Author: Susan Higginbotham
First Published: January 2011
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
345 pages (paperback)
A lot of his-fics on the War of Roses seem to focus primarily on the York side of the battle. This novel decides to focus on the Lancaster side of the battle, a story that is told much less often. The title refers to Margaret of Anjou, the queen of King Henry VI (Lancaster side) during the war and this story is supposed to focus on her tale. I say “supposed to” because despite the title, I found the novel focused on the entire Lancaster story, not just Margaret. Margaret certainly got more chapters, but I never once felt that this novel is “her story”.
For those of you unfamiliar with the War of Roses, it was a war between two branches of the Plantagenet family, an English ruling house, around mid-1400’s. In this novel, in the beginning, the current king is King Henry VI, of the Lancaster branch of the family tree, and his wife, Queen Margaret. Henry was a kind and forgiving man. He marries Margaret of Anjou (a place in France) and together they have one son. What makes Henry’s reign a little difficult for him is the fact that he is so kind and forgiving, people took advantage of it. Also, his father was Henry V who was known to be a fierce warrior and leader, and Henry VI was the complete opposite of him. He also took a French bride which upset some people. Lastly, he was considered “mad”; Henry VI had some lengthy episodes of what they called “madness” — basically he clammed up and couldn’t speak and barely moved, for months and months.
His throne is usurped by his cousin Edward from the York side of the Plantagenet family tree. Henry VI fails to do much due to his condition, and so, his wife Margaret assumes unofficial control and fights bitterly for her husband’s throne. They encounter all sorts of heartbreaking and tragic moments, such as being separated from one another, having their most loyal subjects killed, and betrayal. Time and time again, it seems like all hope is lost for their cause and that the usurper will get to sit on Henry’s throne forever.
As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t get the vibe that this novel was about Margaret. Rather, it felt like it was about the entire war, from a Lancaster point of view. It was written in first-person point of views of various characters. Margaret had the most chapters, but in between her’s were various other’s. Everyone else’s chapters came and go as it fit the story; none of the other characters’ chapters were continuous like Margaret’s. I thought that was kind of silly because to me, it seemed like the novel should have been written from a third-person point of view, rather than just throw in a random character chapter because it suited the story at the time.
The characters also did not feel very real or fleshed out for me. They felt very flat, which was disappointing. I don’t think I would have cared if everyone else was flat if Margaret, at least, was interesting and three dimensional, but wasn’t. She actually came off — to me, at least — as an indecisive and poor leader, and the novel made it sound like the reason the Lancasters were losing the war was because of this queen and her “womanly ways”. This novel is very rich in detail and I thought it was extremely well researched, but perhaps because of this, it did read a bit like a textbook in narrative format. I suppose the writing style just wasn’t my cup of tea. It focused a lot more on facts than character development, and as a result, I didn’t feel as engaged as I hoped to be.
The Queen of Last Hopes failed to impress me much. It isn’t a bad book or anything. But it’s only just ‘okay’ for me.
My Rating: 2/5
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