Member Review
Review by
Courtney T, Reviewer
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
After the conclusion of her SixTudor Queens series, it makes sense for Alison Weir to turn to the life of Elizabeth of York with The Last White Rose. And while she did previously write a biography of Elizabeth, that in-depth research no doubt helped her as she worked on this novel, and it’s not a complete retread, as she does provide some of her own speculations about Elizabeth’s emotions during the tumultuous events of her life. From her confusion as her father died and her uncle Richard III usurped the throne to the questions about the Princes in the Tower to her marriage to Henry, and the way all those were interwoven, Weir does a great job of being faithful to the historical record and relatively diplomatic in her speculations (where others may not have been).
Ultimately, she makes Elizabeth incredibly sympathetic and human, especially in a time before women were considered able to rule in their own right in England (despite evidence to the contrary in other countries like Spain and Flanders at the time). I rooted for her as she dealt with each situation life dealt her, from her childhood when war still raged, to her uncertain position as King Richard took the throne to being technically used by Henry Tudor to assert a legitimate claim on the throne, but not being given equal rights as co-monarch, as he had claimed it through conquest. Ultimately, she does win, as her bloodline does continue on the throne centuries after her and Henry’s deaths, although not in the way she might have expected.
One of Weir’s ongoing weaknesses with her fiction is her love for writing long books, and this is one of those times where the length didn’t work. It’s understandable that the book would encompass the majority of Elizabeth’s life, but it also has the problem of there both being a lot happening and not enough happening that Elizabeth as the POV character is privy to. With all the wars and conspiracies, she’s largely a spectator at best, so there’s so much whispering and “this happened over there” and “that happened over here.” And then sometimes it goes into monotony to indicate that nothing of note is happening around Elizabeth, but then “something major happens, and I didn’t witness it!” It’s sad, because Elizabeth was such a consequential figure politically during the times she lived, but unlike many of the Tudor Queens or her mother and maternal grandmother, she wasn’t involved in any real scandal in her own right. She, like her husband, is a relatively tame bridge between the treachery of the Plantagenet era and the madness of Henry VIII and his court.
In spite of the shortcomings presented by the subject matter, Weir does her subject justice for the most part. As is typical of the bulk of both her fiction and nonfiction catalog, this book should satisfy ardent Tudor history buffs.
After the conclusion of her SixTudor Queens series, it makes sense for Alison Weir to turn to the life of Elizabeth of York with The Last White Rose. And while she did previously write a biography of Elizabeth, that in-depth research no doubt helped her as she worked on this novel, and it’s not a complete retread, as she does provide some of her own speculations about Elizabeth’s emotions during the tumultuous events of her life. From her confusion as her father died and her uncle Richard III usurped the throne to the questions about the Princes in the Tower to her marriage to Henry, and the way all those were interwoven, Weir does a great job of being faithful to the historical record and relatively diplomatic in her speculations (where others may not have been).
Ultimately, she makes Elizabeth incredibly sympathetic and human, especially in a time before women were considered able to rule in their own right in England (despite evidence to the contrary in other countries like Spain and Flanders at the time). I rooted for her as she dealt with each situation life dealt her, from her childhood when war still raged, to her uncertain position as King Richard took the throne to being technically used by Henry Tudor to assert a legitimate claim on the throne, but not being given equal rights as co-monarch, as he had claimed it through conquest. Ultimately, she does win, as her bloodline does continue on the throne centuries after her and Henry’s deaths, although not in the way she might have expected.
One of Weir’s ongoing weaknesses with her fiction is her love for writing long books, and this is one of those times where the length didn’t work. It’s understandable that the book would encompass the majority of Elizabeth’s life, but it also has the problem of there both being a lot happening and not enough happening that Elizabeth as the POV character is privy to. With all the wars and conspiracies, she’s largely a spectator at best, so there’s so much whispering and “this happened over there” and “that happened over here.” And then sometimes it goes into monotony to indicate that nothing of note is happening around Elizabeth, but then “something major happens, and I didn’t witness it!” It’s sad, because Elizabeth was such a consequential figure politically during the times she lived, but unlike many of the Tudor Queens or her mother and maternal grandmother, she wasn’t involved in any real scandal in her own right. She, like her husband, is a relatively tame bridge between the treachery of the Plantagenet era and the madness of Henry VIII and his court.
In spite of the shortcomings presented by the subject matter, Weir does her subject justice for the most part. As is typical of the bulk of both her fiction and nonfiction catalog, this book should satisfy ardent Tudor history buffs.
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