The Virgin's Lover by Philippa Gregory

Book Type: Paperback
Published: 25 April 2005
Publisher: Harper
RRP:£7.99

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The Virgin's Lover by Philippa Gregory
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Review:
Much of the book is satisfying. To a modern reader the four point tension, Elizabeth, her spymaster Cecil, her first great love Robin, and his wife Amy, handles well, with other characters made severely secondary. Though in the case of Blanche Parry, rather too secondary perhaps, more of that below. I did like the early uncertainty by Elizabeth on court procedures, as she had been much shut away; giving the court expert Robin some of his first power base with her. Also their shared horror from being incarcerated in the Tower rings powerfully true. The details of Court life are richly portrayed: for example the almost tribal precedence about eating at meals. The detail on birth control is fascinating. I should have liked rather more ordinary detail of everyday and court dress, harness and names of horses, their training (Robin was Elizabeth's Master of Horse after all) and the physical effects of travel. But over all the general tapestry of period living is well done. The book fails to gradually develop the characters: they stay much the same start to finish apart from Robin who is gradually corrupted and crazed by his family breeding to ambition. That is done well except he speaks too freely of becoming King (since to say so came close to treason). Cecil is peculiarly static, he has a thousand spies right from the coronation date, and is the same detached puppeteer at end as at start. I should have liked to see him acquiring his skills from a lower basis, especially as he is one of the most fascinating pillars of Elizabeth's reign, a mover and shaper to be compared to the later French Richelieu. Amy, the unwanted wife, does change in the course of the book, she deteriorates - logically. But her condition does not mature so that in the second half the passages about her are monotonous and an effort to read. Too much of the same dreariness, though I liked the use of her to explore Tudor religious tension. But Amy is neither pushed to enough extremity to provide interest, nor does she grow and adapt to her situation. The result is repetitive and boring, a rather ordinary depressed wife clinging and clanging like any immature teenager - which she was not. To be fair, her stupidity in loving her husband intensely, yet completely failing to understand who he was and what he needed, is painfully well drawn, and has a tragic inevitability that Gregory shows contributes much to her fate. It is Elizabeth who is the most failed in this book. We find her at the outset of her reign, and it is often emphasised that she was young - mid twenties. But to her contemporaries that was not young, more like a late 30s woman now with all the urgency of the biological clock that suggests. Possibly this mistaken view of her youth brews up her astonishing wimpiness, in a portrait like no Elizabeth to be believed! She barely ever comes up with an idea of her own - extraordinary. Well, yes she has a temper about the way Mass is celebrated but none of the statecraft in the book is hers. Yet this is someone who had played the deadly royal games of Europe since infancy, who knew her politics like the back of her hand, and went on to rule with an astuteness that rivalled her much underestimated grandfather. I became more and more disbelieving that Elizabeth, by now equivalent to a mature 37 or 45 these days; who had survived countless plots, threats to her life, and the perilous royal labyrinth where stupidity meant death, since birth, whose strength of character is a legend over the centuries - this giant of a woman tamely submits to a lover? She might have lived on the edges of the Court at times, and her claim to legitimacy was threatened through some difficult periods, but still she lived most of her life as a high royal lady, well accustomed to command, and thinking, breathing politics. Her own mother had been a political gamester of no small repute (though it is significant that Gregory's book about her dwells mostly on her sexuality). At a critical point in Elizabeth's growing up she was supervised by the formidable Katherine Parr who ruled the country as regent when the infamous Henry, Elizabeth's father, was abroad. Elizabeth was soaked in the arrogance of Tudor majesty, and the considerable scope for Tudor women's power. When Robin interfered with her in State matters she is presented to us as so helplessly lovesick she cannot deny him anything and simply say no. Rubbish! She might have found it difficult in the throes of saexcual passion, but not impossible. Nor is her total inability necessary to the plot - Cecil had plenty of motive to act as Robin's nemesis without author Gregory reducing Elizabeth to a simpering little tart. Where is her famous Tudor temper? We see it in other situations but Robin, when later becoming haughty and overbearing does not fire her anger? Very strange. Repeatedly the Scots Mary using Elizabeth's coat of arms drives her to rage. Yet Robin encroaching blatantly has her sweetly murmuring yes and resorting to deviousness behind his back like any idiot wife fiddling the housekeeping! No no this is not Elizabeth but a modern nincompoop who knows little of the royal habit of having its own way. This is a common flaw in Gregory's books where we meet women well described when dependent, afraid, doomed, helpless but much less strongly written when they have the option to take charge and act in their own right. Gregory may argue that she is exploring an Elizabeth "unmanned" by romantic passion, vulnerable in the first years of her reign. But this does not ring true. Elizabeth learned never, never to permit sex to rule her in her terrible imprisonment after loving Tom Seymour. She had her mother's fate always shadowing her, and that of Kat Howard. More, she had her sister's blighted reign to teach her yet again that female lust cannot be allowed to interfere with her safety and rulership. By the time she came to her affair with Robin her personal self control would have been ironclad. She may have wavered, bowled over very briefly by the sweetness of her Robin, and this would have been a fascinating aspect of the plot. But that could only have been a mater of weeks. At the very first sign of his arrogance interfering with her touchy sense of queenship there would have been a palace storm. History is clear that he remained the subservient partner. No, no one interfered with that lady's right to command. Gregory's books do not draw enough on the power sources between women. She does give us a friend for Amy the abandoned wife which fits well with Tudor households and their female hierarchies. But power centres too much in the men in this - and other Gregory books. In this one as I mentioned, all the political understanding comes from the men, Cecil and Robin, though with some odd bits from the clumsy Amy. This is simply not believable, Elizabeth being who and what she was. But there is also a neglected area close to Elizabeth who though she was jealous of young beautiful women nevertheless fostered strong intellectual relationships with other women. Her brother's court and her own were star points in women's history for scholarly learning and political acumen among women. Most of all I missed the character of Blanche Parry who though mentioned is not brought from the shadows as the staunch friend and older counsellor she was. She was even more loyal than Kat Ashley who is given a small prominence here, as Parry betrayed Elizabeth under questioning, and it was Parry who stayed with Elizabeth during her ordeal in the Tower. Elizabeth certainly felt deeply challenged in her first few years as Queen, but she was never forced to rely solely on the jealous competitive support of the males Cecil and Robin. Blanche was at her side, acting as her secretary, keeper of her books, go-between with Cecil, gatekeeper for her suppliants. But Gregory is not an author who is at her best with either powerful women, or their networks of authority with other women. She shines at sex, dependency, and failure. I happily agree with Gregory's interpretation of Amy's death. She gives us the evidence in fine style without dragging what is after all a novel into too much scholarship. The research is very much there even so. The end of the book is abrupt, truncated. Was her deadline suddenly upon her? We leave our hero sadly exiled, Elizabeth estranged, Cecil cleverly in control. Yet these three remained close for a generation after that so why not give us a chapter on how they managed it? Gregory fails to realise fully that her characters are not just ill starred lovers but the shapers of an age, who went on to work together closely in spite of the passions of the plot she gives us. The story should not have been dumped so suddenly. This book like her others, flawed though it is, is well worth reading. I would not trouble to critique it so carefully if I had not been drawn into it and enjoyed most of it a great deal.