The last book in Philippa Gregory’s historical fiction series covering the Wars of the Roses and the Tudors, the Other Queen is about the imprisonment of Mary, Queen of Scotts, between fall of 1568 and summer of 1572. It follows three characters: Mary and her two captors, George Talbot, the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, and his wife, Bess of Hardwick. Each character is experiencing personal hardship in this story, watching their world fall apart in their own way.
Did I like this book? Hard to say. For most of it, yes. I liked that each character provided a unique view of the events. I felt compassion for each of them, though only one of them I felt came out (mostly) untainted at the end. But then it ended in a way that just killed my enjoyment: I’ll explain at the end of the post after a spoiler’s tag.
First, I want to discuss the characters.
Mary, Queen of Scotts
Mary, Queen of Scotts, is a prisoner of the English Crown. She has the claim to several thrones — including England’s — and is married or engaged to several suitors. She is eager to head back to Scotland and reclaim her birthright.
The character of Mary is a frustrating one. On the one hand, you understand her position completely. She does not believe she deserves to be there. Afterall, she is a crowned queen away from her throne, a mother away from her child. She believes she is divinely chosen to rule, and her confinement and the restrictions placed upon her are an insult. All that comes through.
But with that strong belief comes the conviction that she can lie and scheme to get what she wants without consequence. From her perspective, every action is warranted. So, the book is her plotting her escape and her revenge, or bemoaning the failure of whatever plot almost worked.
Mary gains sympathy because she’s a woman denied her right as a queen and her freedoms as a person. But she squanders it by arrogantly plotting. At the same time, what else can she do? She’s helpless, and fighting against being helpless, which brings us right back to sympathetic.
George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury
George Talbot is the nobleman selected by the English crown to hold Mary Queen of Scotts for a time. He is eager to do his duty to Queen Elizabeth, but as the story progresses, begins to find himself drawn more and more to Mary’s cause.
George is the second most frustrating character of the three.
He is an honorable man. When he was a judge as Queen Mary’s trial (before the start of the book) he judged her not guilty because the evidence was not sufficient, despite pressure to find her guilty just to be rid of her. He tries to do the right thing in a court where the right thing often changes as the whims of Queen Elizabeth and her senior advisor, William Cecil.
But when Mary comes into his household, he falls for her. As an honorable man, this tears as his soul. He wants to serve her, but he has a queen; he wants to love her, but he has a wife. George wants to believe the best of her, despite constant evidence that she plots and schemes.
This is where George fails. He’s an honorable man, but he refuses to navigate the world he lives in. Not that he can’t: he refuses.
George constantly hopes that the world will right itself and come into focus the way he wants it to. But he knows it won’t. He could take steps to protect Mary or Bess, but he doesn’t. He keeps hoping for a solution, but refuses to do anything to bring one about, because any solution he can bring about won’t be what he wants. in the end, he does one thing to mitigate the consequences of his action; I’ll discuss that in the next section.
Rich and politically powerful, but emotionally powerless.
Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury
Bess, wife of George, is the third character, and the only one who doesn’t lose me by the end of the book.
A lady of some means, Bess is on her fourth marriage, and has amassed a sizable amount of wealth in land and items to pass along to her children. She is a competent manager, balancing income and expenses in account books that she proudly knows back and forth. Bess has the character and confidence of a self-made woman.
When Mary is sent to their household. Bess sees the danger. As a queen, Mary expects a certain lifestyle that the hosts must pay for. The monthly allowance from Queen Elizabeth’s government is not nearly enough, nor is it consistently paid. Instead, they must drain their accounts and mortgage their lands to pay for the queen’s mini-court. All of which endangers the wealth Bess wants to leave to her children.
Bess is the opposite of George: she is realistic where he is idealistic. She does not expect to be paid. She is also an agent of William Cecil, Elizabeth’s most trusted advisor, and informs on Mary’s activities to the crown.
Why is Bess the only character who doesn’t lose me by the end of the book? Probably because she’s the only one who’s story isn’t dominated by their character flaw. Mary loses me because she’s too self-centered; George because he’s too idealistic and naive. But Bess knows she’s in danger and does her best, hoping to endure until she can survive or thrive.
She does survive, but only because George takes a step to separate their fortunes. This is what I alluded to last section; the one thing George does to mitigate the consequences of his actions, and it’s for Bess, not for himself. He gives her back the lands and fortunes she had at the time of their marriage, in exchange for her forgiving the debts he owes her. She comes out none the richer for her marriage, but she still retains everything she wanted to pass along to her children.
Not perfect, but the better of the three characters.
Spoiler – My Annoyance
Now we get to the spoiler ending bit. If you don’t want to know, don’t read beyond this.
Now.
Okay.
For real this time.
Here we go.
The book is primarily set between Autumn 1568 and June 1572. Within that nearly four-year period, Mary sees her rises and falls, George falls in love and falls out of favor, and Bess has to divorce her husband in her mind if not by law. Sounds good, right?
The last chapter is set fifteen years later. Bess hears about the execution of Mary, and spends several pages considering the last fifteen years. how Mary entrapped and involved those around her in her schemes and how many of them paid with her. How her husband became so attached to Mary that he wept at her execution. And how Bess worked hard to distance herself from both and protect herself.
Makes sense, doesn’t it? Why not? What better way is there to cover fifteen years of events? I agree.
So why does it bother me?
Because it is set up as just another chapter. As a reader, I found it jarring to go from weekly or monthly advances to more than a decade without warning. It pulled me from the flow of reading to sit back and figure out what was happening.
Now, it is true that the chapters all start with dates on them. And yes, if I was paying more attention to the dates maybe I wouldn’t have found it all the more jarring. But perfect readers are rare, and I can’t fathom why you wouldn’t label this last chapter the epilogue, or put a break page with a ‘fifteen years later’ announcement. Anything to keep the reader informed.
Completely jarring.
Conclusion
I’m glad I read this book. The characters were well written. Their flaws are front and center and truly debilitating, even fatal, to their well being. The end was jarring, but not enough to put me off or re-reading it.
What’s truly memorable is that this is the last book in the series. I’m now done with it. I’ll probably do a reflection blog post on the series at some point. But for now, I’ll just appreciate finishing the series.
Cheers!
Michael
