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Review

Book Report: The Other Boleyn Girl

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The Other Boleyn Girl is a book about Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne Boleyn and mistress of King Henry VIII. The story begins in Spring of 1521 and ends in May of 1536 with the execution of Anne after her brief stint as Queen. This is the first book from the perspective of the Boleyn sisters; so far they’ve only been referenced as villains in other women’s stories. The sisters, Mary much more so than Anne, come across in a sympathetic light.

When the story begins, Katheryn of Aragon is still queen and is failing to produce a male heir. Henry already has one illegitimate son he has acknowledged and is looking to sire more. The Howard family – of which the Boleyn’s are a branch – seeks to put Mary in his view to gain influence. Anne is with her to support her in her quest. Both sisters are in service to the queen, while trying to seduce her husband.

Mary Boleyn

Mary Boleyn ranks high on the list of sympathetic characters in Gregory’s pantheon so far, perhaps at the top. She is a very passive character, much like Anne Neville and Margaret Pole, never attaining much authority or power for herself. Her family treats her like a pawn in their game of power around the king with no empathy or care for her. In one scene, when Mary expresses a desire to return to their family lands to be with her child, her mother wonders why she would do so, declaring she had never shown such affection for her own children. As the reader, I’m not surprised.

What little support she has comes from her two siblings, George and Anne. George offers sympathy enough to keep her moving with the family’s plots, but never enough to protect Mary from them. Anne offers advice to win the attention of the king, proving to be a fairly sage advisor. Yet the three never forget they are plotters for the Howard family, and that knowledge colors their entire relationship.

I found myself hating the position Mary was in, while hoping she would find enough strength to pull herself out of it. She is commanded to betray her first husband to seduce the king. She is forced to betray the queen – a woman she has tremendous respect for – to bear the children the queen cannot. What’s worse is what happens when she’s ultimately successful and bears Henry two illegitimate children. Her family benefits from her success, and Anne becomes the focus of Henry’s attention, while Mary is cast aside by both king and family without a second thought by either. She becomes the other Boleyn girl.

Anne Boleyn

This is the first book in which Anne Boleyn is a major character. Through Mary’s eyes, she sometimes provokes sympathy, and other times outrage.

As both Mary and Anne are pawns in the family game, there are shared experiences. Mary provides Anne with intelligence with how to keep Henry interested and excited without getting into bed with him. Mary sees Anne’s exhaustion in private and provides her with emotional support. It is hard to read about Anne’s efforts without feeling at least some sympathy for her.

At the same time, Anne knows that her star is ascendant over Mary’s, and never lets Mary forget it. She takes Mary’s support for granted, even as she does nothing to help. In one instance, when Anne is informing Mary of all the titles and lands she’s managed to win over for their family, Mary asks if anything is coming her way. Anne dismisses her request as irrelevant, as she is only the other Boleyn girl. She even goes so far as to take custody of Mary and Henry’s son, as much to secure her position in Henry’s court as to prove her superiority over her sister.  

`Anne wins her crown. King Henry divorces Katherine and locks her away. Anne is crowned queen, `though London is disturbingly silent at her coronation. All she has to do now is produce an heir, which is easier said than done.

Here I once again found myself sympathizing with Anne. Modern science tells us a lot about how children are conceived and carried to term, but in the 16th Century there was a lot of religious belief mixed in with both. Anne bore only one child, a daughter (Queen Elizabeth), and has several miscarriages. In King Henry’s court, this was seen as a sign of sin, either due to the conspiring of Anne or due to darker acts. As much as Anne was an antagonist to Mary, to see her heading to an end caused by factors beyond her knowledge and control was difficult.

Mary’s survival and Anne’s fall

Mary survives because she, finally, rebels against her family. Her first husband dead, she falls in love with a man in the service of her uncle, William Stafford. After secret courting, Mary chooses to run with him and marry in secret, returning in time for the coronation of her sister. They keep the secret for almost a year, and are banished when found out, at least until Anne becomes pregnant again and sends for Mary.

Mary, without the influence of her family and away from court, finds life enjoyable. She worked on the farm with her husband, bore another child, worked with her hands. She was happy.

Anne does not have a happy ending. The protections Henry destroyed to remove Queen Katherine no longer remained to protect Anne, and she is one of many taken and accused to incest and witchcraft, along with George. Historians generally agree this was a trumped-up excuse, but the book hints there to be some truth to the charges. The family leaves both siblings to be executed.

Mary survives because her act of finding happiness – putting herself before her family – removed her enough from Anne’s schemes that she was hunted. William kept her from coming forward and out of danger. The two focused instead on getting the first two children out of danger. With Anne’s execution, her hold on the children is severed and Mary has her family back.

Conclusion

The Other Boleyn Girl has two dynamic characters interacting with each other. Mary, the passive pawn whose rebellion eventually leads to her survival, and Anne, the committed strategist who plays her part to the end. Both women elicit sympathy for the game they are forced to play from a young age, and for the toxic family they grew up in. Both elicit disdain for their actions as part of the family plan.

What I like most about the book is how both character’s fates are tied to their response to the game. Mary, upset over how she’s treated by her family, rebels against the family’s plan and is ultimately saved. Anne, an expert manipulator when she can control Henry, falls victim to intrigue when she cannot. Mary stops playing and wins; Anne keeps playing and loses.

I rate this as one of the better books in the series. I get to see a sympathetic character survive (unlike Anne Neville and Margaret Pole) to have a happy ending. It has not been a common ending in the series, and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.

Review

Book Report: Constant Princess

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Book 6 in Philippa Gregory’s series is The Constant Princess, about Katherine of Aragorn, first wife of King Henry VIII, and takes place between Autumn of 1501 and Autumn of 1513 (barring a prologue and epilogue set years before and after each). Born Catalina, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Katherine is told from her birth that she is to be queen of England. The time and effort it takes for that to come about gives us the title of the book.

The Story

The journey is not easy. Katherine comes to England to marry King Henry VII’s eldest prince, Arthur, heir and beloved son. The marriage is rocky to start, with neither spouse enjoying the other, but an illness forces them to revisit their relationship and they fall in love. For several months, they spend each night with each other, sharing grandiose visions of what they shall do with England once they are monarchs. Those visions are cut short by Arthur’s death in 1502, after only five months of marriage.

On his deathbed, Arthur asks Katherine to promise to claim they did not consummate their marriage, allowing her to marry his younger brother Henry and rise to the throne for their grand designs. The marriage is promised early, but then Katherine spends years in exile, not allowed to be part of the English court, unable to go home. It takes the death of Henry VII to finally bring about the marriage and her installment as queen.

The Next Generation

With this book, the series has moved past the last of the Wars of the Roses queens and into the next generation of characters. Not only do we see the death of Henry VII, the last monarch of those wars, but we get to see the end of Margaret of Beaufort, the Red Queen.

Margaret Beaufort, as portrayed in this book series, struck so many of my character peeves that I looked forward to every slap in the face or minor setback she received from the characters since halfway through Red Queen. The mentality that any action she does, no matter how heinous, is okay because she’s God’s chosen, is so insulting and juvenile.  I enjoyed the snubs that Elizabeth of York gave in The White Princess, and I enjoyed watching Margaret’s decline and death in The Constant Princess. The decision Katherine makes to cut Margaret funeral plans to a more modest size is just the sort of deserved insult that Margaret would find infuriating, and as a reader I find completely deserving.

As the next generation of English nobles rise, we see that they’re going to be different from the generations we read through the Wars of the Roses with. These leaders are men who have not faced the constant warfare of the Wars, whose position is largely secured. As a result, they are arrogant and rude. Henry is a boy in a man’s position, enjoying life, while Katherine rules the country in his name. He views war as an adventure to advance his position; she views it as a way to advance their country and Christendom.

Knowing what I do about what’s coming next for England, I can see how it’s going to come about.

A Spanish View

Katherine’s Spanish origins come into play significantly during the story, not just in differences in leadership and ideology, but as a way of critiquing English (and in some ways Catholic) life of the period. Spain of Katherine’s time was a battleground for Christian versus Muslim rulers, so Katherine is much aware of Islamic learning –  mathematics, medicine, science –  and artwork. All of which, particularly the learning, is missing from English culture.

‘There is not a University in England that studies medicine,’ Katherine said bitterly. ‘There is not one that teaches languages. There is not one that teaches astronomy, or mathematics, geometry, geography, cosmography or even the study of animals, or plants. The universities of England are about as much use as a monetary full of monks coloring in the margins of sacred texts.’

The comments come into play as Katherine experiences worry over not conceiving a child, and finds no one able to provide even a mote of support. The problem is not confined to England; Katherine mentions how her mother would destroy Moorish universities and evict Islamic scholars under the direction of the Pope. Her spiritual desire to follow papal orders wars with her human desire to understand what, if anything, is wrong with her. The one learned doctor she meets – covertly – is an Islamic doctor who happened to be travelling through London. Even there, the arrogance and conceit of Katherine towards him is embarrassing to read.

As a history major, knowing what I do about the coming dominance of Europe over the rest of the world, it’s hard to understand this sort of reasoning. Willful ignorance makes no sense to me, yet here’s an entire civilization that revels in it. I shake my head at the wonder of it all.

Third vs. First

This book has a new style for the series, that jumps between First and Third person.

The majority of the book is done Third Person, and jumps to other characters who aren’t Katherine more often than previous books did. This allows the reader to experience the story that’s happening beyond Katherine’s eyes, almost a necessity since Katherine spends so much of the book in virtual exile.  

The sections done in First Person follow Katherine’s inner monologue, or describe events that are best seen from her perspective. Some of these are instances where she’s remembering home in Spain and what she misses about it. Others are moments dealing with extreme emotions and worries she can’t let the court see.

The changes can happen multiple times per chapter, giving us the events that Katherine is dealing with, and her internal monologue as she thinks and responds. It’s not the first time I’ve seen this particular mechanism used, but I’ve never tried it myself. Maybe I’ll give it a shot.

Conclusion

The Constant Princess is a book that leads itself to a lot of ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ questions aimed at the characters and the world they live in. I’d rate it pretty good; it’s not great, but the critique of English life from a foreign view point and the death of Margaret Beaufort both raise my appreciation for the book. We’re not yet halfway through the series as a whole, and the book stands as a transition from the Wars of the Roses to the Tudor era.  I expect to see a lot more of Katherine of Aragorn over the next few books.