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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
Review originally published here: http://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/2016/02/review-the-lost-tudor-princess-alison-weir.html
Margaret Douglas is one of those historical figures who has been quite unaccountably forgotten. While the story of Henry VIII and his six wives is trotted over time and time and time again, or the downfall or otherwise of Richard III – or indeed the mythical love life of Elizabeth I, Margaret Douglas has utterly vanished from view. As an avid reader of Tudor biographical fiction, I have run into her on more than one occasion and have always found these glimpses to be incredibly intriguing. Margaret Douglas was daughter to Princess Margaret, elder sister to Henry VIII, who married James IV of Scotland aged thirteen. However, Margaret Douglas was born from Princess Margaret’s disastrous second marriage to Archibald Douglas, a union which ended in divorce (much to the anger of Margaret’s uncle Henry VIII who without a trace of irony decreed that marriage was an unbreakable bond). Margaret Douglas was brought up in the English court, was niece to a King, sister to a King, mother of a King and grandmother to the Stuart dynasty but never sat on a throne herself. She was imprisoned in the Tower of London three times and yet still managed to die in her bed. She was a bystander to so much of Tudor history, growing up under Henry VIII, at one point almost being appointed Mary I’s heir and then dying as an old woman under Elizabeth I. Truly, I shared Alison Weir’s astonishment that is has taken quite this long for a biography of her to appear.
alison weirAlison Weir is an incredibly readable historical writer (although I would note that her fictional output has universally disappointing). Her prose is lucid and clear, even when a scarcity of sources leads her to supposition, she is always able to state her theory in a compelling fashion. From the prologue of The Lost Princess, there is the hint of the fan-girl to this biography as Weir explains that the book has effectively been in embryo since the 1970s, that she has tried to persuade other people to take on the project and then finally decided to write it herself. Indeed, more than in almost any of Weir’s other books, one senses a strong personal affection between author and subject. Margaret Douglas was born in drama, her heavily pregnant mother having fled on horseback from a rapidly deteriorating political situation. Born premature and in England, she would argue a better claim to the English crown than her elder half-brother James V, since ‘aliens’ were disbarred from the throne.
The breakdown of her parents’ marriage led to an inevitable instability in Margaret’s circumstances – the Queen Margaret complained in writing that her ex-husband had kept her daughter from her and it does seem that Margaret never saw her mother after the age of around thirteen. Her father turned his coat on more than one occasion, making it difficult for Margaret to keep up a relationship with him either. It was one of these changes in loyalty that brought Margaret to her uncle’s court, where she would spend the rest of her life. What perhaps surprised me most was just how central Margaret Douglas was in court life. She was brought up in Princess Mary’s household and was effectively the third lady in the land directly after her. She was referred to as the ‘Princess of Scotland’ by ambassadors who were vague as to the child’s true status.
After Katherine of Aragon’s downfall, Margaret moved to serving Anne Boleyn and would indeed have posts in the households of all of her uncle’s subsequent wives. She ran into trouble early on however when she fell in love with Thomas Howard, one of Anne Boleyn’s relatives. By this time, Henry VIII was tiring of his wife and not keen to have his relatives marrying further into her family. Both Margaret and her lover were sent to the Tower, where Margaret would remain for over a year. It really is a miracle that the Gillipa Phregorys of this world have failed to get their mitts on Margaret thus far, there is so much rich material within her life story. Weir goes into in depth textual analysis over the letters and poems which Margaret and Thomas exchanged and indeed many of them are truly heart-breaking. For a time it seemed possible that Margaret might even lose her head, but her mother’s anxious pleading and her uncle’s own affection for her appears to have saved her life.
In time, Margaret found herself restored to favour, fondly remembered in her uncle’s letters and treated almost on a par with his own children. She was always present but her movements are scarcely reported, meaning that Weir is reduced to the ‘may have, could have’ school of history – compelling and convincing but rarely concrete. It took until she was twenty-eight for Henry to get round to arranging her marriage, so it is hard to imagine that she was not frustrated with her life. Despite inauspicious beginnings – her groom was still actively courting the Dowager Queen of Scotland until directly before the ceremony – Margaret found true love in marriage, something rare amongst her peers.
With scanty documentation, Margaret remains a ghostly figure for much of the early sections of the book but her character becomes increasingly clear from the point of her marriage onwards. She was a tough lady – often to her own detriment. As a fervent Catholic, she had much in common with Mary Tudor and the two of them were lifelong friends and Margaret was also to join in with the latter’s distrust of the Lady Elizabeth. At one point when Elizabeth was ill and her rooms at court happened to be near Margaret’s, Margaret apparently set her servants to bashing about the kitchen with pots and pans. For the rest of her life, Elizabeth was always careful that her rooms were never near a kitchen and she never seems to have quite trusted Margaret.
Mother to eight children, Margaret does appear to have modelled herself on her great-grandmother and namesake Margaret Beaufort, determined to manoeuvre herself or her progeny towards a throne. Perhaps the most intriguing section of the book relates to Margaret’s plotting and scheming to get her son Henry Darnley into the path of the newly-widowed Mary Queen of Scots. Elizabeth I and her councillors fought keenly to block this, banning Darnley or any member of his family from entering Scotland. However, Weir constructs a very convincing case that this was subterfuge – Darnley being known to be such a political and personal liability that he could not but bring the Scottish Queen to ruin. Indeed, over time, Mary Queen of Scots appears to have come to this conclusion herself.
Margaret found herself in the tower again for her son’s hasty marriage but yet although Elizabeth dealt harshly with her Grey cousins Catherine and Mary, there is a surprising edge of humanity to how she treated Margaret. After Darnley met his violent end (in circumstances which have never been entirely agreed upon), Elizabeth moved quickly to ensure that Margaret was moved out of the tower and that her younger child was moved immediately into her custody, all to try to assuage the mother’s grief which does appear to have been overpowering. The famous Darnley memorial portrait reads as a powerful promise from Margaret’s furious sorrow, a determination to wreak her vengeance.
It was Margaret’s curse to live in interesting time, but still she brought much of the curse on herself. Like her mother, like her uncle, like her niece, she made her choices from the heart, from her own ambition but rarely from lengthy consideration. She was impulsive. She had a keen sense of the value of her own name. She has been forgotten, ignored in costume dramas and yet – all monarchs from James VI downwards are her direct descendants. Would she have deemed it worth her while to gain this, even if it she knew that she would be consigned to obscurity? I think that she might well have done – in her latter years, her hopes were invested in her grandchildren and she campaigned desperately for the young Scottish King to be released into her guardianship. She seems to have found a sense of fulfilment in what she achieved on his behalf.
This was a highly readable book and Weir achieves a great deal with meagre material. If there are times when the evidence feels a little thin, it does little to compromise the overall narrative and this did feel like a fresh approach, particularly how far Weir was prepared to analyse the poetry which Margaret is said to have written. Similarly, the discursive appendix which details the legitimacy or otherwise of the disputed portraits of Margaret reveals the depth of Weir’s research – this is a true labour of love. I did wonder though, I felt that there was a tell-tale sign in the prologue, when Weir noted that it was surprising that even in the ‘crowded’ field of Tudor biography, Margaret had still not found a place until now. I feel as if it is so easy for writers to re-hash the lives of the main players and to forget to look beyond the obvious – there are so many fascinating figures from the Tudor court who deserve to have their stories told. What is strangest though is that a woman like Margaret Douglas, a witness to almost every sensational event over the Tudor period, could sink so far into oblivion. It makes one wonder who else has been similarly forgotten.
Margaret Douglas is one of those historical figures who has been quite unaccountably forgotten. While the story of Henry VIII and his six wives is trotted over time and time and time again, or the downfall or otherwise of Richard III – or indeed the mythical love life of Elizabeth I, Margaret Douglas has utterly vanished from view. As an avid reader of Tudor biographical fiction, I have run into her on more than one occasion and have always found these glimpses to be incredibly intriguing. Margaret Douglas was daughter to Princess Margaret, elder sister to Henry VIII, who married James IV of Scotland aged thirteen. However, Margaret Douglas was born from Princess Margaret’s disastrous second marriage to Archibald Douglas, a union which ended in divorce (much to the anger of Margaret’s uncle Henry VIII who without a trace of irony decreed that marriage was an unbreakable bond). Margaret Douglas was brought up in the English court, was niece to a King, sister to a King, mother of a King and grandmother to the Stuart dynasty but never sat on a throne herself. She was imprisoned in the Tower of London three times and yet still managed to die in her bed. She was a bystander to so much of Tudor history, growing up under Henry VIII, at one point almost being appointed Mary I’s heir and then dying as an old woman under Elizabeth I. Truly, I shared Alison Weir’s astonishment that is has taken quite this long for a biography of her to appear.
alison weirAlison Weir is an incredibly readable historical writer (although I would note that her fictional output has universally disappointing). Her prose is lucid and clear, even when a scarcity of sources leads her to supposition, she is always able to state her theory in a compelling fashion. From the prologue of The Lost Princess, there is the hint of the fan-girl to this biography as Weir explains that the book has effectively been in embryo since the 1970s, that she has tried to persuade other people to take on the project and then finally decided to write it herself. Indeed, more than in almost any of Weir’s other books, one senses a strong personal affection between author and subject. Margaret Douglas was born in drama, her heavily pregnant mother having fled on horseback from a rapidly deteriorating political situation. Born premature and in England, she would argue a better claim to the English crown than her elder half-brother James V, since ‘aliens’ were disbarred from the throne.
The breakdown of her parents’ marriage led to an inevitable instability in Margaret’s circumstances – the Queen Margaret complained in writing that her ex-husband had kept her daughter from her and it does seem that Margaret never saw her mother after the age of around thirteen. Her father turned his coat on more than one occasion, making it difficult for Margaret to keep up a relationship with him either. It was one of these changes in loyalty that brought Margaret to her uncle’s court, where she would spend the rest of her life. What perhaps surprised me most was just how central Margaret Douglas was in court life. She was brought up in Princess Mary’s household and was effectively the third lady in the land directly after her. She was referred to as the ‘Princess of Scotland’ by ambassadors who were vague as to the child’s true status.
After Katherine of Aragon’s downfall, Margaret moved to serving Anne Boleyn and would indeed have posts in the households of all of her uncle’s subsequent wives. She ran into trouble early on however when she fell in love with Thomas Howard, one of Anne Boleyn’s relatives. By this time, Henry VIII was tiring of his wife and not keen to have his relatives marrying further into her family. Both Margaret and her lover were sent to the Tower, where Margaret would remain for over a year. It really is a miracle that the Gillipa Phregorys of this world have failed to get their mitts on Margaret thus far, there is so much rich material within her life story. Weir goes into in depth textual analysis over the letters and poems which Margaret and Thomas exchanged and indeed many of them are truly heart-breaking. For a time it seemed possible that Margaret might even lose her head, but her mother’s anxious pleading and her uncle’s own affection for her appears to have saved her life.
In time, Margaret found herself restored to favour, fondly remembered in her uncle’s letters and treated almost on a par with his own children. She was always present but her movements are scarcely reported, meaning that Weir is reduced to the ‘may have, could have’ school of history – compelling and convincing but rarely concrete. It took until she was twenty-eight for Henry to get round to arranging her marriage, so it is hard to imagine that she was not frustrated with her life. Despite inauspicious beginnings – her groom was still actively courting the Dowager Queen of Scotland until directly before the ceremony – Margaret found true love in marriage, something rare amongst her peers.
With scanty documentation, Margaret remains a ghostly figure for much of the early sections of the book but her character becomes increasingly clear from the point of her marriage onwards. She was a tough lady – often to her own detriment. As a fervent Catholic, she had much in common with Mary Tudor and the two of them were lifelong friends and Margaret was also to join in with the latter’s distrust of the Lady Elizabeth. At one point when Elizabeth was ill and her rooms at court happened to be near Margaret’s, Margaret apparently set her servants to bashing about the kitchen with pots and pans. For the rest of her life, Elizabeth was always careful that her rooms were never near a kitchen and she never seems to have quite trusted Margaret.
Mother to eight children, Margaret does appear to have modelled herself on her great-grandmother and namesake Margaret Beaufort, determined to manoeuvre herself or her progeny towards a throne. Perhaps the most intriguing section of the book relates to Margaret’s plotting and scheming to get her son Henry Darnley into the path of the newly-widowed Mary Queen of Scots. Elizabeth I and her councillors fought keenly to block this, banning Darnley or any member of his family from entering Scotland. However, Weir constructs a very convincing case that this was subterfuge – Darnley being known to be such a political and personal liability that he could not but bring the Scottish Queen to ruin. Indeed, over time, Mary Queen of Scots appears to have come to this conclusion herself.
Margaret found herself in the tower again for her son’s hasty marriage but yet although Elizabeth dealt harshly with her Grey cousins Catherine and Mary, there is a surprising edge of humanity to how she treated Margaret. After Darnley met his violent end (in circumstances which have never been entirely agreed upon), Elizabeth moved quickly to ensure that Margaret was moved out of the tower and that her younger child was moved immediately into her custody, all to try to assuage the mother’s grief which does appear to have been overpowering. The famous Darnley memorial portrait reads as a powerful promise from Margaret’s furious sorrow, a determination to wreak her vengeance.
It was Margaret’s curse to live in interesting time, but still she brought much of the curse on herself. Like her mother, like her uncle, like her niece, she made her choices from the heart, from her own ambition but rarely from lengthy consideration. She was impulsive. She had a keen sense of the value of her own name. She has been forgotten, ignored in costume dramas and yet – all monarchs from James VI downwards are her direct descendants. Would she have deemed it worth her while to gain this, even if it she knew that she would be consigned to obscurity? I think that she might well have done – in her latter years, her hopes were invested in her grandchildren and she campaigned desperately for the young Scottish King to be released into her guardianship. She seems to have found a sense of fulfilment in what she achieved on his behalf.
This was a highly readable book and Weir achieves a great deal with meagre material. If there are times when the evidence feels a little thin, it does little to compromise the overall narrative and this did feel like a fresh approach, particularly how far Weir was prepared to analyse the poetry which Margaret is said to have written. Similarly, the discursive appendix which details the legitimacy or otherwise of the disputed portraits of Margaret reveals the depth of Weir’s research – this is a true labour of love. I did wonder though, I felt that there was a tell-tale sign in the prologue, when Weir noted that it was surprising that even in the ‘crowded’ field of Tudor biography, Margaret had still not found a place until now. I feel as if it is so easy for writers to re-hash the lives of the main players and to forget to look beyond the obvious – there are so many fascinating figures from the Tudor court who deserve to have their stories told. What is strangest though is that a woman like Margaret Douglas, a witness to almost every sensational event over the Tudor period, could sink so far into oblivion. It makes one wonder who else has been similarly forgotten.
I would love to give this book a good review but for the fact the ebook crashes EVERY time I try view the pictures in the appendix. I have spent hours on the phone with barnes and noble and they tell me the issue is the ebook, NOT the nook. therefore I cannot reccomend this book
Given the popularity of Tudor history - of Henry VIII and his six wives, of the Golden Age of Elizabethan England, the fatal rivalry between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, the back-and-forth of religion through the reigns of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth - it is somewhat surprising that the figure of Margaret Lennox has been so sidelined and neglected, given that she had a place at the heart of all of this intrigue, and was at varying points as much a candidate for the throne as Elizabeth or Mary Queen of Scots.
Her pedigree after all was impeccable - few other women in English history can have been so intimately connected to so many monarchs - daughter to a queen of Scotland, granddaughter to Henry VII, niece of Henry VIII, brother to James V of Scotland, aunt and mother-in-law to Mary Queen of Scots, niece to a queen of France, cousin to Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth, grandmother to James I. Her royal blood defined her and shaped her life's ambitions - and, as with so many claimants to the Tudor throne, it was not without its risks. Margaret was imprisoned in the Tower three times in her life, and both her husband and eldest son, Lord Darnley, died violent deaths. But unlike so many with royal blood in her veins, Margaret died an old woman, in her bed, and although she did not know it at the time her grandson would indeed achieve her aim of gaining the throne of England.
It was an extraordinary life, one that deserves more recognition, and I am glad Alison Weir has resurrected her from obscurity. Weir is an excellent historian, and her research is, as always, exhaustive. Perhaps too exhaustive on occasion - I for one am not especially interested in endless lists from wardrobe and jewel boxes, however it may demonstrate her grasp of the primary source, and this book is chock full of chunks of quotation from letters of the period, archaic wording and all. And the less said about the chapter about Margaret and Thomas Howard's poetry, the better. All of this comprehensive detail does tend to bog the narrative down - there is a fine balance between readability for the lay audience and academic weight, and I'm not sure this book achieves that. The best history books read like biography and bring an obscure personality to light and life - I never lost the feeling, reading this, that I was reading HISTORY, serious academic HISTORY.
Her pedigree after all was impeccable - few other women in English history can have been so intimately connected to so many monarchs - daughter to a queen of Scotland, granddaughter to Henry VII, niece of Henry VIII, brother to James V of Scotland, aunt and mother-in-law to Mary Queen of Scots, niece to a queen of France, cousin to Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth, grandmother to James I. Her royal blood defined her and shaped her life's ambitions - and, as with so many claimants to the Tudor throne, it was not without its risks. Margaret was imprisoned in the Tower three times in her life, and both her husband and eldest son, Lord Darnley, died violent deaths. But unlike so many with royal blood in her veins, Margaret died an old woman, in her bed, and although she did not know it at the time her grandson would indeed achieve her aim of gaining the throne of England.
It was an extraordinary life, one that deserves more recognition, and I am glad Alison Weir has resurrected her from obscurity. Weir is an excellent historian, and her research is, as always, exhaustive. Perhaps too exhaustive on occasion - I for one am not especially interested in endless lists from wardrobe and jewel boxes, however it may demonstrate her grasp of the primary source, and this book is chock full of chunks of quotation from letters of the period, archaic wording and all. And the less said about the chapter about Margaret and Thomas Howard's poetry, the better. All of this comprehensive detail does tend to bog the narrative down - there is a fine balance between readability for the lay audience and academic weight, and I'm not sure this book achieves that. The best history books read like biography and bring an obscure personality to light and life - I never lost the feeling, reading this, that I was reading HISTORY, serious academic HISTORY.
interesting and detailed historical book about the life of a tudor princess who was in both the spheres of the scottish and english courts and survived where alot didnt but her ultimate aim came at a high price
Review:
Wow. What a long book. Almost 600 pages. A cast of characters that's almost 20 pages long in itself. About 100 pages of notes to the text alone. This is a mad book, one that spans from Henry VII's time all the way to the tail end of Elizabeth I's.
And, the only thing I can think of is: Why wasn't she in Showtime's The Tudors?
Seriously, that was all that went through my mind the whole time I was reading the book. Let's assume that the creators actually did the stuff correctly, all right? Instead of Henry VIII having one sister who married the King of France (wtf were they thinking with Naples? There has never been a king in Naples) he also had a sister who married the King of Scotland, then rashly married an earl after he died. Let's just pretend all of that.
Margaret would have been perfect for the show.
I'll go through a few reasons.
1) She was in a few scandals during her lifetime. When I say a few, I mean too many to count. Starting in Henry VIII's reign, she was twice sent to the throne because of her affairs with men. She was Katherine Grey before Katherine Grey was even a thought. Fell for the wrong guy -- by wrong, I mean dynastically; an unapproved of match -- twice. Then, in Edward VI's reign, she was a Catholic when it was very Protestant at that time. Skip Mary I's reign because she was Catholic and a good friend of her cousin's. Elizabeth I's is where it really comes into play. Since The Tudors only covered Henry VIII's reign (still upset over that), I can't talk about the rest, but even just with Henry VIII's there was more than enough with her mother and herself. Think of all the sex they could have shown!
2) For the longest time, she was the only heir to the throne of England, in multiple reigns. Her mother was Margaret Tudor, and with that before Henry VIII had Mary I, he had his niece, Margaret. That was it. When he decided to call Mary a bastard, it was just her. Same when he called Elizabeth I a bastard. Edward VI? Yep. She was up there on the list. Then, with Elizabeth I, that was definitely a prime time in her life, for her and her two surviving sons. She was instrumental in so many ways, using her power to insure that her family would be remembered dynastically. And, she made it.
3) Her children are notorious. James I of England and VI of Scotland, was her grandson. Her son, Darnley, married Mary, Queen of Scots who is notorious in her own right. He was instrumental in a murder, then he himself was murdered. James I was the person who united the English and Scottish crown. His own children were a part of the English Revolution that saw a monarch beheaded as a commoner, and then commoners take control of the government. And, all of that stemmed from Margaret's bloodline.
4) She was a very strong matriarch. Men in marriages always say that it's the woman who is in charge. Any man who thinks otherwise obviously hasn't been married. Margaret was one of those women. She controlled her husband and he went with her whatever ambitions she was trying to fulfill most. He could use his force as a male to really make those things happen. A true power couple, like the Clintons.
5) She is one of the few examples of true love in a marriage. Speaking of her husband, she and her husband loved each other. Eight children together with six dying young, and about thirty years of marriage. And, like with Francis and Catherine Carey (Mary Boleyn's daughter), they were completely in love with each other. He called her Meg. She called him Matthiue. It's a little bit adorable. I have a feeling that they'd have been the couple that makes you gag.
So, hell yes.
Margaret Douglas was an amazing woman, and it's insane how many primary sources of her letters and general accounts of her exist. There aren't even this many of Anne Boleyn and, I would say, she's ten times more remembered than Margaret Douglas is.
Pre-review:
Wow. What a long book. Almost 600 pages. A cast of characters that's almost 20 pages long in itself. About 100 pages of notes to the text alone. This is a mad book, one that spans from Henry VII's time all the way to the tail end of Elizabeth I's.
And, the only thing I can think of is: Why wasn't she in Showtime's The Tudors?
Seriously, that was all that went through my mind the whole time I was reading the book. Let's assume that the creators actually did the stuff correctly, all right? Instead of Henry VIII having one sister who married the King of France (wtf were they thinking with Naples? There has never been a king in Naples) he also had a sister who married the King of Scotland, then rashly married an earl after he died. Let's just pretend all of that.
Margaret would have been perfect for the show.
I'll go through a few reasons.
1) She was in a few scandals during her lifetime. When I say a few, I mean too many to count. Starting in Henry VIII's reign, she was twice sent to the throne because of her affairs with men. She was Katherine Grey before Katherine Grey was even a thought. Fell for the wrong guy -- by wrong, I mean dynastically; an unapproved of match -- twice. Then, in Edward VI's reign, she was a Catholic when it was very Protestant at that time. Skip Mary I's reign because she was Catholic and a good friend of her cousin's. Elizabeth I's is where it really comes into play. Since The Tudors only covered Henry VIII's reign (still upset over that), I can't talk about the rest, but even just with Henry VIII's there was more than enough with her mother and herself. Think of all the sex they could have shown!
2) For the longest time, she was the only heir to the throne of England, in multiple reigns. Her mother was Margaret Tudor, and with that before Henry VIII had Mary I, he had his niece, Margaret. That was it. When he decided to call Mary a bastard, it was just her. Same when he called Elizabeth I a bastard. Edward VI? Yep. She was up there on the list. Then, with Elizabeth I, that was definitely a prime time in her life, for her and her two surviving sons. She was instrumental in so many ways, using her power to insure that her family would be remembered dynastically. And, she made it.
3) Her children are notorious. James I of England and VI of Scotland, was her grandson. Her son, Darnley, married Mary, Queen of Scots who is notorious in her own right. He was instrumental in a murder, then he himself was murdered. James I was the person who united the English and Scottish crown. His own children were a part of the English Revolution that saw a monarch beheaded as a commoner, and then commoners take control of the government. And, all of that stemmed from Margaret's bloodline.
4) She was a very strong matriarch. Men in marriages always say that it's the woman who is in charge. Any man who thinks otherwise obviously hasn't been married. Margaret was one of those women. She controlled her husband and he went with her whatever ambitions she was trying to fulfill most. He could use his force as a male to really make those things happen. A true power couple, like the Clintons.
5) She is one of the few examples of true love in a marriage. Speaking of her husband, she and her husband loved each other. Eight children together with six dying young, and about thirty years of marriage. And, like with Francis and Catherine Carey (Mary Boleyn's daughter), they were completely in love with each other. He called her Meg. She called him Matthiue. It's a little bit adorable. I have a feeling that they'd have been the couple that makes you gag.
So, hell yes.
Margaret Douglas was an amazing woman, and it's insane how many primary sources of her letters and general accounts of her exist. There aren't even this many of Anne Boleyn and, I would say, she's ten times more remembered than Margaret Douglas is.
Pre-review:
I enjoy reading about the past - learning history from those who have studied it thoroughly. I used to hate it in school - too much focus on dates, and not enough on the interesting stuff ;) However, as I am learning, there is a line between history that is readable, and history that is so chock-full of bits, pieces, and details that it becomes difficult to read. Unfortunately, this is an example of the latter.
Don't get me wrong - I did find the story of Margaret interesting, particularly as framed around her interactions with both Queen Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots. It's certainly a window into the time, as seen through the eyes of three extremely powerful women - in a time when women were often marginalized. However - the amount of details contained within the pages of this book could probably have created two more readable books, rather than one that felt like I was reading something written by the teacher in "Ferris Bueller".
Overall, I do enjoy Alison Weir's work, but this is one I will not be adding to my list of favorites.
Don't get me wrong - I did find the story of Margaret interesting, particularly as framed around her interactions with both Queen Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots. It's certainly a window into the time, as seen through the eyes of three extremely powerful women - in a time when women were often marginalized. However - the amount of details contained within the pages of this book could probably have created two more readable books, rather than one that felt like I was reading something written by the teacher in "Ferris Bueller".
Overall, I do enjoy Alison Weir's work, but this is one I will not be adding to my list of favorites.
"The Lost Tudor Princess" is a biography of Lady Margaret Douglas, who was Henry VIII's cousin. The book, like many Weir histories, is a dense, moment-by-moment retelling of the Great Matter and the Elizabeth/Queen of Scots showdown. The good is that Alison Weir is obviously fiercely dedicated to the subject matter and isn't afraid to go into fine details. The bad is that the book desperately needs an editor and more focus. For example, if we assume the book's focus is to be Margaret Douglas, the author didn't need tedious diversions into every Tudor scandal possible. In addition, the book swerves off from its typical style (moment by moment listings of actions) to speculative analysis of symbolism, house lay-outs, and poetry. This is certainly interesting, but it is tonally different from the rest of the text and doesn't seem to fit. Lastly, the author seems to struggle with sources that focus on her leading lady, which is why we receive many references as to how Margaret "probably" did something, or "might" have felt a certain way. Even when such speculation is pertinent (like Margaret's feelings toward Mary Queen of Scots after Darnley's death), the impact is watered down by the steady drum-beat of guessing earlier in the text.