The Red Queen (The Cousin's War)

i have to hand it to miss gregory on this book it was far from what i thought it would be like. in the mini series we only get to see margart as an angry women who is set at all cost to have her son henry tudor as the king of england. she is an holier then though person who uses god to get her way. you really dont care much for her watching the mini series. in the book we see how margart became the women in history. at a young age she knew she wanted to be a nun and wanted to learn and go off to live in an convet. being a women in this times her choices did not matter. she has an arranged married at the age of 5, that her mother breaks off when she is 9 so that she can be betrothed to the tudor blood line and be the mother of a future king. at nine she is told she will marry a tudor at the age of 12. at 12 she is sent off to marry edmund tutor and to bare him sons to be line for the english throne. edmund is close to 30 and only wants margret to have sons with. she has a son after edmund is killed and she is barely 13. it is a difficult birth and she nearly dies. her mother then informs her she is to marry again in one year to another man in his 30s, i think henry stafford does love margart, but she is unable to recieve that love because she fills her divine mission from god is to have her son become the next king. she is forced to leave her son with jasper, her deceased husbands brother, whom she does come to love but can not express it due to she has no rights. not even the right to raise her son. stafford is good to margart even though she continues to cross him, a peacefull man at every turn to help jasper and to over throw the current king edward. when jasper is sent into exile her son is given to a york to raise, again margart has no say in her boys life. she prays hours daily and is devoted in her work that she is like joan of arc and it is her holy duty to deliver england from the yorks and back into lancasters hands. when lord stafford is killed fighting for york, margart enters into yet another marriage with lord stanly in hopes of him helping her to get into the kings good graces and getting her son back from exile where he is living with jasper. she is still plotting to get him on the throne. she feels that queen elizabeth uses her looks and is a witch and has trapped her husband into marriage and is envious of her , her entire life. in the end when king edward dies and king richard steals the crown from edwards boys. this giving us the story of the princes of the tower. after reading alot of history i do feel richard did not have anything with these boys deaths, but that margart ordered their deaths so her son would move up the chain to the crown. she used it as gods will. princess elizabeth is promised in marriage to henry tudor and as history is he know that tudor does defeat richard and becomes the first king of the tudor reign of england. we learn so much more about margart in this book and at times you feel so sorry for her, yet she steals that pity back by using god to ok her evil plotting acts on others. she killed two innocent children just so her son could be king and said it was gods will. i really enjoyed this better look into how margart became the person we saw in the white queen. i cant help but wonder if she had been allowed to raise her son and be with jasper would she still have hated as much and been so jealous of elizabeth. would the young prince edward had died or would he have become king. how would history of changed if we had never had the tutor reign. loved this book. if you want to know more of margart you will enjoy this book.

"The Red Queen" is the second in Philippa Gregory's "The Cousins' War" series, following the Plantagenet line as she previously did so successfully with the Tudors.As in most of her other books, she focuses on the journey of one woman through the courtly intrigues of England's royal fortunes and royal families. For me, she has yet to outshine her own successes, "The Other Boleyn Girl" and "The Boleyn Inheritance." I did like this volume more than its companion, "The White Queen.The narrator of the "The Red Queen" is Margaret Beaufort. We begin with her as a child, a child soon to be wed for political gain. The chapters of Margaret's transition from child to wife to mother are conflicted, watching a little girl forced into her marriage bed with a man she barely knows and then enduring a very difficult pregnancy. Her role as brood mare is clear. Early in the book, Margaret's faith, her saints' knees, her fascination with Joan of Arc, add up to an emotional story. She is still half a child, dreaming that her son, a Tudor, will become the King and that she will sign her name, Margaret R, Margaret Regina, the King's Mother. that she loses this husband early is a seeming blessing to Margaret.Gregory writes well of Margaret's fierce love and ambition for this child and the growing influence of her brother-in-law, Jasper Tudor. Eventually, the plague takes her husband, and Margaret remarries to Sir Henry Stafford, she is astounded to be treated well, to have a man who is gentle with her and thinking of her comfort. If only she could take him to heart in the same way. . .Gregory knows the voice when she writes of envy, jealousy, and selfishness. As Margaret's machinations grow, she endangers her husband, her son, and herself. She is dedicated only to the Tudor line, the idea of becoming the Tudor King's Mother. She cannot abstain from her own desires, involving herself in rebellion and revolt to no good avail and to the detriment of thousands of men at war.She remarries after losing Henry to a battle wound. This part of the book is also well-written, with Margaret's pride and selfishness overwhelming and trivializing Henry's condition. Even as he lies dying, she is plotting. (History is history; this should not be seen as a spoiler, I hope)Her next marriage takes her son closer to the throne; the little Princes, Prince Edward of Wales, and Richard III the heartbeats between "her boy" and the throne. How much can she do with her fellow conspirators to destroy what remains between her and her dream?The battle scenes are well choreographed. The simple beauties of the English countryside contrast with the excesses of human contrived fashion and beauty at court and disgusting gore in mud and blood on the battlefield.Gregory puts us into the shoes of a flawed protagonist and untangles the web of York vs. Tudor history.I found a few odd comparisons (Thomas Gray's line, written in 1742 "a flower that wastes its sweetness in the desert air" and "what's done is done" from Shakespeare's "Macbeth,") and the repetition of the word "turncoat" was driving me a little crazy in the latter third of the book, but still, I admit it. I love the ease of reading history I already know through the voices Gregory creates.

Once again, my favorite author knocks it out of the park with her wonderful ability to tell a great story. If you want to know the ins and outs of Plantagenet and Tudor history, Philippa Gregory is a must read. The Red Queen is the story of Margaret Beaufort, the grandmother of King Henry VIII. From page one to the last sentence in the book, Philippa Gregory takes you on a journey where you'll experience the fascinating life of one of history's most iconic queens. Nothing about Margaret Beaufort’s life was easy and the author lets you in on all the wonderful and interesting details about her life. For all those who love historical fiction, I highly recommend this book.

I told someone years ago that I would not touch the job of king with a pointed stick. There is little privacy, a lot of headaches, and always the occasional assassin lurking in the shadows. You have to worry about being poisoned by your cousins, running into a knive in a dark passageway, and put up with mercurial untrustworthy followers. King Edward IV fell ill after dining, dying shortly afterwards (possibly poisoned). His sons, the Princes of the Tower, were murdered, apparently on the orders of their uncle Richard who seized the throne, but who knows - the novel proposes an alternate possibility.There is a long history of fratricide among royal families, and many suspicious deaths.The novel is a well researched fictional account of Margaret Beaufort, the mother of King Henry VII, who wanted her son to be king. The lot of women during that time period is well described. They were treated like thouroughbred breeding stock that were sold like goods in the marketplace. The practice of marrying for position is perhaps summed up by the words, "I do hope that they have not given my son ideas about loving his wife; a man who is to be king can marry only for advantage. A woman of sense would always marry only for the improvement of her family. Only a lustful fool dreeams every night of a marriage of love." Times have obviously changed, and present day Prince William has made his own choice.Margaret Beaufort was sent into a marriage that plunged her into the middle of the intrigues of the era. Her own position in society was dependent on the fortunes of her son. The novel covers the War of the Roses in detail (the author calls it the Cousins War). This was the end of the Age of Chivalry. Captured members of the nobility were no longer held captive, but were executed on the battlefield - the fate of some number of my ancestors of that period. It was interesting finding various ancestors sprinkled through the story. At least one ancestor, Sir Humphrey Bourchier, was slain at Barnet Field.In the end, one could question what anyone gained in the long term. The children of King Henry VIII died without issue. The crown passed down another line descended from Henry VII, and that line also eventually faded away. The crown eventually went to the house of Hanover, an unlikely heir (via a descent of his wife from James I), and continued down to the present - someone can be far down the list for being next in line and still end up being king.Like the historical figures in the novel, my own descent comes down from King Edward III via various pathways including the Beauforts. My ancestors included the Duke of Buckingham executed by King Richard III after he rose up in rebellion. His son was, in turn, executed by King Henry VIII, but that is another story.

If the War of the Roses were decided based on personality, then the "white queen" and the Yorks would have won hands down. Instead, the wars were finally won by the House of Lancaster, symbolized by the red rose and headed, if Philippa Gregory is to be believed, by the most self-righteous nag in history -- Margaret Beaufort, the "red queen."Even allowing for her historical time and place, this woman was delusional. She see herself as an English Joan of Arc and deftly twists every event that takes place to fit her fantasy that god has destined her to become queen. She prays all day, yearns to sign her name "Margaret Rex" and projects all of her own maliciousness and insecurity onto her rival, Elizabeth Woodville, the so-called "white queen," who by the way, is far more interesting.Margaret has a son, Henry, whose claim to the throne is more or less equal to his rivals from the House of York. Cousins all, the Lancasters and the Yorks spend years scheming against one another in a protracted fight over the crown. Through it all, Margaret thinks only of her destiny and that of her son, eschewing friendships, husbands and life in general in favor of obsessing over the kingship. She is, to say the least, a real downer.The red queen being who she apparently was makes it hard to like this novel, even though Philippa Gregory writes well and the book has some interesting turns of plot. As a historical fiction it is actually quite good, but since I could not even begin to like the main character the overall reading experience was mediocre.The first book in this series, The White Queen, was excellent and highly enjoyable. I hope that the third installment recaptures some of the zest of that first novel and helps the Cousins' War series recover from the buzz kill supplied by The Red Queen.

Phiippa Gregory writes these historical women as stupid and insufferable but this is my favorite. I can believe that Margaret Beaufort was insufferable because she would have to be due to the times and her circumstances. Overall it's very entertaining and I find myself rooting for her every time I read this book.

Once more, I found myself unable to put Gregory's book down, and even when I managed to do so, I spent the moments in between yearning to pick it up again. Initially, the lady Margaret was a character to be pitied and one could even venture to say relatable, but as the years go by, she stops being a pitiful little girl who is devalued by society and unloved by her mother and husband, and becomes a bitter, delusional, arrogant, hypocritical woman. By the time she married Henry Stafford, I often wanted to punch her in the face. Her frequent reflections on being favored by God above all--even saying on more than one occasion that she is 'without sin'--made me cringe. I loved the part where Stafford calls her out on her hypocrisy, saying (paraphrased), "It's funny how God's 'will' is all the things YOU want," which causes her to fly off the handle at him. She has an overinflated opinion of herself, and every time she is held accountable for her actions and/or someone else (namely Elizabeth Woodville) gets a better predicament or situation than herself, she questions why someone as favored and without fault as she shouldn't be granted all of her heart's desires. She's obnoxious, and I give Gregory credit for portraying her in a realistic, nonjudgmental way, even to the point that I can see *why* Margaret is the way she is/thinks the way she thinks, regardless of how much I disliked her.Though I'm familiar enough with the Tudor dynasty to know how this book would end, I was not familiar with Margaret Beaufort prior to reading this, so there were some events I didn't see coming. I always enjoy Gregory's writing and her ability to make history come alive. Ultimately, I loved this book, (LOVE the series) despite my disdain for this main character, and am certain I'll be reading it again in the future.

Loved the book!

O livro é muito bom, assim como todos da Phillipa Gregory. Para quem leu The White Queen, você espera mais da personagem principal do Red Queen. Ainda assim, é um livro muito bem construído que prende a atenção do inicio ao fim.

Very informative couple not always recognise when true/fictionAlthough would have liken numbers after referring to names, such as Richard I etcSnowed the strength of woman in such a distant period of time

It must have been a challenge to write from the point of view of such an unlikable character, although I spent a lot of the book feeling sorry for Margaret. Shunned by her mother, married off at twelve, nearly dying of childbirth at thirteen, and used as a pawn in chess, like many women of reasonably high birth at the time.Margaret triumphs and is defeated and humiliated and triumphs again. I loved the mockery from her third husband, Thomas Stanley, who pointed out that if she were really a woman of love, she would have joined her son and Jasper in exile. But she stuck to what she thought was God’s plan and of course, ultimately succeeded.Since most of the book is from Margaret’s POV, a lot of the information is told to us through letters and conversations. That’s with the exception of the epic final battle, which was thrilling despite me knowing the outcome, and bumped this rating up to 3.5.Margaret, bitter and jealous of the beloved Elizabeth Woodsville (the awesome main character of the previous book, The White Queen), pious to the point of nauseating, and thoroughly deserving of many of the things that happened to her (no spoilers though).Another historically rich and interesting tale by Philippa Gregory. I’ll be buying the next one.

Comme toujours, j'ai été emballée par le talent de Philippa Gregory. Ce livre permet de mieux comprendre l'histoire d'Angleterre (ici, la naissance de la dynastie des Tudor). Bravo pour le point de vue croisé avec l'ouvrage précédent (The White Queen). Bravo pour avoir réussi à rendre humaine une personnalité si austère. Bref, formidable (comme d'habitude !!).

It was a brilliant read