Philippa Gregory: The Other Queen

• ISBN-13: 9781416549147
• Publisher: Touchstone
• Publication date: 7/14/2009
• Pages: 464

This dazzling novel from bestselling author Philippa Gregory presents a new and unique view of one of history's most intriguing, romantic, and maddening heroines. Mary, Queen of Scots, trusts Queen Elizabeth's promise of sanctuary when she flees from rebels in Scotland and then finds herself imprisoned as the "guest" of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and his indomitable wife, Bess of Hardwick. The newly married couple welcomes the doomed queen into their home, certain that serving as her hosts and jailers will bring them an advantage in the cutthroat world of the Elizabethan court. To their horror, they find that the task will bankrupt them, and as their home becomes the epicenter of intrigue and rebellion against Elizabeth, their loyalty to each other and to their sovereign comes into question. If Mary succeeds in seducing the earl into her own web of treachery and treason, or if the great spymaster William Cecil links them to the growing conspiracy to free Mary from her illegal imprisonment, they will all face the headsman.

 So here's a fun story for you - apparently my family is related to Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Yeah. I have a personal connection to this story.
 Gregory here tales the tale of one Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland and France, and perhaps rightful heir to the throne of England. But that's kind of up in the air, considering the fact that Elizabeth Tudor sits on the throne, the Protestant Queen. I believe that Gregory portrays both queens in lights uncommon to the usual history writings about them. Elizabeth is paranoid, easily led by her advisor William Cecil, a character who you would have met before had you read another of her works, The Virgin's Lover. He was quite a fixture at that time, and you can either consider him to have been a wise advisor or a grasping plotter, take your pick. This book chooses the latter view in contrast to her earlier version of him. Much more is made of Elizabeth's reliance on him and fear of rebellion. Mary is portrayed as a cunning, conniving woman, who was not only not silly or easily led by her emotions, but was rather more unfortunate in her allies and her lack of luck. That doesn't make her continued plotting in the face of consistent failure and her unfailing insistence on the divinity of her person any less annoying.
 We also have some side characters in the Earl of Shrewsbury and his wife, Bess, one of the few successful female businesswomen of  the time. While he is played for a fool, she is as grasping as the rest of the Protestant upstarts that have snatched wealth from the churches they have thrown down, and just as reluctant to let their stolen wealth go. The more amusing parts of the novel involve her musings on how God obviously favors the Protestants since they have so much wealth, and how she knows that the Protestants are just gold-mongers at heart that really wanted the Church's wealth more than divine approbation, but she doesn't seem to care much.
 The entire story consists of plot after plot after plot to free Mary and send her to Scotland, and all the political maneuverings that abounded in Tudor England. She managed to keep it from getting too tedious, though. The only other critique I really have is the writing style. For some reason, the first person writing seemed really stilted and too self-aware. Most of the time, Gregory doesn't make it feel like the character is aware of creating a story, but this one seemed like each character was writing a journal entry for posterity. At first it was sort of uncomfortable, but you got used to it after a bit.
 Overall: B
 This wasn't among Gregory's best. The writing was a little off in comparison to her previous works, and it was just more of the same going on, although, like I said, it didn't ever stray into boring territory.