The next book I’m going to write about is
Succession a book by Livi Michael.
I bought this book when I was just browsing
Waterstones in Kingston and they had it down as one of their "biggest
reads" for the summer so I thought I’d give it a go since it's
historical fiction and set in the time of the Wars of the Roses
- a subject I’ve been reading a lot about recently, so here we go!
Set at the commencement of the Wars of the Roses,
Succession is the tale of two Margarets (Margaret of Anjou and Margaret Beaufort)
both who in their own way had a significant impact on history.
The book intertwines the stories of the women with
excerpts from contemporary chronicles giving us a point of view which links the
storytelling with historical accounts written during or just after the events
of the book.
I’ve read a lot of historical fiction recently and
in some books I really feel for Margaret Beaufort and in others I feel particularly
antagonistic towards her - unfortunately in this book she was portrayed as the stereotype
that we have been guided towards throughout history.
In this book I found Margaret Beaufort to be
portrayed as a spoilt woman who was adamant to get her way no matter what and a
woman that was forced into marriage to men that didn't benefit her. One thing I
found interesting from this book is the depiction of Margaret’s first marriage
to John de la Pole. I often wondered on this as it was annulled due to take in
place before her 12th birthday. I like that in this book the author has
attempted to show us her feelings toward this marriage and I particularly found
interesting the fact that possibly she didn't want this marriage to be annulled
and that she could have possibly enjoyed a long happy marriage with this man
this poses the question- had this marriage not been annulled would there have
been aTudor dynasty? Could the entire course of British history been
different? However those questions remain unanswered as we find in the book
that the policy of Henry VI found it more expedient to marry her to his half-brother
Edmund and so founded the line which would become the Tudors possibly the most
famous royal family in British history.
I also found that in this book Livi Michael has opted to
depict Margaret Beaufort’s relationship with Jasper Tudors as tumultuous when
so many other historical novels set in the period, as well as television series’,
portray Margaret as being in love with Jasper.
The other main character in this book is of course Margaret
of Anjou - wife of henry VI - the woman who took on the might of The York’s in
the place of her comatose husband.
In many
books that I have read I have been simply unable to like the person of Margaret
of Anjou, however in this book she has been portrayed sympathetically, possibly
since this book focuses on the earlier part of her marriage and reign and
before she became the she-wolf commonly portrayed.
At first
glance this book appears to be another long chronicle of the wars of the roses.
Don’t be misled by the synopsis which appears on the cover “Succession tells the thrilling, bloody story of the fall of the House
of Lancaster and the rise of the Tudor dynasty.”
In fact this book provides an in-depth yet
interesting and compelling rendition of the early part of these wars and
actually the fall of the Lancasters and Yorks doesn’t feature in this book as
it ends long before the Tudors claim the throne of England.
As I mentioned earlier in the post the
prose is intertwined with small titbits of chronicles written during or just
after the period and provides a historical viewpoint of the events that are
unfolding in the book.
Overall I would say this book is well
worth a read - it certainly raises many questions and I would recommend anyone
reading this book to look up more information on the period afterwards.
We all know the mnemonic Richard Of York
Gave Battle In Vain for learning the colours of the rainbow and I would encourage
all you readers out there to read more about him and his house of York and
their battles with Lancaster and Tudor, especially after all the recent news
stories that have been published relating to that final battle due to the
remains of Richard iii being found under a car park!!
I would recommend this book to fans of
history, of historical fiction and people who have maybe had their interest
piqued in this period by the recent discoveries.
I give this book six out of 10.
And for anyone that is interested in
finding out more, I have added a couple of links to stories/news articles about
the period.
http://hnn.us/article/156065-who were the Plantagenets
and why should we care?
http://www.royal.gov.uk/historyofthemonarchy/kingsandqueensofengland/theplantagenets/theplantagenets.aspx
http://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/plantagenet_18.htm
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