It seems of late that every time I hear of an author writing yet another novel set in the Tudor period of English history -- from 1485 to 1603, I mentally cringe and try my best to ignore it. It isn't so much that I know that they will be a horrible book, but rather that I've read and studied enough of the historical period that I know I am bound to be disappointed by whatever a fictional novel can cook up.
Having read one of Sandra Worth's previous novels, set in the turbulent era of the Wars of the Roses, I was pretty leery of taking on this account of Edward IV's eldest daughter, Elizabeth, who would marry Henry VII and become the mother of Henry VIII.
Told in first-person narrative -- a style that I am not fond to begin with -- this is an account of Elizabeth's life from young childhood to the grave. Elizabeth is the eldest child of King Edward IV and his queen, Elizabeth Wideville, and along with her younger sisters, she hopes that soon there will be a male heir born soon. She knows that even at a young age her parents are not exactly happy -- her father is eaten up with the worries of running a kingdom ruined by civil war, and her mother is shrewish and constantly seeking out favours and wealth for her numerous relatives. More than once Elizabeth overhears their sparring. During one uprising, her pregnant mother takes her children and flees for sanctuary at Westminster Abbey, and Elizabeth turns into a target for her mother's temper -- along with a display of what might be witchcraft. But the child that is born while they are in sanctuary is that longed for boy, and named for his father, Edward.
For a time, things go well for Elizabeth and her family, with younger sisters and another brother, Dickon, added to the ever-growing brood. But when her father dies suddenly, Elizabeth's world is turned upside down as it is judged that her young brothers are too immature to rule, and their uncle, Richard III, becomes king. Again in sanctuary, Elizabeth loses contact with her brothers, and rumours abound that her uncle Richard has had them murdered. Soon, Elizabeth, just eighteen, is sent for as one of the new queen's ladies in waiting, and she soon is caught between loyalty to her brothers and the charm and rich lifestyle of a royal court. She also indulges in flirtation, with Thomas Stafford, a knight of the king's and daydreams about having a peaceful and quiet life before her.
But Richard III's reign is a short one, and there is plenty of controversy for Elizabeth. First Richard's queen, Anne, is ailing, and before her death she encourages Elizabeth to care for her uncle, and Elizabeth finds herself falling for him, in a love that is hardly suitable for a niece. But there are more rebellions, especially by a rival claimant to the crown, Henry Tudor, and the specter of civil war rises again. Again there is war, and Elizabeth finds herself truly alone when the victor of Bosworth comes to claim her.
With Richard dead, Elizabeth finds herself wed to Henry Tudor, a cold, calculating man that listens far more to his mother, Margaret Beaufort, than he will to his queen. Even Elizabeth's coronation is delayed until she has proven her worth by bearing a son, Arthur, on whom she lavishes all of her love and attention. Can she manage to survive a loveless, agonizing marriage to bring peace to England?
And so is this rather turgid, overdone novel about Elizabeth Plantagenet, sister of the Princes in the Tower. This time Sandra Worth casts her into the mold of Heroine as Martyr, being so good and giving that she sweats sugar when it gets warm. And to counter that, the author makes nearly everyone else in the story wicked and selfish, from her mother and mother-in-law, to her husband, and her sisters, while Elizabeth goes on suffering nobly. The only exception to this are the characters of Richard III, here cast as a saintly, doomed man, with his equally sainted queen, Anne Neville. Once again it's an example of the author falling in love with her characters, for she creates an impossible situation by trying to make everyone either very good or very bad.
The mystery of just what happened to the sons of Edward IV will always be a riddle, as there are quite a few suspects who would have gained greatly by their murder. While Richard III probably did not do away with the children, neither was he a completely ambitionless man either. Ms. Worth has pretty much written herself into a corner, for by making Richard the subject of Elizabeth's undying devotion and love, it's pretty hard to have her turn around after his death to caring at all for his murderer, Henry VII, and to make sure that her audience gets the point, she has him be brutal and unloving to her. Only as a mother can Elizabeth come across as Queen-Martyr.
Again and again, we get to read of the various nastiness of the Tudors, and one note that really rubbed me the wrong way was the depiction of Elizabeth's second son, Henry, who is a overweight, pompous, sadistic brat of a child who obeys no-one and delights in cruelty. From everything that I have read of the actual man who became Henry VIII, he was well-educated, chivalrous and saw himself as a Renaissance king -- only much later in life did he turn into the monster that popular history paints him as.
Indeed, the only part of the book that was at all interesting for me was when Ms. Worth introduces Lady Catherine Gordon, the young Scottish woman that marries Perkin Warbeck, a young man that claimed to be the younger of Elizabeth's brothers, Richard of York, and who led a nearly successful rebellion against Henry VII. In the character of Catherine there was quite a bit of potential, but by focusing everything in Elizabeth, the writer squandered this opportunity.
Summing up, this was a dreadful novel. While I do admire authors who put plenty of history in their novels and bother to do the research -- besides the genealogical chart showing the tangled families of the York-Lancaster-Tudor claims -- there are notes and a bibliography to help further research. But Ms. Worth has turned this into a dull, sloppy melodrama with a sad-sack heroine and implausible twists that didn't really reveal anything new, nor bring new insights.
Three stars at best. Somewhat recommended.
