Book Review: The Women Of The Cousins' War

Book cover of The Women Of The Cousins' War. Photo / Supplied

The Women Of The Cousins' War by Philippa Gregory
Penguin $48

Murders, battles, seduction, witchcraft ... and a water goddess. It would be hard not to write a ripping history of the English War of the Roses, the battles between the Lancastrians and the Yorks that disrupted England and Wales for much of the second half of the 15th century. But usually the detail is confined to battles and strategy and boy stuff. The women's stories are rarely told because they are often missing from the official records of medieval chroniclers - they were merely the kinswomen of the people who mattered.

But, as Philippa Gregory has one of her characters say, "As men have to fight, women have to wait and plan." Better-known for her clutch of more tasteful Tudor historical fiction such as The Other Boleyn Girl and The Constant Princess, Gregory has now published a non-fiction book with fellow historians David Baldwin and Michael Jones.

The trio sifted through the stories of the three women behind the thrones of the York and Lancaster kings: Jaquetta of Luxembourg, her daughter Elizabeth Woodville (queen to King Edward IV), and the woman who plotted to install her son, Henry Tudor, on the throne, Margaret Beaufort.

To help blur the lines between fact and fiction, Gregory's novel of Jaquetta, The Lady of the Rivers, is also out this month. (Earlier novels The Red Queen and The White Queen fictionalised Margaret and the first Elizabeth. A fourth, The White Princess, will tell the story of Elizabeth and Edward's daughter, Elizabeth of York, who married Henry VII to found the Tudor dynasty.)

Along the way, there's a passing examination of one of the great mysteries of the time - and still today - the fate of the princes in the Tower (Edward and Richard, Elizabeth and Edward's heirs) and whether they were killed by the much-maligned Richard III.

With the book providing only the skimpiest of family trees - where are all the siblings, the birthdates, the marriages? - the histories take some concentrated reading, not helped by the narrowest range of children's names outside of a private school: Richard/Edward/George/Henry or Elizabeth/Anne/Margaret.

But the queens and would-be queen mothers are in good hands: Baldwin's earlier book on Elizabeth Woodville and Jones' on Margaret Beaufort were both considered the authoritative histories of these rarely examined women.

Gregory's writing is more staunchly feminist than that of her colleagues. In interviews, on her website and in her introduction she points out that women's stories were rarely recorded, both because female historians barely practised until the last century and because contemporary chroniclers focused on battles and politics.

It wasn't helped by some handy re-arranging of the records by their contemporaries - Jaquetta was tried as a witch, Elizabeth accused of being a whore and of sorcery, while Tudor historians pegged Margaret as pious and saintly, not party to the dirty world of politics.

Myths and rumours still swirl about Richard III and the poor princes in the Tower - there is even a pro-Richard society of some 3500 souls dedicated to defending his reputation 500 years after his death.

Gregory's introduction of how history is written should be required reading for every NCEA student struggling through their swot this month: historical theories and revelations come and go, original medieval records are still, astonishingly, being uncovered and there is more juice to be wrung out of one of England's favourite historical period. With or without bodices being ripped.

Catherine Smith is editor of the Herald's Weekend Life section.