Queen Hereafter: A Novel of Margaret of Scotland

mandy — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 09:00:00 +0000

In days of yore, the bards were a respected and integral part of the English and Scottish courts because of their ability to recount tales of recent and past glories through their gift for musical storytelling. In Queen Hereafter, Susan Fraser King tells the grand and sweeping story of a young English princess who found refuge alongside her family—including her brother the rebel prince Edgar who was fighting for the crown of England—under the protection of Warrior-King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland. Princess Margaret was pious, willful, educated, and raised to be a queen, but wanted nothing more than to become a nun and worship God in a monastery. However, this was not to be her fate.

King Malcolm had lost his first wife and, looking for a wife of royal blood, asks for Margaret’s hand in marriage. Margaret reluctantly agrees to the arrangement to ensure protection of her brother, mother, and sister. Eventually, the reluctant young queen wins over the hearts and minds of the Scots because of her piety, intelligence, charity, and the kindness she bestows upon her adopted people and land. To this day, Margaret, whose reign ended in the eleventh century, is honored as Scotland’s only royal saint who brought Scotland into the medieval age.

In this fascinating and impeccably researched re-imagining of the early years of Margaret’s marriage to Malcolm, Margaret begins to put her stamp on the royal court almost immediately. She brings Malcolm’s castles up to her cosmopolitan standards with his grudging approval; she advocates for giving alms in the form of food and coinage for the poor in the kingdom, including her dispossessed and homeless Saxon countrymen who are streaming into Scotland after numerous skirmishes with the Norman supporters of King William. She also talks her husband into providing daily meals for young orphans who she sometimes feeds with her own hand.

The novel is narrated through the voice of the young Queen Margaret and Eva, a beautiful and gifted bard (and granddaughter of Lady Macbeth) who refuses to relinquish control of the Northern territories of Scotland to King Malcolm. The illegitimate daughter of the deposed King Lulach, Eva is sent to Malcolm’s court as a royal hostage and spy for Lady Macbeth. Margaret asks Eva to accompany her as she devoutly prays and asks for forgiveness for her sins at all hours of the day and night. Eva becomes friends with Margaret and has a bird’s eye view of the young queen’s challenges and triumphs in this captivating and somewhat forbidding land. She eventually comes to love and respect the earnest, young, and beautiful queen, but is conflicted by her dual loyalties to Lady Macbeth and Queen Margaret.

In her author’s notes, Fraser King admits to taking some liberties with her recounting of this story, including the character of Eva, but she says that Margaret’s life is well documented by Margaret’s personal confessor, Bishop Turgot, prior of Durham, who wrote about Queen Margaret in a laudatory manner that is typical of the era, but also because the process for Margaret’s sainthood had already been initiated. In contrast, Fraser King’s Margaret is both saintly and flawed. In an interview, the author describes Margaret as “charitable and compassionate and loving, but strict with her own children who became strong land influential leaders. Yet she was terribly hard on herself, starving her body into what was probably anorexia, while praying constantly and always finding herself wanting no matter her accomplishments.”

If you’re a lover of riveting stories and historical fiction from this era, as I am, Queen Hereafter will not disappoint.

Written by: Gita Tewari, December 20th 2010

Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen

alicia — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:00:00 +0000

By Anna Whitelock

Random House

Pay cable offers us a whole new realm of addictions and one of the most recent was Showtime's production of The Tudors. The program, now ended with the inevitable death of King Henry (no spoilers in history), portrayed the complicated realm of the Tudor Dynasty, which included two notable queens—sisters Mary and Elizabeth. This historic era, because of Queen Elizabeth, offers us a space to enter and critique how women were used for political gain, often not their own.

Anna Whitelock offers a similar proposition when she explores the life of Mary Tudor—a life often derided in British history. Daughter of Katherine of Aragon and King Henry, Mary later becomes known as Bloody Mary and as an overzealous threat to her own country.

Though historians have depicted the facts of the dynasty and the royal successions, Whitelock's argument is that historical texts have typically overlooked the fact that the value and vision of Mary and her contributions to history are greater than simply a slaughter of the non-Catholic community.

What makes Whitelock's book powerful is both its impeccable timing (the Tudors are the new pink) and its nuanced look at how women were political tools and machines simultaneously. The complicated graces involved in diplomacy, governed by the social mores of the time, lent to women having more space to enact persuasive maneuvers and machinations. This look at power in an era where even royal women seemed quite powerless (and were publicly thought of as weaker and merely vessels) is refreshing.

The truth of the matter, is, however, that Mary's story is also a sad one. Tossed about from prince to prince even as young as two and a half as a political token, a seal of trust and betrothal between men's nations, Mary's life is much more than the violent persecution of non-Catholics under her reign.  Whitelock frames the well-known history with a lens that offers just what she promises—a new look at Mary with perhaps the sympathy or value she's often been denied. Further, the story becomes timeless as Whitelock profiles just how close Mary and her indomitable mother, Catherine of Aragon, were. The strength of relationships between women is perhaps even more valuable in an era where there was little power to be held elsewhere.

The book is a generous read, even for those not familiar with Tudor history. As you read, you will recognize the political trumps and trollops that are not unfamiliar to us today. Described with the flourish they deserve, yet written clearly and in such a manner that all characters and dates can be digested, Whitelock's biography is an excellent lesson in the lives of powerful women, fortune and politics.

Written by: Dr. Julie E. Ferris, December 9th 2010

monarchy

Queen Hereafter: A Novel of Margaret of Scotland

Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen