The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory

Philippa Gregory is best known for her bestselling novel The Other Boleyn Girl, the film adaptation of which starred Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johannson. With such an illustrious author, one has high hopes for The Other Queen.

Set in the middle of the 17th century, The Other Queen tells the tale of Mary, Queen of Scots, and that of the Earl of Shrewsbury and Bess of Hardwick, who were tasked with being alternately her hosts and her jailors. In the background powerful characters plot and execute their delicate, complicated schemes within and across borders, lords ride forth with their armies and the Catholic and Protestant faiths battle for footing in Queen Elizabeth’s England.

It is easy to see how new research on the colorful figures of this troubled, romanticized time sparked Ms Gregory’s imagination, and in the Author’s Note she writes as much regarding her two main female protagonists: “Recent work on the queen suggests a very different picture of her from the romantic and foolish woman of the traditional version. I believe she was a woman of courage and determination who could have been an effective queen even of a country as unruly as Scotland.”

And:

“Interestingly…. The new biography by Mary S. Lovell shows Bess laying the foundation of her fortune less as a gold digger and more as a businesswoman and developer with an eye for good investment and management.”

Thus Ms Gregory sets out to bring to light the other side of Queen Mary and Bess of Hardwick…

And entirely fails to do them justice.

The novel shows women at their one-dimensional worst, without relief. Queen Mary is childish rather than elegant and enchanting, obsessed with her own importance and utterly dishonorable. Queen Elizabeth is a fearful, vain and weak ruler. Just about all once-lowborn, shrewish Bess can talk or think about is money.

Barely worth a mention is the Earl of Shrewsbury: a honorable, lovesick fool who keeps harping on and on about his honor, barely-veiled lovesickness and folly, in about that order.

Misuse of the other characters, if not forgivable, might not have been so jarring if the female protagonists had shown a real depth of personality. Throughout the novel, the much maligned Bess forgoes all other dimensions of her indisputably strong character in favor of remaining firmly entrenched in her role as a grasping, spiteful, jealous older woman. Even her virtues of efficiency and diligence are downplayed into ‘un-countess-like behavior’ and considered inelegant and undesirable.

And Queen Mary’s main gift seems to be her angelic beauty, which is reiterated so many times in Ms Gregory’s repetitive writing style that the reader can almost be forgiven for thinking, by the end of the book, that looks are all that make a queen. Nowhere in 556 pages is it evident that she masterminds plots to set herself free, as the other characters imply. Instead, she seems to spend her time waiting around for other people besotted by her beauty, worried by William Cecil’s growing power or driven by avarice for control of England (as opposed to genuine determination to see her in particular on any throne) to think of new schemes to free her. She goes along with these plots one after the other without discrimination, adopting them as ‘her own’, and if she ends up losing the respect of the people, one cannot quite blame William Cecil for encouraging their low opinion of her.

All in all, I find myself far more intrigued with William Cecil, who at least promises to be brilliant and interestingly complex. (That the genius strategy of Philippa Gregory’s Queen Mary, when she meets this worst enemy of hers, is to try to charm him with smiles and coquettish glances, says it all.)

With its picturesque descriptions of the makeshift royal court and the Earl’s estates, The Other Queen is a pleasant enough casual read on a boring Sunday afternoon - but is more than enough to leave a sour taste in your mouth about women in general and queens in particular.

Review by: Alyssa Ng

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