By Philippa Gregory
Philippa Gregory takes scant information about the short marriage between Prince Arthur and Katherine of Aragon (Michael Sittow's portrait of Katherine before her marriage to Arthur is at left) and heats them up into a roiling froth of sexual awakening, dreams of a new Camelot and a fair amount of anachronistic nonsense. Like most romantic historical fiction, Gregory's falls prey to making the romance the prime mover behind historical events.Gregory's interesting construction of political events that historians are still arguing about redeems the book: Was Katherine lying when she claimed to have been a virgin when she married Henry VIII, a key point in their divorce trial? To what extent was she a political pawn? To what extent did she manipulate events herself?
Some historians are quick to dismiss Katherine as a "good Catholic girl" who simply did what she was told, and who was unable to leave England after Arthur's death because her father-in-law Henry VII had taken all her money. What's often overlooked is that Katherine's childhood was spent on military campaigns and that she herself led a successful rout of the Scots while Henry VIII was away fighting in France.
Gregory also draws lively portraits of Henry VII and his mommy dearest, Margaret Beaufort, both of whom were obsessed with money and legitimizing Henry's claim to the throne--largely because they had neither. The pair of them were about as lovable as a pair of crocodiles, but they were pragmatic and shrewd and laid the foundation for strong and sane rule in England, which Henry VIII sadly botched.
In some ways, Elizabeth I was the true heir of Henry VII’s hopes for England, and, oddly, she is more Katherine’s heir than anyone’s. The two queens had a fair amount in common--ambition, shrewdness, intelligence, and a knack for knowing when to act and when to lay low. And it would have mortified them both to admit it.
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