“Three Sisters, Three Queens” - Philippa Gregory

(Tudors book 8)

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿  It’s astonishing how many POVs Gregory gives us as she traverses the same time period (the tumultuous reign of Henry VIII). I know many say Gregory’s books take a soap opera approach to history, but I confess I’m here for history and plotting based in fact, not textbook accuracy. 

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Here, we see things from the perspective of Henry’s sister Margaret who becomes the Queen of Scotland. We get her … shall we say … mildly biased views on her sister Mary Tudor the Queen of France, and her sister-in-law Queen Catherine (née Aragon) of England.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 I imagine Gregory guesses at the relationship between these 3 women based on whatever the historical record suggests and fills in the rest guided by the pole star of every major player at court: their own self-interest/self-preservation.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 TSTS Margaret has been described thus far as conceited and priggish by others. Now we get inside her mind. She’s mistrustful and jealous of CoA, and carries herself filled with self-importance like her grandmother Margie Beaufort though she utterly lacks both that woman and CoA’s canniness. 

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Later, once she has thawed towards CoA and accepted an uneasy sisterly alliance of sorts with her sister-in-law and Mary, now the Queen of France, Marge rages at her sisters for their deceit, laying responsibility for her jilted wishes at their feet. She doesn’t see that they are equally pawns as she herself is in the power games brokered by European kings and popes.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Once in Scotland, she mucks things up in the most un-Marge Beaufort way - by entering an ill-conceived love marriage while acting as the Queen regent for her son. Predictably she loses support from the Scottish lords. Equally predictably she rails against everyone but herself for her terrible predicament. 

She’s utterly lacking in either of her grandmothers’ knowledge of politics and scheming. CoA, who she simultaneously envies and despises, certainly knew what she was about, even during her final stand on behalf of her marriage and daughter Mary. 

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Other than pumping her full of precedence and protocol, she learned nothing in all her years at the English and Scottish courts because she was willfully ignorant. She’s continually delusional as to cause and effect. It takes a number of years and many staggering reversals of fortune snd mot a few capricious decisions before Marge develops the canniness her grandmother had early on. It is striking that after her husband King James dies, M has no reliable advisors or even true friends. She is on her own, uneducated and without a clan to back her in the wild Scottish political landscape. A further complication, she is initially held up as an exemplar of upholding marriage vows until it’s no longer convenient to Henry. Without the young savvy of an Liz of York, Marge Beaufort, or CoA it’s remarkable that the clueless M that’s presented in TSTQ stumbles around for as long as she does, and cleaves to power as she does even after her husband the King’s death.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 We learn in “The King’s Curse” that Mary Tudor becomes a staunch friend of CofA. Based on the POVs thus far, I’ve mostly thought positively of CoA since “Constant Princess” and mostly negatively towards Margaret, so it’s interesting to see CoA from Margaret’s POV where as regent she orders the military to take no prisoners against the invading Scots, and subsequently she passionately urges Margaret to remain with her disaster of a 2nd husband at least in part from horror over what a sanctioned royal divorce would mean for her personally (it would destroy the marriage CoA was already just clinging onto).