I was a big fan of de Lisle’s book about the Grey sisters The Sisters Who Would be Queen, and
there was much here that I liked. Eventually, though, I had to give up, because
de Lisle’s conservative agenda became too much. I have no problem with
conservative writers; it sometimes does me good to be reminded how the other
half think. I read the Daily Telegraph
from time to time – I have even read Leandra de Lisle in the Telegraph – but she also writes for the
unacceptable, inexcusable Daily Mail
and when she got to discussing Bloody Mary in this book the tone became
out-and-out Daily Mail – incoherent
ranting along the lines of Everyone’s
wrong ‘cept me, the bastards! Yes, I daresay Mary I had her good side, and
much of her problems later in life can be attributed to the appalling way her
mother was cast aside, but the fact is her burning-at-the-stakes stats are much
worse than those of Henry VIII who everyone agrees was a self-indulgent tyrant.
She burned more people over a much shorter reign, and that is the yardstick by
which to judge her.
The first half of the book was pretty good. De Lisle is
excellent on Lady Margaret Beaufort and she introduced me to a character I had
not come across before, Owen Tudor’s illegitimate son David, who was brought up
for a time with the future Henry VII and who featured at various Tudor family
occasions. Where I think she started to go wrong was when Henry VIII lost
interest in governing, circa 1540. There is too little about the Pilgrimage of
Grace, which must have shocked even Henry to the core, and even less about the
Western and East Anglian rebellions in Edward’s reign, and next to nothing
about Wyatt’s Rebellion in 1554, which she tries to attribute to the
ineffective Marquess of Dorset.
Yes, this is expressly an account of the Tudor family, but I
would argue that in order to understand the tumultuous eleven years between
Henry VIII’s death and the accession of Elizabeth you have to understand the
very real threats to the first cabinet government in English history, the
self-appointing juntas of Somerset and Northumberland. This is probably where
de Lisle’s politics start to get in the way. As a contemporary conservative she
has to believe that government by a cabinet which is not even in tune with its
own party, let alone the people, is acceptable. I don’t – and nor did the
ordinary people of England 1547-1558. It is my firm belief that nobody outside
London gave two hoots about kings until Henry VIII, having time on his hands as
England’s first non-warrior king, started to interfere with their beliefs. It
may even be that they weren’t that worried about liturgical changes, that what
really prompted their rebellion was the removal of their welfare state, the
safety blanket of the monasteries which, corrupt as they were, nevertheless
provided alms, sanctuary and medical care to the poor.
Returning to Mary, if she cared anything about popular
support, she would have refounded the monastic system, but she didn’t because
she cared about authority, those who sided with her, and the proceeds of the
dissolution which she happily shared with them.
One final criticism: De Lisle chooses to call the Marquess
of Dorset ‘Harry’ Grey. In her notes she says that King Edward used the
diminutive in his journal and that she uses to lessen the number of Henrys in
her text. To me it sounds wrong. No one called him Harry (or Henry) outside his
immediate family (of which Edward was one by marriage). They called him Dorset
and later Suffolk. Surnames were not important in early modern England; titles
were everything.
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