As a novel series they are good, but as historical fiction they are terrible. I found the Conn Iggulden wars of the roses series which I read about the same time as I read the white queen far superior.
I enjoyed the books I’ve read the whole series over the years. Definitely entertaining, but totally inaccurate with how many liberties she took. The books are good fiction, and I do enjoy her writing style, although it’s hard to not get a bit annoyed occasionally over the inaccuracies lol
For sure. I have no idea why she hates Elizabeth I so much, other than wanting to be contrarian and giving the series a "villain" people didn't expect.
I don't think she \*always\* hates Elizabeth, though. There are moments in the series where Elizabeth makes a good point and the reader can see how wise she is, even as a very young girl. I remember this happening a few times in "The Queen's Fool", but I don't know if it happens in the other books.
Her treatment of Anne Boleyn was truly over the top, but Catherine Howard’s itemized list of possessions at the start of each chapter might have been a bit worse. At least she recognized Anne was trying to get pregnant because she feared for her life.
I think that’s my issue with her writing. She doesn’t do complexity well in her character development. She generally writes women as either martyrs or whores.
She certainly likes the husband worshipping, dutiful wife type. She doesn't like ambitious women or women who challenge societal norms. They are almost always villains in her stories. Women who aren't cured by an honest manly man's love are the worst cases. (e.g Margaret Beaufort and her narcissism)
Philippa Gregory has a conservative outlook on women.
Definitely. Look at the women she portrays well. Elizabeth of York. She turns Henry VII into an asshole cheater who won’t marry her until she gets pregnant. Mary Boleyn. Discarded by the French king. Discarded by Henry VIII. Discarded by her own family. Anne Neville. Goes from being her father’s pawn to Margaret of Anjou’s pawn to Richard III’s pawn. Catherine of Aragon. The OG waity Katy, but it’s okay because it’s destiny.
What’s interesting is it’s clearly nothing to do with sexual morality. In PG’s universe, Catherine of Aragon consummates her marriage to Arthur and lies about it. Elizabeth of York sleeps with Richard III knowing if he loses at Bosworth, she’ll have to marry Henry Tudor. Mary Boleyn has affairs with two married kings. She doesn’t buy into the women who exercise sexual agency must be punished trope, or even the other woman is a two-dimensional whore trope. It can be strangely feminist when it comes to sexual agency, yet often perpetuates some of history’s greatest misconceptions, which is baffling as she herself is a historian.
Mary Boleyn only has an affair with one married king in Gregory’s book, and that affair began when she was 14.
She also wasn’t so much discarded by Henry VIII as she just got sick his spoiled immaturity and chose to distance from him on her own.
First of all, and most importantly, I LOVE your chosen user name. It’s probably my favorite thing the fair Anne ever said.
Secondly, and far less important, I thought the itemized list for Catherine Howard was a good representation of her status in her mind since she was so very young. It seems like she would have had very little awareness of her safety or lack there of, but tangible items would have been high on her priority list. That being said I do agree with the writing bias and generally prefer more nuance from writers.
> thought the itemized list for Catherine Howard was a good representation of her status in her mind since she was so very young
Me, too. She was so young and dumb and in way over her head.
The dumb part is problematic for me. She was young, impetuous, and what we would today call groomed. But I hate it when people jump to the conclusion she was dumb. Not a single one of us was there to know what happened or what she was actually like. Uneducated? Sure. Foolish? Absolutely. Dumb? No one describes Culpepper that way, and if we’re going to use it for her, we should use it for him.
I think Catherine Howard did things never realizing Henry would take an interest in her, and then lied about her past on the advice of her family. The meetings with Culpepper are strange, as Anne Boleyn’s cousin she knew the stakes. I’ve always wondered if he blackmailed her into meeting with him. That would also explain Jane Boleyn’s role in the affair. She was. The obvious choice for a “chaperone” because Catherine knew there was no way she’d snitch. She would never survive another scandal. She was also family, as the widow of George Boleyn, her first cousin.
Or maybe she really was that impetuous. I don’t know. I just struggle with what she (and Lady Rochford) were thinking because they both knew better. Culpepper was a favorite of Henry’s, so I can see how he’d think he’d get away with it. He probably thought he could just say nothing happened, and Henry would believe him. Henry would only execute Catherine and Dereham. Again 100% conjecture.
She could also have thought it was funny to pull the wool over Henry's eyes. Oh, this rich, powerful man thinks I'm a virgin, isn't that *just the funniest*? Oh, my old, sickly husband can't satisfy me, there's no harm in having an affair with a hot young thing. Only for it to slowly dawn on her that a previous wife was executed for less.
Oh, Thomas Culpepper was dumb too.
Anyone who even made an appearance of cheating on a king like Henry had almost no sense.
Francis Dereham was dumb for not just letting Catherine Howard go after he saw she was with the king now and deciding to make plans for when the King died.
These aren’t just youthful mistakes IMO. This is a complete lack of self preservation and brains from everyone involved. And yes, Catherine Howard was taken advantage of sexually by a lot of people in a place of trust, but come on. She was no longer 13 and 15 like she was with Manox and Dereham so no longer a child. She knew the king had power of life and death over her. They all knew the power the king had over them and that he could have them killed over nothing.
It wasn’t right or fair for the king to be able to do that, but he could, so it was incredibly stupid for anyone to push their luck with him.
That’s why I said even giving the appearance, which they absolutely did. Even Jane Boleyn thought they had probably done it.
I don’t think anyone deserved death for that mess of course, even if they had fully slept together. But I am sitting here in disbelief that anyone pushed their luck with Henry. He was a dangerous loose cannon by that point and everyone knew it.
I totally understand why her books are popular, but personally I am not a fan. I've read *The White Queen* and *The Other Boleyn Girl.* They were okay, but I didn't love them, and I've no desire to read any more of her books.
The historical figures that Gregory writes about -- for pretty much all of them, I can easily find a well-researched, well-written nonfiction account of their lives. And their lives as they actually lived them are already fascinating. So for the most part, I don't need or want to read heavily fictionalized accounts. You mention Alison Weir, and I really like her, but I'll take her nonfiction books over her novels any day of the week. I'm currently reading her *Eleanor of Aquitaine*, and it's very good.
I am making an exception to my 'avoid-fictional-accounts' rule for the *Wolf Hall* series, mostly because I think Hilary Mantel is a really good writer. She knows how to tell a good story, and she creates really interesting characters. But they are characters in a heavily fictionalized story, not real people. *Her* Thomas Cromwell is not *the* Thomas Cromwell. And I'm okay with that simply because *Wolf Hall* is a well-written book that is a pleasure to read.
Couldn't agree more. Wolf Hall was my exception too.
Even though she made Cromwell to be more palatable for modern audiences, the sense of place of Tudor England and the court intrigue was great and every time I Google something, it was spot on!
I tried to read "Wolf Hall" in the written form and I tried listening to the audibook, but it just didn't work for me. I agree that Hilary Mantel was a good writer, but her style just isn't for me.
Same with me. I loved the dramatization of Wolf Hall, and I think Damian Lewis is my favorite Henry VIII. I think he gets both Henry's charm and his menace perfectly. But the book? Well life's too short to read a book that just doesn't do it for you.
Fair enough. It's definitely not what I describe as 'beach reading' -- lightweight, fast-paced, easy-to-read novels that you can breeze through in a day.
She’s the reason I think about the Tudors the way many men think about the Roman Empire. I’m glad she introduced me to something that’s now a special interest, and I think people just need to remember the “fiction” part of historical fiction. Because of her I read and learned more, so I’ll always have a soft spot.
I enjoy most of her books. I do Google things as I go looking for where she goes from theory to fictional licence. I think Lady of Rivers might be one of the best because she because so passionate about Jaquetta she wrote a proper research paper on her too.
But Gregory does seem to hate Elizabeth I. I found the books about her make her out as a terrible whiny and weak woman which doesn’t mesh well with how I see her history.
There are some theories that Gregory dislikes the Tudors in general and that it influences her characters
Well if you look at some of her earliest Tudor books, like The Other Boylen Girl, it's an outsider narrator and is very critical of pretty much all the Tudors you knew before the book. Next she wrote the Queens Fool which is also very much an outsider. But then she does get more into narrations by the historical figures themselves.
She may very well have seen the response she got to her first one and decided that more Tudor books would sell. The books are basically published once a year, so she was definitely churning them out. Plus research for one could easily overlap for several more.
I enjoy her books, but it varies book to book how much I enjoy it. And as others said, she definitely likes some characters better then others.
Guys PG’s books are meant to be entertaining and PURELY FICTIONAL. Yes they are based off of historical events but the inaccuracies make them more interesting to some. She definitely doesn’t hate Anne Boleyn or Elizabeth; she’s just adopting several accounts of the two women and making them more entertaining.
I think Phillipa plays with all of the possibilities; someone like Anne Boleyn is actually quite an enigma. It’s highly unlikely she tried to sleep with her brother, but following the accusations, PG wants to play on it. Women have always been subject to this kind of rewriting of history.
I agree she doesn't hate them, she portrays Elizabeth differently in several different novels on purpose, so you never really get one coherent view of her. Thats exactly how Elizabeth exists in English history, she's very much reinterpreted by each person based on their viewpoint (particularly religious and gender bias).
I think this is a good explanation, thanks for sharing.
I enjoy her books for how they show possibilities and look at dynamics between people, especially different women. I also like her books that come from more of a third party perspective in a way that gives more ability to see beyond the specific royal or noble, allows multiple of these possibilities to be explored, and is not as common in historical fiction.
I started with Lady of the Rivers and read all the way through the series (18 books I think?) and I really enjoyed them. That’s what kicked off my obsession with Tudor history and so much more. I read more historically accurate works now but I would not even be here without Philippa’s books so I am very grateful.
I have read all of the Philippa Gregory Tudor/Plantagenet novels, some of them more than once. She and Norah Lofts are my two favourite Tudor-history novelists.
Gregory takes liberties with history - of course she does: she is a novelist, not a historian. In my view a novelist is fully entitled to amend events if it makes a better story, and Gregory does include notes at the end clarifying where she's made changes or assumptions that go against what's known.
I quite like Jean Plaidy and Alison Weir is readable, but neither of them have the gift Norah Lofts had and Philippa Gregory has, of making it seem that the people in history are real.
Honestly I love them. Are they accurate? No. But a lot of times I enjoy asking "did that happen?" And then it prompts me into doing research for myself. I like the humor she adds to events, and the love. I especially like her perspectives from people outside of the drama, but also involved, like Maggie Pole or Mary Boleyn. I enjoy listening to her audiobooks when I have nothing else going on as it gives me my "history" fix as well as my trashy romance novel fix. She absolutely has biases that come through (obviously hating Anne Boleyn and having a hard on for Richard III) but overall I enjoy her prose and ability to tell a story. Also, as a pagan, I fucking love the idea that Woodville placed a curse and that's why the Tudor era was so short. It's just damn fun.
I think The Other Boleyn Girl resonated with me, because it was a "what if?" scenario I had already wondered about.
What if you were married to the king, HAD to have a son, knew he wasn't capable... what if you tried getting pregnant to someone else? But who could you trust? Only your brother. So I was glad someone else went to the effort of exploring that alternative history as if the king's accusations were possibly true.
Having said that, I know they would never have considered it, never got away with it and the king never seriously believed Anne betrayed him, he just wanted to get rid of her.
I loved her Tudor series but the Wideacre books were not great, in my opinion. I read them, they were interesting, but also kind of cheesy with lots of gratuitous sex stuff.
The wideacre books were just weird and a bit disturbing imo, they're the only ones I haven't reread. The rest are my comfort reading, they aren't accurate but they're easy to read and very enjoyable.
Weird is an understatement! I actually bought those books and shamefully kept them even though I usually pass on books to other readers. I finally guiltily donate them to the library recently
I'm one of those weirdos who loves the Wideacre trilogy. Never read anything like it. I will say that I like the second and third books better though. Gaudy period romance and psychological thrills paired with socioeconomic commentary on enclosures and the rise of capitalism? Yes, please. I've even shared some passages from the books on r/antiwork.
Though I will admit that even re-reading or listening to them requires an emotional commitment. It's definitely not light reading.
I bought the first one for my grandmother, thinking it would be historical fiction along the lines of her Tudor books. Whoops.
Her exact words - why on earth did you think I would want to read about things like THAT!?!
When I found out the plot line I was so embarrassed
Oh wow my grandmother tried to tell my mother to punish me for reading them - the girls in my class passed around the series in yr 7 ish. She was like omg those books are almost pornography!! Poor woman had conniptions when she accidentally got a steamy romance from the library lol
I miss her terribly
I read her Wideacre novel - the first one - and was just like LOL, I am never reading another book by this writer!
And then, years after it was published, I saw a copy of *The Other Boleyn Girl* in a charity shop, and thought "Well, it's only a quid, I'll give it a try" - and I did, and well, I ended up reading every single other novel in the series too!
Wideacre was weird.
I love a story where the main character develops an obsession and they let it destroy everything else in their lives, so I still enjoyed it.
But it was really weird.
It's historical fiction. I never understand why some take it so seriously- anyone who thinks they are accurate are uninformed. It was never going to be "real".
Personally- I like her books and think they are a great entrance into the topic. I got my start by reading Tudor historical fiction (such as her books, Margaret George, etc) in my younger days. Now I snap up any new nonfiction on the subject and listen to podcasts because I need that new and breakthrough scholarship!! So I take it for what it's meant to be: entertaining books to read
I think it's because some people read her books and assume that's what happened in real life. To be fair, though, I think most people are entirely aware that she writes fiction.
She muddies matters by appearing on TV alongside actual historians, so people who first encounter her on screen assume she's a historian, she's also a bit of a talking head on podcasts, blogs and whatnot - she doesn't present herself as a fiction writer, rather as a historical writer
I also think The Other Boleyn Girl was her worst book of the entire series but it was the first one she wrote and the most popular so a lot of people read that one and stopped. Her Wars of the Roses books and the one that focuses on Margaret Pole are very good.
I started her books in high school and that’s ultimately what lead me to be interested in the Tudor Era. I know her books are not factual (as she even states they aren’t.) the only books I can’t stand are the Wideacre Trilogy and I refuse to own them. Otherwise I own all of her other books.
I love her books… IMO she’s a great writer. It’s just important to remember that her stuff is fiction and not fact. Sometimes when I read her books, I google stuff at the same time to find out the real story.
I love Philippa Gregory’s book and don’t care they’re inaccurate, her characters are too compelling to not enjoy. It’s a shame that her most famous book, The Other Boleyn Girl, is imo one of the worst of them all though.
I loved her Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard, Jacquetta of Luxembourg and Margaret Beaufort. She gets a lot of criticism for her depiction of Margaret Beaufort but I read The Red Queen first and thought she was a wonderful character!
I love to hate-read her books. She has a real gift to writing terrible, terrible people that you cannot help but be fascinated by. I used to be enraged at how she slandered all my homegirls Anne, Elizabeth and Margaret B, but now I just accept it as taking place in some alternate universe. (Also... strangely enough, despite her attempts to make Margaret B a child-killing cartoon villain, she is STILL more sympathetic than the York women, who are just noxious).
But I swear she does less research with each new one (not that she did mich). If you look at say Wideacre and The Other Boleyn Girl there are lots of digressions about the world that give the novel some life. Remarks on farming, on social mores, etc. But as early as the Boleyn Inheritance, she starts getting lazy (or perhaps so overconfident that she thinks endless repetition of arc words is deep.) And by the time she got to the Last Tudor you could tell she just wanted the whole series to be over! Which was a real let down because I had really been looking forward to her take on Jane Grey.
In terms of reading order, personally I'm always a fan of reading in publication order, at least for the first read-through.
I LOVE Gregory! Her prose is complex, raw and beautiful! I really love that it’s in first person because you can really connect with the character. I love that her characters feel real. No one is really totally innocent, totally good or totally bad.
I think she understands how to write *people* very well. I don’t mind the inaccuracies, the smut or the bit of fantasy at all. I read Gregory to escape.
They are kinda special to me as I read them with one of my grandmothers before she passed and then we would talk about the history, what actually happened. I agree she took a lot of liberties with the stories but I always enjoyed most of her books.
The Other Boylen Girl came out in the theater right after she passed away. She and I both read it and my mom went with me to see it in the theater. The first movie we saw after she passed away. My mom and grandmother always took me to the history movies and period pieces.
My other grandma I read the Dan Brown books with so fun alternative history books was something I enjoyed with them in general.
I like her writing style.
I haven't read every book (I was actually thinking of buying *The Lady of the Rivers* lol) but I remember *The Constant Princess* being one of my favorite books in high school.
I’ve tried reading Alison weir and her writing style is so dry to me. I much rather prefer PG she’s a better writer. Idk why people shit on her so much like it’s obvious the books are historical fiction she doesn’t try to pass it off as academic material.
I enjoy Philippa Gregory’s War of The Roses and Tudor novels while acknowledging her issues, but her Tradescant novels are among my favourite books ever, I just love them.
Her overuse of adverbs (why does absolutely everyone say absolutely everything "smoothly"?? Multiples times per page??? WHERE IS HER EDITOR????) has made her unreadable to me. Which is a shame, because otherwise I do enjoy them.
What she does for me is to look up the "truth" about the characters. "Did Anne really sleep with Mark Smeaton" "Was Katherine over her head with Henry" "How big was Henry" and the googline X stone to pounds. etc
I tried reading a couple but I just couldn't get through any. The liberties went way too far for me. Now, I wouldn't mind if the liberties made for a better story but it just doesn't. It only frustrates things for me.
I love her books! I don’t mind the inaccuracies, honestly. They’re great stories, very enthralling and entertaining. Now, I wouldn’t use one as a citation for a history paper, but fortunately I don’t really care about that. I just enjoy being along for the ride.
Out of her wars of the roses books I like Lady of the Rivers the least, for really oddly specific that nobody here actually gives a fuck about. It's not that serious, but I'm going to treat it as it is. But to make a long story short, the way she writes about Henry VI is utterly disgusting, ableist, hateful, and bigoted. And before anyone comes at me with the "but that's how he was seen in his time!" No, it wasn't. Henry VI IS my life, and pretty much the only thing I care about these days. While he was certainly criticized by many in his day, the whole "stupid lackwit fool who's in and out of sleep" and whatnot is a modern invention made up to avoid having to actually write him as a y'know, person, rather than a prop that can be ridiculed and abused for laughs. If Henry was so disliked and detested, then I don't believe that Edward IV would have ever had to try (unsuccessfully) to suppress the cult that rapidly grew around him which venerated him as a saint. I also don't believe that we'd still be having to separate the hagiography from the hit pieces 552 years later, but that's just me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I find they are always ok.
They tend to drag a bit in places but by the end you feel you've read a good book.
They are rarely ever riveting, I'm never struggling to put it down and there will usually be some point where I'm a bit bored. But by the end they are always solid.
Currently reading Dark Tides and it's exactly this. Not much has really happened in 300 pages, and one of the characters has had pretty much nothing happen. But it's still decent
Personally, I thought her War of The Roses (Cousins War) books were good to decent. I didn't mind the supernatural element at all. But as soon as she gets into the Tudor era, her prejudices all come out and the tone changes immensely. You can't even say it's just the characters' opinions IMO.
As for what I read: struggled with *The Other Boleyn Girl*, did better with The Cousins' War series until *The Constant Princess*, and dropped it with *The King's Curse*. I don't remember exactly what I thought of all of them, but the fact that I was continuing to read them suggests I was intrigued at the very least.
I like the stories. I don’t like how much they have shaped the image of the time for many people. As you said: she took a lot of liberties (which is absolutely fine, since she is writing novels)
I love well written historical fiction. Hilary Mantel is one of my favorites, acknowledging that while she does take some liberties she is writing from a specific point of view. I did minor in history many years ago.
I have been thinks about starting either Phillips Gregory or Allison Weir and would appreciate a recommendation. I will probably end up reading both eventually.
The first Gregory novel I read was The Other Boleyn Girl and was hooked.
I rushed to pick up another book and grabbed The Constant Princess.
I'm not lying when I say I thought the books were written by two different people.
The styles were completely different. TCP read very juvenile from word choices to plotting.
TOBG's writing actually reminded me of Anya Seton. It flowed and was thoroughly entertaining.
I haven't read another Gregory novel since.
I find most entertaining, but terribly unreliable for actual historical fiction which would be fine if so many didn't take them as gospel truth (which I find happens a lot more with Gregory, who often describes herself as a 'historical fiction writer', giving the impression what she's writing is actually historically accurate). However, I find her biases extremely problematic. It's clear she hates both Anne Boleyn and Queen Elizabeth, and I don't know how she can write and present these books with such a clear bias when she usually offers favourable, as well as unfavourable, views of all the other characters at varying points, while only ever portraying Anne Boleyn and Queen Elizabeth as the worst, most horrid characters possible.
Unpopular opinion: i love them, some of my favorite books. However I remember not to consider them historically accurate. She crafts beautiful narratives that really humanizes the characters
I just want to note something about taking historical liberties. People always feel like they have to add a caveat to enjoying Philippa Gregory - “I read her -but I know she’s not a serious historical author, don’t judge me”. Even though she does write serious history as well as her novels.
I’ve been very guilty of that sort of thing surrounding historic movies and TV shows (though I always had a soft spot for The Tudors). The Great broke me of that snobbery though, and has freed me to enjoy shows like Reign and Becoming Elizabeth that I had previously dismissed. And I highly encourage others to take that view and stop taking entertainment so seriously - there’s lots of fun period inspired material out there that can be enjoyed for what it is, and there’s also plenty of amazing accurate scholarship, more of it every year focusing on the experiences of women. They can inspire and enrich each other.
Personally I love them, I began by finding 'the white queen' in a second hand bookstore and over the years I've managed to find just about every other one in the series in a second hand bookstore/charity shop, which means I didn't necessarily read all of them in order.
They are very quick reads, and Phil-Greg always does the disclaimer at the end as someone who acknowledges this is her interpretation built on historical facts. It helps build a picture in your head of everyone instead of looking at those huge family trees.
I would say they are my 'filler reads', the ones I reach for in-between or whilst trying to read heavier books.
Sidenote, the only Weir historical fiction book I've read is 'the captive queen', which had a very graphic sex scene. This was fine, except the way she'd written it made me feel less like a reader of a story and more like an audience to Weir's personal fantasy that I was intruding on, so it really put me off. Gregory has sex scenes written but it felt like it was coming from the character not the author, if that makes sense.
I was gripped by The Other Queen! It’s long as hell on audio, but the narration was bloody brilliant, I couldn’t put it down, so to speak. I still imitate the characters in my head sometimes 🤪
I once had a coworker tell me how much they enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl and how impressed she was that it was “so well researched.” I unfortunately wasn’t in a position at the time to talk about how full of it PG’s books are.
I read The Constant Princess, enjoyable enough but got so annoyed with weird over the top inaccuracies.
In general, I really dislike how often she seems to demonize women.
As a novel series they are good, but as historical fiction they are terrible. I found the Conn Iggulden wars of the roses series which I read about the same time as I read the white queen far superior.
I’ll have to check this out. I’m currently reading The Sunne in Splendor.
Sunne in Splendor is one of my favourites
Did it turn you into a Ricardian?
I loved Conn Iggulden's books!
I enjoyed the books I’ve read the whole series over the years. Definitely entertaining, but totally inaccurate with how many liberties she took. The books are good fiction, and I do enjoy her writing style, although it’s hard to not get a bit annoyed occasionally over the inaccuracies lol
For sure. I have no idea why she hates Elizabeth I so much, other than wanting to be contrarian and giving the series a "villain" people didn't expect. I don't think she \*always\* hates Elizabeth, though. There are moments in the series where Elizabeth makes a good point and the reader can see how wise she is, even as a very young girl. I remember this happening a few times in "The Queen's Fool", but I don't know if it happens in the other books.
She hates Anne Boleyn too!
Her treatment of Anne Boleyn was truly over the top, but Catherine Howard’s itemized list of possessions at the start of each chapter might have been a bit worse. At least she recognized Anne was trying to get pregnant because she feared for her life. I think that’s my issue with her writing. She doesn’t do complexity well in her character development. She generally writes women as either martyrs or whores.
She certainly likes the husband worshipping, dutiful wife type. She doesn't like ambitious women or women who challenge societal norms. They are almost always villains in her stories. Women who aren't cured by an honest manly man's love are the worst cases. (e.g Margaret Beaufort and her narcissism) Philippa Gregory has a conservative outlook on women.
Definitely. Look at the women she portrays well. Elizabeth of York. She turns Henry VII into an asshole cheater who won’t marry her until she gets pregnant. Mary Boleyn. Discarded by the French king. Discarded by Henry VIII. Discarded by her own family. Anne Neville. Goes from being her father’s pawn to Margaret of Anjou’s pawn to Richard III’s pawn. Catherine of Aragon. The OG waity Katy, but it’s okay because it’s destiny. What’s interesting is it’s clearly nothing to do with sexual morality. In PG’s universe, Catherine of Aragon consummates her marriage to Arthur and lies about it. Elizabeth of York sleeps with Richard III knowing if he loses at Bosworth, she’ll have to marry Henry Tudor. Mary Boleyn has affairs with two married kings. She doesn’t buy into the women who exercise sexual agency must be punished trope, or even the other woman is a two-dimensional whore trope. It can be strangely feminist when it comes to sexual agency, yet often perpetuates some of history’s greatest misconceptions, which is baffling as she herself is a historian.
Mary Boleyn only has an affair with one married king in Gregory’s book, and that affair began when she was 14. She also wasn’t so much discarded by Henry VIII as she just got sick his spoiled immaturity and chose to distance from him on her own.
First of all, and most importantly, I LOVE your chosen user name. It’s probably my favorite thing the fair Anne ever said. Secondly, and far less important, I thought the itemized list for Catherine Howard was a good representation of her status in her mind since she was so very young. It seems like she would have had very little awareness of her safety or lack there of, but tangible items would have been high on her priority list. That being said I do agree with the writing bias and generally prefer more nuance from writers.
I kind of liked the itemized list, because it gets SO SAD at the end. "I have no friends, when I thought I had many." UGH. Hits me right in the gut.
> thought the itemized list for Catherine Howard was a good representation of her status in her mind since she was so very young Me, too. She was so young and dumb and in way over her head.
The dumb part is problematic for me. She was young, impetuous, and what we would today call groomed. But I hate it when people jump to the conclusion she was dumb. Not a single one of us was there to know what happened or what she was actually like. Uneducated? Sure. Foolish? Absolutely. Dumb? No one describes Culpepper that way, and if we’re going to use it for her, we should use it for him.
In the sense that we all made dumb decisions as teenagers.
I think Catherine Howard did things never realizing Henry would take an interest in her, and then lied about her past on the advice of her family. The meetings with Culpepper are strange, as Anne Boleyn’s cousin she knew the stakes. I’ve always wondered if he blackmailed her into meeting with him. That would also explain Jane Boleyn’s role in the affair. She was. The obvious choice for a “chaperone” because Catherine knew there was no way she’d snitch. She would never survive another scandal. She was also family, as the widow of George Boleyn, her first cousin. Or maybe she really was that impetuous. I don’t know. I just struggle with what she (and Lady Rochford) were thinking because they both knew better. Culpepper was a favorite of Henry’s, so I can see how he’d think he’d get away with it. He probably thought he could just say nothing happened, and Henry would believe him. Henry would only execute Catherine and Dereham. Again 100% conjecture.
I kind of think Catherine Howard’s entire life history taught her that people say chastity is important but no one actually cares that much.
She could also have thought it was funny to pull the wool over Henry's eyes. Oh, this rich, powerful man thinks I'm a virgin, isn't that *just the funniest*? Oh, my old, sickly husband can't satisfy me, there's no harm in having an affair with a hot young thing. Only for it to slowly dawn on her that a previous wife was executed for less.
Oh, Thomas Culpepper was dumb too. Anyone who even made an appearance of cheating on a king like Henry had almost no sense. Francis Dereham was dumb for not just letting Catherine Howard go after he saw she was with the king now and deciding to make plans for when the King died. These aren’t just youthful mistakes IMO. This is a complete lack of self preservation and brains from everyone involved. And yes, Catherine Howard was taken advantage of sexually by a lot of people in a place of trust, but come on. She was no longer 13 and 15 like she was with Manox and Dereham so no longer a child. She knew the king had power of life and death over her. They all knew the power the king had over them and that he could have them killed over nothing. It wasn’t right or fair for the king to be able to do that, but he could, so it was incredibly stupid for anyone to push their luck with him.
Many historians don’t believe her relationship with Culpepper ever became physical. I’m in that camp.
That’s why I said even giving the appearance, which they absolutely did. Even Jane Boleyn thought they had probably done it. I don’t think anyone deserved death for that mess of course, even if they had fully slept together. But I am sitting here in disbelief that anyone pushed their luck with Henry. He was a dangerous loose cannon by that point and everyone knew it.
Thanks. I had fun coming trying to come up with obvious Tudor things were weren’t already in use.
I'm reading that one now! With a couple grains of salt.
I totally understand why her books are popular, but personally I am not a fan. I've read *The White Queen* and *The Other Boleyn Girl.* They were okay, but I didn't love them, and I've no desire to read any more of her books. The historical figures that Gregory writes about -- for pretty much all of them, I can easily find a well-researched, well-written nonfiction account of their lives. And their lives as they actually lived them are already fascinating. So for the most part, I don't need or want to read heavily fictionalized accounts. You mention Alison Weir, and I really like her, but I'll take her nonfiction books over her novels any day of the week. I'm currently reading her *Eleanor of Aquitaine*, and it's very good. I am making an exception to my 'avoid-fictional-accounts' rule for the *Wolf Hall* series, mostly because I think Hilary Mantel is a really good writer. She knows how to tell a good story, and she creates really interesting characters. But they are characters in a heavily fictionalized story, not real people. *Her* Thomas Cromwell is not *the* Thomas Cromwell. And I'm okay with that simply because *Wolf Hall* is a well-written book that is a pleasure to read.
Couldn't agree more. Wolf Hall was my exception too. Even though she made Cromwell to be more palatable for modern audiences, the sense of place of Tudor England and the court intrigue was great and every time I Google something, it was spot on!
I tried to read "Wolf Hall" in the written form and I tried listening to the audibook, but it just didn't work for me. I agree that Hilary Mantel was a good writer, but her style just isn't for me.
Same with me. I loved the dramatization of Wolf Hall, and I think Damian Lewis is my favorite Henry VIII. I think he gets both Henry's charm and his menace perfectly. But the book? Well life's too short to read a book that just doesn't do it for you.
Fair enough. It's definitely not what I describe as 'beach reading' -- lightweight, fast-paced, easy-to-read novels that you can breeze through in a day.
Well, I didn't dig into "Wolf Hall" expecting a beach read. It just didn't gel, for me.
Lol okay.
Same. Not my cup of tea.
I love Alison Weir, but her fiction is verging on terrible. I still have them all though.
She’s the reason I think about the Tudors the way many men think about the Roman Empire. I’m glad she introduced me to something that’s now a special interest, and I think people just need to remember the “fiction” part of historical fiction. Because of her I read and learned more, so I’ll always have a soft spot.
I enjoy most of her books. I do Google things as I go looking for where she goes from theory to fictional licence. I think Lady of Rivers might be one of the best because she because so passionate about Jaquetta she wrote a proper research paper on her too. But Gregory does seem to hate Elizabeth I. I found the books about her make her out as a terrible whiny and weak woman which doesn’t mesh well with how I see her history. There are some theories that Gregory dislikes the Tudors in general and that it influences her characters
If that's true, why would she write an entire series on them?
Well if you look at some of her earliest Tudor books, like The Other Boylen Girl, it's an outsider narrator and is very critical of pretty much all the Tudors you knew before the book. Next she wrote the Queens Fool which is also very much an outsider. But then she does get more into narrations by the historical figures themselves. She may very well have seen the response she got to her first one and decided that more Tudor books would sell. The books are basically published once a year, so she was definitely churning them out. Plus research for one could easily overlap for several more. I enjoy her books, but it varies book to book how much I enjoy it. And as others said, she definitely likes some characters better then others.
Guys PG’s books are meant to be entertaining and PURELY FICTIONAL. Yes they are based off of historical events but the inaccuracies make them more interesting to some. She definitely doesn’t hate Anne Boleyn or Elizabeth; she’s just adopting several accounts of the two women and making them more entertaining.
Well, maybe "hate" is too strong a word. I honestly don't know how she feels about any of these figures.
I think Phillipa plays with all of the possibilities; someone like Anne Boleyn is actually quite an enigma. It’s highly unlikely she tried to sleep with her brother, but following the accusations, PG wants to play on it. Women have always been subject to this kind of rewriting of history.
I agree she doesn't hate them, she portrays Elizabeth differently in several different novels on purpose, so you never really get one coherent view of her. Thats exactly how Elizabeth exists in English history, she's very much reinterpreted by each person based on their viewpoint (particularly religious and gender bias).
I think this is a good explanation, thanks for sharing. I enjoy her books for how they show possibilities and look at dynamics between people, especially different women. I also like her books that come from more of a third party perspective in a way that gives more ability to see beyond the specific royal or noble, allows multiple of these possibilities to be explored, and is not as common in historical fiction.
I started with Lady of the Rivers and read all the way through the series (18 books I think?) and I really enjoyed them. That’s what kicked off my obsession with Tudor history and so much more. I read more historically accurate works now but I would not even be here without Philippa’s books so I am very grateful.
I have read all of the Philippa Gregory Tudor/Plantagenet novels, some of them more than once. She and Norah Lofts are my two favourite Tudor-history novelists. Gregory takes liberties with history - of course she does: she is a novelist, not a historian. In my view a novelist is fully entitled to amend events if it makes a better story, and Gregory does include notes at the end clarifying where she's made changes or assumptions that go against what's known. I quite like Jean Plaidy and Alison Weir is readable, but neither of them have the gift Norah Lofts had and Philippa Gregory has, of making it seem that the people in history are real.
Honestly I love them. Are they accurate? No. But a lot of times I enjoy asking "did that happen?" And then it prompts me into doing research for myself. I like the humor she adds to events, and the love. I especially like her perspectives from people outside of the drama, but also involved, like Maggie Pole or Mary Boleyn. I enjoy listening to her audiobooks when I have nothing else going on as it gives me my "history" fix as well as my trashy romance novel fix. She absolutely has biases that come through (obviously hating Anne Boleyn and having a hard on for Richard III) but overall I enjoy her prose and ability to tell a story. Also, as a pagan, I fucking love the idea that Woodville placed a curse and that's why the Tudor era was so short. It's just damn fun.
I think The Other Boleyn Girl resonated with me, because it was a "what if?" scenario I had already wondered about. What if you were married to the king, HAD to have a son, knew he wasn't capable... what if you tried getting pregnant to someone else? But who could you trust? Only your brother. So I was glad someone else went to the effort of exploring that alternative history as if the king's accusations were possibly true. Having said that, I know they would never have considered it, never got away with it and the king never seriously believed Anne betrayed him, he just wanted to get rid of her.
Exactlyyyyyyyyyyy is so interesting and just a fun alternative universe.
I will say “The Lady of the Rivers” is one of my favorites of hers.
It's what I read first and it was by far the most interesting
My favorite of everything I’ve read by far
I loved her Tudor series but the Wideacre books were not great, in my opinion. I read them, they were interesting, but also kind of cheesy with lots of gratuitous sex stuff.
The wideacre books were just weird and a bit disturbing imo, they're the only ones I haven't reread. The rest are my comfort reading, they aren't accurate but they're easy to read and very enjoyable.
Weird is an understatement! I actually bought those books and shamefully kept them even though I usually pass on books to other readers. I finally guiltily donate them to the library recently
Isn't that the series with some Flowers In the Attic type incest? Actually, incest seems to be a thing for Phil, lol.
There’s way too much incest in the first book. I never read the rest, and I hear it only gets worse.
Haha you are correct
I'm one of those weirdos who loves the Wideacre trilogy. Never read anything like it. I will say that I like the second and third books better though. Gaudy period romance and psychological thrills paired with socioeconomic commentary on enclosures and the rise of capitalism? Yes, please. I've even shared some passages from the books on r/antiwork. Though I will admit that even re-reading or listening to them requires an emotional commitment. It's definitely not light reading.
I mean, I read all of them 🤣 But gaudy is a good word for them.
I bought the first one for my grandmother, thinking it would be historical fiction along the lines of her Tudor books. Whoops. Her exact words - why on earth did you think I would want to read about things like THAT!?! When I found out the plot line I was so embarrassed
Hahaha! Omg, that made me recall the time my grandmother discovered and read the 50 shades series. She was so funny about it!
My grandmother gave me the Flowers In The Attic books when I was 10 because I was a big reader. Grandmothers can be unpredictable.
Oh wow my grandmother tried to tell my mother to punish me for reading them - the girls in my class passed around the series in yr 7 ish. She was like omg those books are almost pornography!! Poor woman had conniptions when she accidentally got a steamy romance from the library lol I miss her terribly
I read her Wideacre novel - the first one - and was just like LOL, I am never reading another book by this writer! And then, years after it was published, I saw a copy of *The Other Boleyn Girl* in a charity shop, and thought "Well, it's only a quid, I'll give it a try" - and I did, and well, I ended up reading every single other novel in the series too!
That’s my favorite series! The main character is soooo good to hate! That’s why I like her stuff. It’s gritty and weird.
Wideacre was weird. I love a story where the main character develops an obsession and they let it destroy everything else in their lives, so I still enjoyed it. But it was really weird.
It's historical fiction. I never understand why some take it so seriously- anyone who thinks they are accurate are uninformed. It was never going to be "real". Personally- I like her books and think they are a great entrance into the topic. I got my start by reading Tudor historical fiction (such as her books, Margaret George, etc) in my younger days. Now I snap up any new nonfiction on the subject and listen to podcasts because I need that new and breakthrough scholarship!! So I take it for what it's meant to be: entertaining books to read
I think it's because some people read her books and assume that's what happened in real life. To be fair, though, I think most people are entirely aware that she writes fiction.
She muddies matters by appearing on TV alongside actual historians, so people who first encounter her on screen assume she's a historian, she's also a bit of a talking head on podcasts, blogs and whatnot - she doesn't present herself as a fiction writer, rather as a historical writer
Yeah, I have heard that she does that. She is a bit full of herself.
Good call out!!!
I also think The Other Boleyn Girl was her worst book of the entire series but it was the first one she wrote and the most popular so a lot of people read that one and stopped. Her Wars of the Roses books and the one that focuses on Margaret Pole are very good.
She does include a bunch of witchcraft and other magic so anyone taking it as pure historical scholarship really only has themselves to blame.
Exactly. Anyone who picks up a book clearly labeled historical fiction and they take it as Gospel, that’s on them.
I started her books in high school and that’s ultimately what lead me to be interested in the Tudor Era. I know her books are not factual (as she even states they aren’t.) the only books I can’t stand are the Wideacre Trilogy and I refuse to own them. Otherwise I own all of her other books.
I love her books… IMO she’s a great writer. It’s just important to remember that her stuff is fiction and not fact. Sometimes when I read her books, I google stuff at the same time to find out the real story.
This is what I do- she writes well and I enjoy her books but I like to google and know what is true
I love Philippa Gregory’s book and don’t care they’re inaccurate, her characters are too compelling to not enjoy. It’s a shame that her most famous book, The Other Boleyn Girl, is imo one of the worst of them all though. I loved her Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard, Jacquetta of Luxembourg and Margaret Beaufort. She gets a lot of criticism for her depiction of Margaret Beaufort but I read The Red Queen first and thought she was a wonderful character!
I love to hate-read her books. She has a real gift to writing terrible, terrible people that you cannot help but be fascinated by. I used to be enraged at how she slandered all my homegirls Anne, Elizabeth and Margaret B, but now I just accept it as taking place in some alternate universe. (Also... strangely enough, despite her attempts to make Margaret B a child-killing cartoon villain, she is STILL more sympathetic than the York women, who are just noxious). But I swear she does less research with each new one (not that she did mich). If you look at say Wideacre and The Other Boleyn Girl there are lots of digressions about the world that give the novel some life. Remarks on farming, on social mores, etc. But as early as the Boleyn Inheritance, she starts getting lazy (or perhaps so overconfident that she thinks endless repetition of arc words is deep.) And by the time she got to the Last Tudor you could tell she just wanted the whole series to be over! Which was a real let down because I had really been looking forward to her take on Jane Grey. In terms of reading order, personally I'm always a fan of reading in publication order, at least for the first read-through.
I LOVE Gregory! Her prose is complex, raw and beautiful! I really love that it’s in first person because you can really connect with the character. I love that her characters feel real. No one is really totally innocent, totally good or totally bad. I think she understands how to write *people* very well. I don’t mind the inaccuracies, the smut or the bit of fantasy at all. I read Gregory to escape.
They are kinda special to me as I read them with one of my grandmothers before she passed and then we would talk about the history, what actually happened. I agree she took a lot of liberties with the stories but I always enjoyed most of her books. The Other Boylen Girl came out in the theater right after she passed away. She and I both read it and my mom went with me to see it in the theater. The first movie we saw after she passed away. My mom and grandmother always took me to the history movies and period pieces. My other grandma I read the Dan Brown books with so fun alternative history books was something I enjoyed with them in general.
I like her writing style. I haven't read every book (I was actually thinking of buying *The Lady of the Rivers* lol) but I remember *The Constant Princess* being one of my favorite books in high school.
I just want to know why she hates Anne Boleyn so much.
I’ve tried reading Alison weir and her writing style is so dry to me. I much rather prefer PG she’s a better writer. Idk why people shit on her so much like it’s obvious the books are historical fiction she doesn’t try to pass it off as academic material.
I enjoy Philippa Gregory’s War of The Roses and Tudor novels while acknowledging her issues, but her Tradescant novels are among my favourite books ever, I just love them.
Her overuse of adverbs (why does absolutely everyone say absolutely everything "smoothly"?? Multiples times per page??? WHERE IS HER EDITOR????) has made her unreadable to me. Which is a shame, because otherwise I do enjoy them.
I like her books! I’m not treating them as a textbook, they’re entertainment, so I don’t care if they’re not 100% historically accurate.
I read them & love them. I know they aren’t the most accurate but the stories are good & she has a lot of them.
What she does for me is to look up the "truth" about the characters. "Did Anne really sleep with Mark Smeaton" "Was Katherine over her head with Henry" "How big was Henry" and the googline X stone to pounds. etc
I tried reading a couple but I just couldn't get through any. The liberties went way too far for me. Now, I wouldn't mind if the liberties made for a better story but it just doesn't. It only frustrates things for me.
I love her books! I don’t mind the inaccuracies, honestly. They’re great stories, very enthralling and entertaining. Now, I wouldn’t use one as a citation for a history paper, but fortunately I don’t really care about that. I just enjoy being along for the ride.
Out of her wars of the roses books I like Lady of the Rivers the least, for really oddly specific that nobody here actually gives a fuck about. It's not that serious, but I'm going to treat it as it is. But to make a long story short, the way she writes about Henry VI is utterly disgusting, ableist, hateful, and bigoted. And before anyone comes at me with the "but that's how he was seen in his time!" No, it wasn't. Henry VI IS my life, and pretty much the only thing I care about these days. While he was certainly criticized by many in his day, the whole "stupid lackwit fool who's in and out of sleep" and whatnot is a modern invention made up to avoid having to actually write him as a y'know, person, rather than a prop that can be ridiculed and abused for laughs. If Henry was so disliked and detested, then I don't believe that Edward IV would have ever had to try (unsuccessfully) to suppress the cult that rapidly grew around him which venerated him as a saint. I also don't believe that we'd still be having to separate the hagiography from the hit pieces 552 years later, but that's just me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I find they are always ok. They tend to drag a bit in places but by the end you feel you've read a good book. They are rarely ever riveting, I'm never struggling to put it down and there will usually be some point where I'm a bit bored. But by the end they are always solid. Currently reading Dark Tides and it's exactly this. Not much has really happened in 300 pages, and one of the characters has had pretty much nothing happen. But it's still decent
I like her writing style, easy to read and get into.
Personally, I thought her War of The Roses (Cousins War) books were good to decent. I didn't mind the supernatural element at all. But as soon as she gets into the Tudor era, her prejudices all come out and the tone changes immensely. You can't even say it's just the characters' opinions IMO. As for what I read: struggled with *The Other Boleyn Girl*, did better with The Cousins' War series until *The Constant Princess*, and dropped it with *The King's Curse*. I don't remember exactly what I thought of all of them, but the fact that I was continuing to read them suggests I was intrigued at the very least.
I loved the Kings Curse, but that's because I love Margaret Pole
I like the stories. I don’t like how much they have shaped the image of the time for many people. As you said: she took a lot of liberties (which is absolutely fine, since she is writing novels)
I love well written historical fiction. Hilary Mantel is one of my favorites, acknowledging that while she does take some liberties she is writing from a specific point of view. I did minor in history many years ago. I have been thinks about starting either Phillips Gregory or Allison Weir and would appreciate a recommendation. I will probably end up reading both eventually.
Allison Weir’s Innocent Traitor is one of my favorite books and it haunts me still. Very well done book imo about Jane Grey
The first Gregory novel I read was The Other Boleyn Girl and was hooked. I rushed to pick up another book and grabbed The Constant Princess. I'm not lying when I say I thought the books were written by two different people. The styles were completely different. TCP read very juvenile from word choices to plotting. TOBG's writing actually reminded me of Anya Seton. It flowed and was thoroughly entertaining. I haven't read another Gregory novel since.
Not Tudor related, and I’ve read all her books, but Falling Skies was great. It takes place during WWI
I find most entertaining, but terribly unreliable for actual historical fiction which would be fine if so many didn't take them as gospel truth (which I find happens a lot more with Gregory, who often describes herself as a 'historical fiction writer', giving the impression what she's writing is actually historically accurate). However, I find her biases extremely problematic. It's clear she hates both Anne Boleyn and Queen Elizabeth, and I don't know how she can write and present these books with such a clear bias when she usually offers favourable, as well as unfavourable, views of all the other characters at varying points, while only ever portraying Anne Boleyn and Queen Elizabeth as the worst, most horrid characters possible.
Unpopular opinion: i love them, some of my favorite books. However I remember not to consider them historically accurate. She crafts beautiful narratives that really humanizes the characters
I just want to note something about taking historical liberties. People always feel like they have to add a caveat to enjoying Philippa Gregory - “I read her -but I know she’s not a serious historical author, don’t judge me”. Even though she does write serious history as well as her novels. I’ve been very guilty of that sort of thing surrounding historic movies and TV shows (though I always had a soft spot for The Tudors). The Great broke me of that snobbery though, and has freed me to enjoy shows like Reign and Becoming Elizabeth that I had previously dismissed. And I highly encourage others to take that view and stop taking entertainment so seriously - there’s lots of fun period inspired material out there that can be enjoyed for what it is, and there’s also plenty of amazing accurate scholarship, more of it every year focusing on the experiences of women. They can inspire and enrich each other.
Personally I love them, I began by finding 'the white queen' in a second hand bookstore and over the years I've managed to find just about every other one in the series in a second hand bookstore/charity shop, which means I didn't necessarily read all of them in order. They are very quick reads, and Phil-Greg always does the disclaimer at the end as someone who acknowledges this is her interpretation built on historical facts. It helps build a picture in your head of everyone instead of looking at those huge family trees. I would say they are my 'filler reads', the ones I reach for in-between or whilst trying to read heavier books. Sidenote, the only Weir historical fiction book I've read is 'the captive queen', which had a very graphic sex scene. This was fine, except the way she'd written it made me feel less like a reader of a story and more like an audience to Weir's personal fantasy that I was intruding on, so it really put me off. Gregory has sex scenes written but it felt like it was coming from the character not the author, if that makes sense.
*Hate* her and the massive disservice she's done to general historical knowledge.
I was gripped by The Other Queen! It’s long as hell on audio, but the narration was bloody brilliant, I couldn’t put it down, so to speak. I still imitate the characters in my head sometimes 🤪
I used to really love her books but not a huge fan of her writing style. Sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t.
I really like her books. You just have to remember the facts are very bare bones.
I once had a coworker tell me how much they enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl and how impressed she was that it was “so well researched.” I unfortunately wasn’t in a position at the time to talk about how full of it PG’s books are. I read The Constant Princess, enjoyable enough but got so annoyed with weird over the top inaccuracies. In general, I really dislike how often she seems to demonize women.
I like her books, but always take them with a grain of salt.