The Queen's Sorrow
Page 26
Loades, D.M., Mary Tudor: A life (Basil Blackwell, 1989)
Picard, Liza, Elizabeth’s London (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2003; Phoenix, 2004)
Prockter, A., and Taylor, R., The A to Z of Elizabethan London (Harry Margary, Lympne Castle, Kent, in association with Guildhall Library, London, 1979)
Ridley, Jasper, The life and times of Mary Tudor (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973)
Weir, Alison, Children of England: The Heirs of Henry VIII (Jonathan Cape, 1996; Pimlico, 1997)
About the Author
SUZANNAH DUNN is the author of ten books of fiction: Darker Days Than Usual, Quite Contrary, Blood Sugar, Past Caring, Venus Flaring, Tenterhooks, Commencing Our Descent, The Queen of Subtleties, The Sixth Wife, and The Queen’s Sorrow. She lives in Shropshire.
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By the Same Author
Darker Days Than Usual
Quite Contrary
Blood Sugar
Past Caring
Venus Flaring
Tenterhooks
Commencing Our Descent
The Queen of Subtleties
The Sixth Wife
LITERARY CORNER
‘The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.’
EDITH WHARTON
LOOK LIFE IN THE FACE
A Word From The Author
SPREAD THE LIGHT
Things To Think About
IRREPRESSIBLE FRESHNESS
What To Read Next
THE CRITICS OVERLOOK
Reviews for Suzannah Dunn
LOOK LIFE IN THE FACE
‘To be able to look life in the face: that’s worth living in a garret for, isn’t it?’
EDITH WHARTON
‘True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision,’ claimed Edith Wharton. Few would dispute the truth of this statement, yet the process by which such visions are vouchsafed is a mysterious one. What is it that inspires authors to put pen to paper: curiosity, sympathy, passion, obsession? In her own words, Suzannah Dunn reveals what fascinated her about the reign of Mary Tudor …
We shy away from Mary Tudor. If she appears at all in fiction or films, she’s dowdy and earnest if not also vengeful and deluded. Her problem is that she wasn’t glamorous, to say the very least. Worse, for the English, she’s embarrassing: that un-English religious fervour of hers, and the pitifully public nature of her lifetime of humiliations and rejections. And so she was – and still is, almost five hundred years later – eclipsed by the success story: her half-sister, Elizabeth. We all seem to forget Mary’s own considerable claim to fame: she was England’s first-ever ruling queen. And hard though it is to believe it now, she came to the throne amid such jubilation, it’s said, as had never been seen before nor has been since. The English people were championing the underdog, displaying their much-vaunted sense of fair play. Mary – disinherited – had been denied her birthright, and the English people weren’t prepared to tolerate it. Mary’s tragedy was that, in her naivety, she mistook their jubilation for endorsement of her plan to return England to the Catholic faith. Within just five years, this once notably merciful queen was at war with her own people. And there she remains, to this day, as ‘Bloody Mary’.
Into an already tense situation came the hapless Spaniards in Philip of Spain’s entourage. The prince came to marry Mary (his maiden aunt) with his staff of hundreds of Spanish men. Someone had neglected to pass on the information that Mary had appointed a household in readiness for him, for which he was expected to foot the bill. So hundreds of Spanish men pitched up at a palace which had little room and no work for them. They were to discover that England was inhospitable not only in its weather (the summer of 1555 being one of the worst ever known). The English were dead set against their queen’s marriage, which they considered compromised their independence (Spain was the empire) and their fledgling Protestantism. The Spaniards were faced not only with – as they saw it – the Godlessness of the English and the relentlessly bad weather, the lack of fresh food, the legendary drunkenness, but were also overcharged, swindled, attacked and robbed. The prince hadn’t intended to stay long, but then, to everyone’s surprise, the ailing, middle-aged queen announced that she was pregnant and made clear that she expected her new husband to remain by her side …
SUZANNAH DUNN
SPREAD THE LIGHT
‘There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.’
EDITH WHARTON
From Socrates to the salons of pre-Revolutionary France, the great minds of every age have debated the merits of literary offerings alongside questions of politics, social order and morality. Whether you love a book or loathe it, one of the pleasures of reading is the discussion books regularly inspire. Below are a few suggestions for topics of discussion about The Queen’s Sorrow …
Mary Tudor is portrayed in The Queen’s Sorrow as a tragic figure as well as, increasingly, a tyrant. How sympathetic did you find her character? How much of her religious extremism can be explained or even excused by her personal unhappiness and difficult upbringing?
What insight, if any, do you think the author’s portrayal of Mary gives us into other historical figures and the ways in which personal motivations can underwrite the political? Is this a discussion that is relevant to today’s leaders?
The central characters in The Queen’s Sorrow are unfaithful to their spouses. How harshly should they be judged for this? What factors drive the various characters to be unfaithful? Can their actions be excused as a side-effect of the nature of marriage in sixteenth-century England and Spain?
Overall, is religion a destructive or constructive force throughout the novel? To what extent, if any, is the ideological debate in The Queen’s Sorrow relevant to the modern day?
Rafael spends much of the novel feeling uncomfortably ‘foreign’. What does his experience tell us about the sixteenth-century world view, and the ways in which these attitudes have (or haven’t) changed?
Cecily’s position throughout much of the novel is uncertain – she is neither married nor widowed, neither upper nor lower class. Rafael is similarly an outsider. What authority or insight do you think this marginal status gives these two characters? To what extent does this make it easier or more difficult for them to act in their own interests?
What would you have done in Cecily’s position? What would you have done in Rafael’s? Could either of them have acted in a way that might have prevented tragedy?
How responsible is Rafael for the events at the novel’s end? Are his actions motivated by kindness, naivety or an unwillingness to accept the truth? To what extent does his motivation excuse the results of his attempt to intervene on Cecily’s behalf?
IRREPRESSIBLE FRESHNESS
‘A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions (of which its author had quite probably never heard). It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness.’
EDITH WHARTON
If you enjoyed The Queen’s Sorrow, you might be interested in
these other titles from HarperPress …
Bone China by ROMA TEARNE
Grace de Silva, wife of the shiftless but charming Aloysius, has five children and a crumbling marriage. Her eldest son, Jacob, wants desperately to go to England. Thornton, his mother’s favourite, dreams of becoming a poet. Alicia wants to be a concert pianist, and Frieda just wants to remain close to her family. But civil unrest is stirring in Sri Lanka and Christopher, the youngest, is soon caught up in the tragedy that follows. As the decade unfolds, Grace watches helplessly as her family is torn apart and four of her children make the decision to leave. And yet in London, life is not as they expected. Only Thornton’s daughter, Meeka, moves confidently into a world that is full of possibilities. But even she must overcome heartbreak, a terrible mistake and single parenthood before she is finally able to see t
he extraordinary effects of history on her family’s migration.
Published April 2008
The Sisters Who Would be Queen: Katherine, Mary and Lady Jane Grey – A Tudor Tragedy by LEANDA DE LISLE
Lady Jane Grey is an iconic figure in English history. Misremembered as the ‘Nine Days Queen’, she has been mythologized as a child-woman destroyed on the altar of political expediency. Behind the legend, however, was an opinionated adolescent who died a passionate leader, not merely a victim. Growing up in her shadow, Jane’s sisters Katherine and Mary would have to tread carefully to survive. And yet both proved as headstrong as their sister. Beautiful Katherine changed her religion to retain royal favour, then risked everything in a secret marriage that threatened Queen Elizabeth’s throne. Her younger sister Mary, too plain to be considered significant, also fell in love and incurred the queen’s fury. Casting fresh light on Elizabeth’s reign, acclaimed historian Leanda de Lisle brings the tumultuous world of the Grey sisters to life, at a time when a royal marriage could gain you a kingdom – or cost you your head.
Published September 2008
The Piano Teacher by JACICE LEE
It’s 1952 when 32-year-old Claire arrives in Hong Kong with her new (and dull) husband Martin. Using her marriage to escape a bitter mother and non-existent home life in England, Claire takes a position in Hong Kong as piano teacher to Locket, the daughter of wealthy socialite Chinese parents. She swiftly becomes intrigued by the family’s unconventional English driver, the charismatic and mysterious Will Truesdale. As their love affair blossoms, the tensions and intrigues of 1950s Hong Kong are interwoven with events a decade earlier, during the island’s wartime years – another, very passionate, and tragically doomed love affair, Japanese brutality and secrets betrayed.
Published January 2009
The Lace Reader by BRUNONIA BARRY
Towner Whitney comes from a family of Salem women who can read the future in the patterns of lace, and who have guarded a history of secrets for generations. But there is one secret that Towner wants at all costs to avoid, and for seventeen years now she has been ignoring the truths concealed in the folds of the delicate fabric and living a life of careful exile. When she hears that her beloved Great Aunt Eva has gone missing, she must return to her hometown to unpick the mystery surrounding Eva’s disappearance and to face the terrible events that drove her from home and split her family apart, in this taut, gripping, literary page-turner.
Published April 09
Visit www.harpercollins.co.uk for more information.
THE CRITICS OVERLOOK
‘After all, one knows one’s weak points so well, that it’s rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others.’
EDITH WHARTON
Here’s what critics have said about previous books by
SUZANNAH DUNN …
Praise for The Sixth Wife
‘My, what a story … delightfully vulgar and utterly compelling.’
The Times
‘Suzannah Dunn … weaves … a love story that is both moving and believable … of second chances at love, and passion reawakened.’
Telegraph
‘Mesmerising and beautifully written.’
Scotsman
Praise for The Queen of Subtleties
‘Suzannah Dunn is, as ever, a mistress at describing the material world through which her characters move.’
Guardian
‘A boisterous historical recreation.’
Independent
‘The Queen of Subtleties offers a stunningly refreshing way of retelling an old story … I really could not put this one down.’
ALISON WEIR
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First published by HarperPress in 2008
Copyright © Suzannah Dunn 2008
Suzannah Dunn asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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ePub edition September 2008 ISBN-9780007280308
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