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hannahseligman 's review for:
The King's Curse
by Philippa Gregory
Another great read, courtesy of Philippa Gregory. I think what makes The King's Curse so interesting is its scope - it covers roughly 40 years of history, from the latter years of Henry VII's reign and well into the reign of his son, Henry VIII. Through its narrator, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, it provides a fascinating window into the pressures that loomed ever-present over the first two Tudor monarchs: their unsteadiness on their newly-obtained throne, the struggle to maintain the loyalty of a people not yet fully wedded to their rule, and the lingering threat (real or perceived) of the old ruling family. I especially found watching Henry VIII's transformation from beloved monarch of the people into tyrant to be so intriguing. It's hinted at in Gregory's novels about Henry VIII's wives (The Constant Princess, The Other Boleyn Girl, and The Boleyn Inheritance), but you don't get quite the same long-range scope in those three (as (1) they are each a separate narrative and (2) there's a several year time jump from the end of The Other Boleyn Girl to the start of The Boleyn Inheritance than leaves out a lot of crucial context and character transformation in Henry VIII) as you do in The King's Curse, which is one continuous narrative. I also think that The King's Curse's long foray into the reign of Henry VIII makes it a great bridge between Gregory's Cousins' War series and her Tudor Court novels, bringing together both sets of books and illustrating the larger arc of history that the Wars of the Roses and the Tudor reign fit into.