre is far, far more popular than anything that I myself enjoy.
Gregory’s prose does get a little more easy to swallow once Edward’s victory is run and the kingdom returns to relative peace. This section of the book consists of short chapters, spaced out in roughly half-year intervals. One angle I like is that it covers that period of Edward’s rule that was skipped over in Iggulden’s last books and is ignored in any Wars of the Roses -themed gaming. Obviously, though, the Kingdom was ruled, diplomacy was executed, and things went more-or-less fairly well for the dozen years while Edward remained alive.
Gregory returns to her diary-like focus through the eyes and narration of her main character. Queen Elizabeth is not worried about managing the royal treasury or getting one over on France. She thinks about getting pregnant and limiting the threat from her husband’s affairs. She frets over the future of her children and contrives more political power for her extended family. She hopes, wishes, and prays. Maybe, or maybe not, she practices a little pagan magic to help her plans along. It takes us back to that “story” that I dubbed a “good yarn” when it centered on Elizabeth’s mother – the story of the medieval woman’s world where the rumors of magic and witchcraft might just be on to something.
This view from inside Elizabeth’s mind is also of interest as a contrast with Iggulden’s focus. He explains, at the end, that he misses some of the big picture because his story is centered on Margaret D’Anjou. Such focus also delineates the good guys from the bad guys; the heroes from the villains. Somerset, de Pole, and Warwick display noble motivations. Elizabeth Woodville, while maybe not exactly evil, certainly comes off as base in Iggulden’s description. Her greed, her desire to advance her family at the expense of even Edward’s allies is what leads to the downfall of York.
For Gregory, Elizabeth in the heroine. The Woodvilles are the best of the nobility – made all the greater through their humble origins. Elizabeth’s brother, Sir Anthony, is (see above) the “finest knight in England.” Given that I’ve just read Ravenspur, it all seems very biased and one-sided in ways that Iggulden’s version did not. In fact, one might read Gregory’s prose as not the truth but, rather, the truth as the narrator would like it to be. Taken that way, we now (once again) have an interesting story. We know know Elizabeth is destroying her children’s future and for the least honorable of reasons, even as we read how Elizabeth thinks she is fighting against truly bad people (Margaret, Warwick, Margaret’s son Edward, and later Richard III are all described as thoroughly wicked). I guess I’m not sure I would have read it this way if I hadn’t just read Iggulden, but who knows. Gregory definitely intends to show how Elizabeth Woodville sowed the seeds of her own doom.
Read in this way – and you’ll have to pardon my giving away “the ending” here – read this way Gregory presents an interesting and pro-Richard III take on the end of the Yorks. Why did Richard seize the crown? Perhaps he simply feared the power of Woodville/River clan and figured, unchecked, they would destroy him as they already did his brother George and most of the Warwick/Neville family. Richard didn’t, she figures, kill the “princes in the tower.” Instead, Gregory has Buckingham and the Tudors taking advantage of the Woodville/Plantagenet infighting to knock out both in one blow – by killing one legitimate monarch and then blaming the other for the dirty deed.
In the end this specific take on history, combined with the magic/witches theme, makes the series worthwhile, even if just barely. I don’t have a game pairing to suggest here but imagine this with me, if you will. How about a dating simulator that allows tactical battles to be resolved in Field of Glory II: Medieval? You know you’d bite.
*As I write this, the opening episode (and that one episode only) is free through Amazon Prime. Additional paid subscription or a rental fee is required to go further.