It can be sumed up in this quote:
"But in a way today, despite them all, the Scots queen has won the battle. She always said that she was not a tragic figure, not a queen from a legend, but she saw in the end that the only way she would defeat Elizabeth - fully and finally defeat her - was to be the heroine that Elizabeth could not be: a tragic heroine, the queen of suffering, cut down in her beauty and her youth. Elizabeth could name herself the Virgin Queen and claim great beauty, surrounded by admirers, but Mary Queen of Scots will be the one that everyone remembers as the beautiful martyr from this regin, whose lovers willingly died for her. Her death is Elizabeth's crime. Her betrayal is Elizabeth's single greatest shame. So she has won that crown. She lost in their constant rivalry for the throne of England, but she will win when the hisotires are written." (Gregory, 431).
Gregory is crazy. And to be honest, I read 200+ pages of this, got tired of the lazy writing and the constant point of view changes and skimmed through the rest and read the final chapters. How do I know that this book was lazily done? Aside from the POV issue, one of the major pieces of action, the treason that leads to Mary's execution, yeah that's given a paragraph of mention as Bess tells us that Elizabeth has put her to death because Mary signed an order calling for her assasination. One paragraph on the second to last page of the book.
Really? Are you kidding me? So the rest of the novel was about what?
Well in brief, the year is 1568 and Elizabeth has been Queen of England for 10 years. Mary, Queen of Scots (and briefly Queen of France) has had to fled Scottland because of an uprising against her. Seeking assylum, she runs to her cousin in England. Elizabeth, rightly nervous about a rival for her throne, keeps Mary imprisoned with George and Elizabeth Shrewsbury for a long time. The book spans the first 3 years of her imprisonement, and in the final chapter, skips from June 1572 to February 1587. To which I say, again, are you kidding me?
The book is boring. The first 200 pages are George and Bess repeating themselves incessantly. George loves the Scottish Queen, thinks his wife is a frugal crazy money grubbing peasant, and Bess (Elizabeth) is twice a widow and married to someone she now considers a fool. Over and over again they say the same things. In three page increments before Gregory goes back to the other persons POV.
Queen Mary, she's just as repetitive. "Oh I hope some man will rescue me, I have to be free." Over and over and over again. There is hardly any dialogue, it's all internal monologue and there is no action because there was no action for these guys. They were wardens. The real action was taking place in the lands in the north were armies were fighting and at court where Elizabeth ruled and made these decisions.
The bigger problem here is Gregory is so biased against Elizabeth that I'm contemplating starting a blog titled "Why Does Gregory Hate Elizabeth?" She thinks she's a spineless child that has had men / people push her into the position that she's in and that she has no mind to rule. If that's not what she thinks, that's the way she comes across. Elizabeth is an idiot, Cecil is the brains. And not very nice brains, either.
The paragraph I posted above says it all. It's as if the facts of that time period have completely avoided Gregory. Elizabeth is widely regarded as one of the greatest rulers of England, and while I know that there were probably a lot of Catholics that were sad when Henry broke with Rome, a lot of people rejoiced in it, because there were so many corruptions. Elizabeth brought peace and allowed her people to practice what they wanted without fear of religious persecution. Why Gregory seems bent on tarnishing that with novel after novel that describes her as a wanton and a spoiled brat I have no idea.
My advice is to skip this novel. And it will be a long time before I buy another one of Gregory's books without closely checking reviews.
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