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| Philippa Gregory |
24th November 2012
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This
novel talks about the story of Anne Neville, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, Richard Neville and Ann Beauchamps.
We
follow her during her first meet with Elizabeth Woodville, Queen
of England during 1464-1470 and 1471-1483, spouse of King Edward IV, until her death on 16 March 1485.
When
she was a child, the youngest king brother, Richard Duke of
Gloucester and her, were betrothed together. But when her father, after
his humiliation with Edward when he married Elizabeth Woodville, a
widow of the House of Lancaster, he
changes his coat against his cousin the king and marry his youngest
daughter Anne Neville, with the heir of the House of Lancaster,
Edward of Westminster. Richard and her have a conversation about her betrothal which is cancelled and Richard looks disappointed and says she
« would have made an excellent duchess. ». But
Anne tries to hid her disappointement and says she « never
wanted to marry » him.
Then,
after her wedding, The Bad Queen, Margaret of Anjou, the French-born
Queen of the last King Henry VI, takes her in her keeping. She become
a dowager princess after the death of her husband on the Tewkesbury's battlefield in 1471 and the defeat of the Lancaster's Army. She
become the « prisoner » of the king's brother, George Duke of Clarence, the Isabel's husband, her sister. George wants the
Neville Fortune, Richard Neville died at Barnet, during the battle. Then
Richard takes her in a sanctuary without his brother's permission and after a papal dispense, he
marries her, his youth love. She becomes his wife, his partner. They
have a boy, Edward, but he is weak and he died in 1484 far from his
parents, at Middleham.
We
see their love, their doubts and their tears. And in fact we see how Richard, when he was duke, was torn between his two brothers and how their politics corrupted him.
There
is a very interesting sentence in the last chapter, the first ligne
is « Richard prepares for invasion. I prepare for death »
and it show the great separation between them. How the death of her
son destroyed Anne and how Richard tries to keep the throne close to
him but without heirs he is in danger. Then Princess Elizabeth of
York is engaged to Henry Tudor and Richard tries to seduce her to
dishonour the Henry's allies but he lose his wife by this way.
The
Anne's viewpoint stresses what she thinks about her husband and the
evolution. In this novel, he is as a prince charming on his white
horse trying to help her and taking her far from her first husband. He is loyault to his brother all of the time but he tries to
protect his family against the Rivers when his brother the king died.
He isn't painting as a monster, as a man who killed for power. Anne
doubts at the end because she is afraid to lose her husband from her
niece, Elizabeth of York. But she becomes quite paranoid and less self-confident.
Now, I think we cannot say Philippa Gregory wrote an historical novel. There are some facts which are wrong and add magic, spells and witchcraft do not give to this novel a realistic way. A thing I do not like after this was that characters hadn't enough shade. But this is because of Anne's narration, we see what she sees. However, if you do not know the War of the Roses' period enough, you could like this novel as I liked it at first.
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Your view-point
Marigold ★☆☆☆☆ ∞
"Confession
– I’m an English history freak with a long-time special interest
in 15th Century England & Richard III, & that’s why I read
this – and why I sometimes read historical novels though I know
they’re going to be bad! I have some issues with factual content
related to this book, but I realize it’s a novel - & I will
attempt to review it with that in mind. But for those of you who
might be tempted to think the content of this book is at all factual,
it isn’t. I’m not going to point out all the discrepancies
because I’m sure many of them are intentional & meant to create
a better story.
Gregory
made almost no attempt to make the 15th century come alive, beyond
the details anyone can get by perusing a few history books & novels. Food, a few details about castles, & clothing are all
you’re going to get, as if Gregory set out to write a term paper
for college on medieval life. There’s no sense of place, no local
color, & little sense of the ways in which the 15th century was
an enormously different world - & yet people then would not be
unrecognizable to us today.
Characters
in the novel are mostly flat and uninteresting – which is almost a
crime – these were fascinating people, in real life! Gregory did an
OK job on Richard III, showing him in a mostly sympathetic light
until the end of the book. He and Anne’s sister Isabel are the most
interesting characters in the book, showing a range of emotions, and
changing throughout the story arc.
I
always think it's a mistake to use first-person narration in a
historical novel. The Kingmaker's daughter is of course Anne Neville,
who became Richard III's wife. Here's how she sees the people around
her. Edward IV is hardly in the book, & plays the role of
Bewitched King. George of Clarence is a Bad Man at first, then
suddenly becomes Good Man, Seeker of Truth, Loving Husband Avenging
Death of Wife. Hm. Elizabeth Woodville – for once I find myself
feeling sorry for poor Elizabeth – is a Beautiful Bad Witch.
Princess Elizabeth is a Spoiled Beauty Out to Get My Husband. Anne’s
mother is Bad Mom. Everyone in the book besides Richard & Isabel
is all good or all bad. I was surprised that Gregory didn’t
populate her book with more side characters to give it some color & background. Though we know so little about Anne, we know she was from
a huge extended family; she must have had many cousins & friends
of the family who knew her well & who surrounded her during her
life.
Gregory’s
handling of Anne, her main character, is puzzling, & again the
first-person narration really doesn't work. In the first third of the
book, Anne is the smart daughter. She's willing to be a little sassy
toward her dad; willing to grab hold of her father’s ambition & run with it herself; she can almost single-handedly deliver her
sister’s baby on a boat, in the middle of a storm at sea! Anne acts
to create her own destiny in marrying Richard, according to Gregory.
So far, so good. Then Anne gets married & learns about court
intrigue—and she becomes a paranoid, fearful woman who won’t ask
her own husband questions about things that affect her life, & she is routinely left out of his plans. It didn't make sense to me
within the confines of the book. There doesn’t seem to be a
particular reason for the smart, capable girl Anne to become the
fearful, shy Anne on the sidelines.
I
felt like Gregory was not very interested in Anne after her marriage
to Richard. She is almost dismissive of her own heroine. I imagine
that Gregory wasn’t able to make much of Anne’s life seem
interesting at that point. Historically, we know little of her after
this, except as a background to Richard. She sometimes went to court
with him, but appears to have taken little part in events. (My
personal theory about this is that she was ill, on & off, for
much of her life. We know she died of TB & that disease can be
present but very slow-moving, for years. I think Anne led a retired
life &; was not much of a historical player, because she was
sick.) She probably led a fairly “typical” life for a medieval
Duchess, for the 11 years between marriage & becoming Queen - & that life probably wouldn’t make a very good novel either!
As
Anne didn’t get to do much acting on the stage of her life, yet
Gregory had to do something with her, she tells us everything going
on in Anne’s head, which really seems unbelievable, & is mostly
about Anne’s fear of poisons & witchcraft & of the
Woodville family in general. Poor woman, I guess if we took Gregory
seriously, we might think Anne Neville was a bit soft in the
head!
This
fear of the Woodvilles/Rivers family, & of poison & witchcraft, is the heart of the book, & I don’t think it stands
up. No family is as evil as the Woodville family in the book. No
well-educated woman of Anne’s birth & station would have been
as paranoid & fearful of poison and witchcraft as Gregory has
shown her. Yes, Richard & Anne would have had food tasters—poison
was a concern—but I don’t think it would have been an obsession
for them. It’s hard to say what they would have believed & worried about regarding witchcraft. It’s true that in Richard’s
Act of Parliament claiming the throne, there is language saying that
Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid for various
reasons, including the fact that it had been accomplished through
“sorcery and witchcraft.” In my opinion, Richard’s Act of
Parliament contains a lot of language about the Woodvilles that’s
intended to smear them as much as possible—throw everything & see what sticks, in fact. I think, though, this was a feature of the
15th century in England – character assassination and smear
tactics, not unlike celebrity gossip of today. Richard smeared the
Woodvilles – and they smeared him back, but good! There’s no
historical evidence that Richard or Anne or anyone who really knew
them, thought the Woodvilles were evil witches. They were hated
because they were “upstarts” who took the lands &marriages & titles that the Old Nobility wanted, & because Elizabeth was a
powerful woman who had some influence over her husband. The whole
poison & witchcraft issue is larger than life in the book as Anne
becomes more & more fearful – & frankly it’s boring
because it’s repeated over &; over. By the end of the book I
felt sorry for her but I also felt sorry for Richard having to deal
with her, & couldn’t help but think he’d be happier with the
Naughty Princess than with Crazy Anne!
Anyway
– flat characters, unexceptional writing, lack of medieval
“flavor”, & weird, unnecessary twists on what should be a
fascinating story. I suggest reading Sharon Kaye Penman’s The Sunne
in Splendour instead – or Paul Murray Kendall’s bio of Richard
III. You’re welcome. "
Donna Happy Booker ★★★★☆ ∞
"The
Kingmaker's Daughter is probably my favorite of the Cousin's War
series to date. It is written from the perspective of Anne Neville
and gives yet another interesting point of view from this volatile
period of history. One of the things I enjoy so much about Philippa
Gregory's novels is that she somehow manages to turn what could have
been tedious political maneuvering into exciting intrigue that keeps
me riveted from the first moment. I am not a historian so I have no
idea how historically accurate this series is, but I can say that
they certainly paint a vivid picture of what living in that time
period might have been like. From the court customs, to the fashions,
the scandals, the betrayals, and executions, each aspect was brought
to life in such a way that I almost felt myself a part of the
story.
Each
character was shown from Anne's point of view so was colored by her
own biases and was a bit different from how these same characters
were presented in the previous books. The story was focused so much
on Anne, and to a lesser extent Isabelle, that many of the other
characters, at times, felt a bit flat. Anne's relationship with her
sister Isabelle was reminiscent of the rivalry between Mary and Anne
Boleyn in Gregory's popular novel, The Other Boleyn Girl. While there
was always that undercurrent of love, each sister didn't hesitate to
betray the other in order to further their own cause or that of their
husband. I didn't find either sister to be particularly likable, and
sometimes thought that their personalities were a bit contradictory.
For example, Anne seems to have grown from a bright, practical,
inquisitive child into a fearful woman ruled by her superstitions and
unwilling to even consider any point of view than that which painted
her family in a positive light. I guess that the struggles she was
faced with could account for such a drastic change in character but
it was still a bit odd.
One
of the things about this series, including The Kingmaker's Daughter
that I was not a fan of was the witchery and spells and magic that
were included. However, after discussing this with a friend who is
also reading the series, I can see how it may have been presented
this way because of how the players so wholeheartedly believed that
witchcraft was responsible for many things such as storms,
sicknesses, and death. Curses were taken very seriously in 1400's
England and so reading from Anne's perspective, I can see why an
unexpected storm would be believed to have been whistled up by the
witch who hated her. I guess this was a realistic danger in this time
period, that any misfortune could be laid at the feet of someone
believed to be a witch. This would have been a very effective way to
discredit a powerful woman, as it seems to have done in the case of
Elizabeth Woodville.
While
The Kingmaker's Daughter can be read on it's own as a stand-alone
novel, I would definitely recommend reading the entire series in
order simply because it is a beautifully written thrilling story.
Despite the fact that I found many of the characters to be a bit
flat, the fast paced plot was such that I found the book hard to put
down. I know many people, after reading Philippa Gregory's historical
fiction have been inspired to find out more about this violent era
and these fascinating people. I would absolutely recommend this and
any and every other book written by this author to any fans of this
genre."
Veronica ★★★★★ ∞
"This
was one of the best portrayals of Anne Neville that I have read.
Little more than a pawn in her father's schemes, she could do nothing
but follow his orders until the day that Richard rescued her. I
really enjoyed the portrayal of Richard who becomes Richard III. He
proclaims his innocence in the disappearance of the two princes in
the Tower and even seems to grasp just how much people will despise
him and blame him for the disappearance. Gregory has done it again
and brought Anne to life in this new book. Definitely recommend!"
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