'There is only one bond that I trust: between a woman and her sisters. We never take our eyes off each other. In love and in rivalry, we always think of each other.
This was truly one of those books that you hated to have end; I thank NetGalley for the ARC which I was delighted to get. Philippa Gregory did a masterful job giving what seems to be accurate motives for many of the events in Margaret's life.
Was she haunted by her envy of her sister Mary and her sister in law Katherine? Perhaps but it is a novelist's prerogative to tell a plausible tale when the facts are missing. Surely, Margaret's life was juxtaposed against her sister and sister in law's, all of them suffering hardships in a world where women had little say at all. Margaret did have her on-again, off-again regency for her son James the young king of Scotland to enable her to be more in control of her destiny than either her sister or Katherine of Aragon.
I am not sure that Margaret and her "sisters" were rivals, they were just mutual victims of some of the madness of Henry VIII's reign. Did they have to collude against him at times or support him against each other? Surely.
She was a strong woman and rose above many hardships, the biggest one was the warring and polarizing of her Scottish subjects. It is amazing to me that Scotland has not declared their independence long before this time, the majority of Ireland has done so. The things that were done to the Scots people just during Margaret Tudor's lifetime are incredible.
Having read other books about the "Debatable Lands" in between the two kingdoms, I found this story very informative as to how and why people behaved as they did.
You can actually also juxtapose this era and the British-Irish and British-Scots assaults against the others; they are essentially the same at this time, the British "Pale" and the "Debatable Lands".
Today is release day- get your copy right now!
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