Kingmaker's Daughter (Gregory)

The Kingmaker's Daughter (The Cousins' War)
Philippa Gregory, 2012
Simon & Schuster
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451626070


Summary
In The Kingmaker’s Daughter, #1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory presents a novel of conspiracy and a fight to the death for love and power at the court of Edward IV of England.

The Kingmaker’s Daughter is the gripping story of the daughters of the man known as the “Kingmaker,” Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick: the most powerful magnate in fifteenth-century England. Without a son and heir, he uses his daughters Anne and Isabel as pawns in his political games, and they grow up to be influential players in their own right. In this novel, her first sister story since The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory explores the lives of two fascinating young women.

At the court of Edward IV and his beautiful queen, Elizabeth Woodville, Anne grows from a delightful child to become ever more fearful and desperate when her father makes war on his former friends. Married at age fourteen, she is soon left widowed and fatherless, her mother in sanctuary and her sister married to the enemy. Anne manages her own escape by marrying Richard, Duke of Gloucester, but her choice will set her on a collision course with the overwhelming power of the royal family and will cost the lives of those she loves most in the world, including her precious only son, Prince Edward. Ultimately, the kingmaker’s daughter will achieve her father’s greatest ambition. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—January 9, 1954
• Where—Nairobi, Kenya
• Education—B.A., Sussex University; Ph.D., Edinburgh
   University
• Currently—lives in Hartlepool, England, UK


Philippa Gregory is the author of more than a dozen books. She holds a Ph.D. in eighteenth-century literature from the University of Edinburgh and lives in England.

More
Philippa Gregory, author of the bestselling Wideacre trilogy and other celebrated historical novels, holds a B.A. in history and a Ph.D. in 18th-century literature. In her youth, however, the meticulous writer-researcher almost skipped going to university (she was, as she put it, "a bit of a rebel at school"). When she finally did enroll at Sussex University, she took a course taught by the historian Maurice Hutt, and the rest is — what else? — history.

It was such a powerful experience that, really, it transformed my life," she explained in an interview with The Guardian. "I was looking for something that would explain everything — I was that kind of earnest young woman! — and history seemed to be able to do that.

Gregory earned her degree from Sussex, then traveled to Edinburgh to research 18th-century popular novels. The research spawned both a Ph.D. thesis and Gregory's first novel, Wideacre, which was a New York Times bestseller. As Gregory pointed out in a Barnes and Noble interview...

It came at a time when people wanted a new sort of historical fiction: more realistic, more radical, more sexy, and harder edged. That's how I see the world, so I never wrote for a market, I always wrote to reflect my own view of the period, and it has been phenomenally successful.

After extending Wideacre into a trilogy, Gregory continued to write fiction, delving into 16th-century witchcraft, 17th-century political turmoil, and 18th-century slave trading, as well as exploring contemporary life.

But while Gregory — in her own view and in the views of many critics — continued to improve as a writer, none of her books matched the popular success of Wideacre until she wrote The Other Boleyn Girl, a provocative tale of sexual politics in the court of Henry VIII, and The Queen's Fool, the story of a 14-year-old Jewish girl brought to the court of Queen Mary. Both novels became bestsellers and widely acclaimed storytelling tour de forces.

Gregory continues to mine the territory of Tudor England for stories — and she continues with her historical research, building up an ever more dazzling, daring and complete picture of the period. As she told The Guardian...

Accuracy is very important to me because I have a total commitment to history. It answered my deepest questions, of which, I suppose, the most profound is: ‘Why am I here?' Understanding your history can tell you that. It's how I understand who I am and where I came from. I would never lie to anyone about history.

Extras
From a 2004 Barnes & Noble interview:

• I have an enormous horse whom I absolutely adore, and I keep playing hooky from writing to ride him.

• I went to The Gambia on holiday and gave a rural schoolmaster money for a well in the school garden to teach the children how to farm with irrigation, and to grow crops for them to eat at dinnertime. The project took off, and he and I have built more than 50 wells in The Gambia together, and we are still digging! Each well costs only £250, so I ask friends for money and I give my lecture fees towards it. It is one of the greatest achievements of my life and makes a real difference to the poorest people in Africa.

• Although some people think I am a romantic novelist I have always thought of myself as a rather gritty radical historian. For instance, I have never believed that there is only one person for each person in the world. It doesn't make the least sense to me. However, in reality, I fell in love at 45 and I am absolutely certain that my now husband is the only man in the world for me, a truth I find both ridiculous and uplifting.

• I love reading and I love thinking — the reason that I love my books so much is that in order to write them I have to read and to think for years at a time about the same period of time. By the time I settle down to write I have to know fairly intensely about the characters, the period, and the issues. I always get interested in some of the side issues — like the currency or the change of agriculture.

• I have a great passion for the countryside and I can't be happy unless I am walking in the country or riding once or twice a week. When we go on author tour my husband always makes sure that we have walking breaks to keep me sane!

• I have two children who are the most precious people in the world — a girl of 22 and a boy of 11. They are absolutely different, and yet for me they have that same luminosity of being my blessing.

• I couldn't name any single book as a unique influence. As a child I read Alison Goudge's The Little White Horse, and the combination of historical fiction and gothic was very powerful for me.

• I read all of Jane Austen's novels very early on and learned to love her economy of style and precision. She still seems to me the finest writer in the English language. But I am a very big enthusiast for the works of E. M. Forster, who seems to me to be able to take ideas of the greatest seriousness and incorporate them into a novel that's fluent and realistic—and even funny. (From Barnes & Noble.)

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Book Reviews
The bonds of sisterhood infuse Gregory’s latest in the Cousin’s War series (after The Lady of the Rivers). The stakes are high as Anne and Isabel Neville, daughters of the earl of Warwick (“The Kingmaker”), vie for their father’s favor and a chance at the throne. The earl has long mentored the young King Edward and Edward’s brothers George and Richard in hopes of marrying his daughters into royalty. But when Edward weds the commoner Elizabeth Woodville, the Kingmaker arranges a secret marriage between Isabel and George, and launches an uprising that will result in the earl’s death, leaving Isabel entangled in a dangerous political web and Anne—having recently married—already a widow. However, Richard—a tough soldier who honors family obligations while his brothers sell out—soon comes to Anne’s rescue. In addition to Gregory handling a complicated history, she convincingly details women’s lives in the 1400s and the competitive love between sisters. By the book’s end, Anne and Richard have ascended the throne, but the War of the Roses has yet to be won, setting the stage for a sequel showdown.
Publishers Weekly


In the next entry (after The Lady of the Rivers) in Gregory's historical series about the War of the Roses...the Earl of Warwick, who put Edward of York on the throne after battling the Lancasters....uses his daughters as pawns in the fluid political situation [of the royal court].... Verdict: Gregory delivers another vivid and satisfying novel of court intrigue, revenge, and superstition. Gregory's many fans as well as readers who enjoy lush, evocative writing, vividly drawn characters, and fascinating history told from a woman's point of view will love her latest work. —Kristen Stewart, Pearland Lib., Brazoria Cty. Lib. Syst., TX
Library Journal


The latest of Gregory's Cousins' War series debunks—mostly—the disparaging myths surrounding Richard III and his marriage to Anne Neville. Anne and her sister Isabel are both used without hesitation as political bargaining chips by their father, Richard, Earl of Warwick. True to his sobriquet, "Kingmaker," Warwick engineered the downfall of the Lancastrian King Henry VI...and supplanted him with Edward IV.... The chief threat to the realm is not Richard but Queen Elizabeth: A reputed witch with a grudge against Warwick's daughters (Warwick killed her father and brother), she will not be happy until Isabel, Anne and their progeny (and if necessary her brothers-in-law) are dead. Although their fates are known, Gregory creates suspense by raising intriguing questions about whether her characters will transcend their historical reputations.
Kirkus Reviews

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Discussion Questions
1.Anne, only eight years old when the novel begins, grows up over the course of the book’s twenty-year span. In what major ways does her voice change from the beginning of the novel to the end? At what point in the novel do you feel she makes a real transition from a young girl to a woman, and why?

2.Consider the major turning points in Anne and Isabel’s relationship. How does their relationship progress as they grow up, marry, become mothers, and vie for power? At what point are they closest, and at what point are they the most distant? How do their views of each other change?

3.If The Kingmaker’s Daughter was narrated by Isabel instead of Anne, in what major ways do you think the tone of the novel would change? How might the main characters be portrayed differently from Isabel’s point of view?

4.Anne’s feelings toward Elizabeth Woodville grow colder as the novel progresses. Consider the below quotations from the beginning of the book, and discuss: What might the Queen Anne presented in the novel’s final pages have to say about her earlier words?

1. She is breathtaking: the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. At once I understand why the king stopped his army at the first sight of her, and married her within weeks.
2. We don’t like the queen.
3. I cannot see the queen as my enemy, because I cannot rid myself of the sense that she is in the right and we are in the wrong.

5.“You can go very high and you can sink very low, but you can rarely turn the wheel at your own bidding." The tarot card the Wheel of Fortune is a theme that runs throughout the novel. Discuss the Wheel of Fortune and its implications for each of the main characters. Does fortune favor any character in particular? Do you feel that the characters are at the mercy of fortune, or do they make or choose their own fates?

6.Isabel is forever changed when she gives birth to a stillborn baby boy in a storm at sea. Anne notes that many people blame the tragedy on witchcraft, or an evil curse. Do you think Isabel agrees with their assessment? Who do you think Isabel, in her heart, blames for the death of her son: Her father? Herself? Anne? Who do you think is ultimately to blame, and why?

7.It is clear that the men in the novel play a large part in shaping the destiny of the women around them—but what major decisions do the women in the novel make for themselves? Which female character do you feel is the most in control of herself and her path? Consider that character’s status in the novel; do you think her power, or lack of it, at court contributes to the power she holds over her own life?

8.What role do the mothers in the novel play? Discuss how they are viewed and treated by their children, their daughters- and sons-in-law, and their husbands; do you think they are deserving of the treatment they receive? Also consider what it means to be a mother during the time period in which the novel takes place; what are a mother’s main responsibilities, and which mother in the novel do you think fulfills her responsibilities most successfully?

9.Anne learns how to be a queen from both Margaret of Anjou and Elizabeth Woodville. What virtues do each of these queens teach her, whether directly or indirectly, and how does she employ those virtues when she finally becomes the Queen of England? Ultimately, which queen do you feel had the stronger impact on Anne’s regal style?

10.“I see Richard’s warmth toward her and I wonder again, what is courting and what is charade?” Consider the relationship that develops between Richard and young Elizabeth. How much of it do you think is truly a calculated political move by Richard to discredit her betrothal to Henry Tudor, as he protests, and how much of it is for his own pleasure? Further, how does his relationship with Elizabeth change his feelings for Anne? By the end of the novel, how has their love changed?

11.Anne and Isabel’s father, the powerful and ruthless Earl of Warwick, is known throughout England as a powerful Kingmaker—yet, he is not the only “kingmaker” in the novel. Which other characters might you consider to be a maker of kings, and why? Which kingmaker do you feel is the most successful?

12.Consider the different Kings and Queens who take the throne during the events of the novel. Who are feared by those around them? Who are liked? Who are respected? Of these three values—fear, love, and respect—which do you feel is the most important for a royal family to command from their subjects, and why?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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