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constantine2020 's review for:
The King's Curse
by Philippa Gregory
Rating: 5.0/5.0
Genre:
Historical Fiction
This is the 7th book in Philippa Gregory's series on the Plantagenet and Tudors. Tells the story of Margaret Pole. A princess who stayed all her life in fear of having the same fate as her father and brother. No matter how much she tried to remain (or pretend to be) faithful to the Tudors, they still at the end took her life the same way if not worse. Margaret was a Plantagenet, the only surviving daughter of George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence (The White Rose). After Henry VII became the King of England, his mother Margaret Beaufort married Margaret to Sir Richard Pole. She remained all her life under her husband's name without mentioning whose daughter she was all her life.
“Life is a risk, who knows this better than me? Who knows more surely that babies die easily, that children fall ill from the least cause, that royal blood is fatally weak, that death walks behind my family like a faithful black hound?”
The author has successfully presented the main character this way as I have read her story in some history books. She was not the courageous woman who would stand up to her values and beliefs if that meant opposing the King or his wish. She might have been open to her own children and a very close circle of family and friends only, but when it came to criticizing the King's cruel behaviors and actions she preferred to show that she was in his support. In this book, we follow her story from the reign of Henry VII to Henry VIII who ordered her execution. They claimed that she was conspiring against the King but many historians say that she was beheaded with no trial or proof of treason. The last few pages of the book were hard to read because one cannot feel anything but really sorry for a 67 years old lady to be killed this way.
Henry VIII was truly a mad man, the more I read about him the more I dislike him. Margaret was a friend of his mother and a good friend to his first wife Katherine of Aragon. She was also the governess of his daughter Princess Mary and remained faithful to her all her life according to historians. But Henry was truly a tyrant who had to kill everybody surrounding him depending on his changing mood! I love the title of this book. and how Philippa Gregory used the curse factor in this story. If you have read the previous books you will know what I am talking about here. Afterall a supernatural touch has made an interesting story more appealing.
“How would I know? I don’t hold with prophecies and predictions and long-lost kings. I don’t have giants in my family tree, like you Nevilles. I don’t have three suns in the sky like you Yorks. I am not descended from a water goddess who comes out of a river to mate with mortals! When your family was founded, no one had ever heard of us. When your uncles were on the throne, mine were quiet City men. I don’t know what you might have, what you might have kept from those times—a banner or a standard, a bead-roll or letter. Anything that shows your descent, anything that shows your royal blood, any prophecy that you once had the throne and will have it again. But whatever you have, your ladyship, clear it out and burn it. Nothing is worth the risk of keeping.”
The book is so rich with events and lots of beheading due to treason. Henry VIII's reign was truly a sick era filled with all cruelty. And as a reader one can feel it while reading this novel. Yes, I felt angry many times with the main character because she was a coward from inside as she was describing herself, but at the same time I could not blame her a lot because of her fear of being taken to the tower was genuine, her father, her brother and her son all were taken there and had the same fate on the block! Finally, she followed them too.
I am in love with this series. I am not just reading for enjoyment but when I read about an interesting event in these books it makes me go and research more about it. Gregory keeps the main events intact but the things that historians are conflicted about she gives her own version of the story, what she thinks. This book gets 5.0 out of 5.0 for me. Another favorite!
This is the poem that was written on the wall of Margaret's cell in the tower:
For traitors on the block should die;
I am no traitor, no, not I!
My faithfulness stands fast and so,
Towards the block I shall not go!
Nor make one step, as you shall see;
Christ in Thy Mercy, save Thou me!
