Philippa Gregory’s history novels shine on film and television

The queen of historical fiction is in majestic form with the inspirational story of Margaret Plantaganet and her tragic fate at the hands of King Henry VIII, writes Fiona Purdon

Actor Natalie Portman with Scarlett Johansson in scene from movie 'The Other Boleyn Girl', a film adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s novel.

It’s one of the saddest spots on the planet — the cemetery attached to the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, within the Tower of London.

Among the famous people buried there are two of King Henry VIII’s wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, both beheaded, along with the oldest victim of the Tudor king’s reign of terror — the Plantagenet Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury (1473-1541).

“I spent a ridiculous amount of time at the Tower of London where Margaret Pole is buried in the chapel, looking at her grave,’’ says best-selling British historical novelist Philippa Gregory.

“It’s a very evocative place.’’

Margaret Pole was a frail but defiant 68-year-old courtier and the closest living female relative of Henry VIII (apart from his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth) when he cruelly ordered her execution.

Gregory, who has sold tens of millions of novels in a career spanning more than 30 titles and 27 years, believes Pole and her bravery inspired her to pen her best work yet — the 584-page tome, The King’s Curse.

“This book is more complicated,’’ she tells Canvas. “There are more characters, more interrelationships. There is a massive rebellion against the Tudors and you see a side of Henry VIII that you don’t usually see,’’ she adds.

“I’ve researched more with this book than any of the others and it’s my biggest book. At the centre is a wonderful woman who is a great character. She is a keen observer of all the changes at court.’’

Kenya-born Gregory, who moved to Bristol, in southwest England, as a two-year-old, says Pole is an irresistible subject for a writer because she lived such a long life and was connected to all the era’s major players. As the niece of two Plantagenet kings, Edward IV and Richard III, under Henry Tudor her life was in constant danger.

“Margaret was an extraordinary woman,’’ Gregory says. “She was virtually Queen of Wales, but she goes into deep poverty until she becomes lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon (Henry VIII”s first wife) and regains her fortune until things decline dramatically with the fall of traditional (Catholic) religion,’’ Gregory says.

“She was alive for Bosworth (the 1485 Battle of Bosworth was the last significant battle of the Wars of the Roses) then the rise of the Tudors, and she remembers a young Henry and was still alive when Henry’s son, Edward (whose mother was Jane Seymour) is born, so her life spans four generations of kings.

“Margaret was someone quite thoughtful and courageous and physically very strong. She survived five childbirths, which was hard to do in the Tudor period. She is immensely proud of her family and she knows her worth. At times she is fabulously rich, she is a good businesswoman and managed lands and castles. She was also the tutor of Princess Mary (daughter of Henry and Catherine of Aragon).’’

The King’s Curse refers to a supposed curse Gregory read about in contemporary records and ballads, but not in official documents. It stems from the fact that the Tudors struggled to produce a male heir to the throne.

Gregory says new medical research shows Henry VIII had the rare Kell positive blood type, inherited from the maternal line, which could have caused the many miscarriages and stillborn births that Henry and Catherine of Aragon endured. The Kell positive blood type might also be linked to Henry’s problems with anger and paranoia.

“I’m sure King Henry wasn’t sane. The number of people he killed is almost comical if it was not so terrible,’’ Gregory says. “He was certainly a psychopath and clearly out of control.’’

Already, The King’s Curse is slated to be made into a television miniseries in the US, along with Gregory’s previous titles The White Princess (2013), about Henry VIII’s mother, and The Constant Princess (2013), whose focus is Catherine of Aragon. The three novels cover the same era but from different points of view.

These will follow the huge success of the television adaptation of Gregory’s first three The Cousin’s War novels, which hit the small screen as The White Queen, and was watched by eight million people in Britain alone.

Gregory says it takes her up to a year of research work before she can find the voice of a character — and Pole was no different.

“I literally don’t start writing until I can hear her, I can sense her visually and what she looked like and her dialogue. I need to get a sense of a real understanding of how she thinks,’’ she says. “I look at the historical facts as well as her inner-life and try to separate them. When I start writing, I have a vision of the perfect book and then I spend a year trying to achieve it.’’

Gregory is chuffed that her books are so popular, including in Australia.

“There’s always an extraordinary warm response from Australian readers. There are so many people with English ancestors and so much of what I’m doing is making history accessible,’’ she says.

But Gregory admits her main driving force is not her huge readership but bringing to light the achievements of the mostly forgot yet remarkable and strong women of British history.

“I don’t write for a readership, I write a novel because I’m inspired by the characters,’’ she says. “One of the lovely things that has come about is that I spend my life researching all these relatively unknown women and, as a feminist historian, it is an honour to bring their lives to light.

“Readers tell me they draw strength from some of these women from 500 years ago.’’

Gregory’s mother was a “staunch feminist’’, her grandmother was a suffragette and her aunt a trailblazing Oxford scholar. It was her aunt’s extensive library of classics that inspired Gregory to read and begin a career in journalism, including a two-year stint at BBC Radio.

She had a strong desire to study, so over four years she read 200 books to achieve a University of Edinburgh doctorate in 18th century literature. In the process, Gregory fell in love with history.

“I started writing by accident,’’ she says. “I thought I would write my own novel, inspired by all the books I had read — and I was successful without meaning to be.’’

Gregory, 60, who lives at a farm in Yorkshire, had been planning an academic career when she decided to attempt her own vision of an 18th century novel with debut work Wideacre in1987.

“I didn’t see myself as a novelist. I was uncertain about what I would do until I wrote Wideacre,’’ she says.

Gregory says her “favourite child’’ in her novels is Mary Boleyn, the subject of her most widely read novel, The Other Boleyn Girl (2001), which spawned the successful 2008 movie starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Eric Bana as Henry VIII, as well as the earlier 2003 television series.

Mary Boleyn even makes a brief appearance in The King’s Curse.

“The book (The Other Boleyn Girl) was amazingly successful and I realised I could do it (writing historical novels) from then on,’’ says Gregory, who’s thrilled fellow historical writers such as Tracy Chevalier (Girl with a Pearl Earring) and dual Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall) have produced literary excellence, helping the genre move away from its romantic bodice-ripping reputation.

Gregory will remain in the Tudor period for her next novel, too, when she tackles Henry VIII’s sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr, who she has been researching for several months and is “almost ready’’ with her “voice’’.

“I’m just starting to feel her and understand her,’’ she says. “Catherine Parr is remarkable. She managed him (Henry) as best she could and was good with the royal children, but she seems quite contradictory.

“She’s a really good theologian and her spiritual life is very important, but she also had lovers before she was married, such as Thomas Seymour, so she was obviously highly sensual and a major risk taker.

“This is the thing that makes me keep writing — I keep finding a character whose story is not widely known. I love the Tudor period. It’s when all of modern England started and there are an extraordinary number of larger-than-life characters.

“I love strong characters who make their way in the world.’’

Original story in Canvas, The Courier-Mail

THE KING’S CURSE

Simon and Schuster, $37

Originally published as Philippa Gregory’s history novels shine on film and television