Book Review: "Queens and Kings" by Lucy Worsley (Pt.2)

This book is proving to be extremely interesting. I actually have to slow myself down as I read it because I need to review the parts as I go and I don't want to get too far ahead of myself and judge things based on other parts. Be that as it may, I do think that Lucy Worsley always does one fine job if any: consistency. Each book is just as enthralling as the last, and peppered in are her own stories of being a historian and not being able to get into a building - having to ask a guard who isn't meant to talk to her and finally ending up inside the walls of one of the most iconic places in all of England: the Tower of London.

Now, some time ago (I think a few months ago now), I wrote a set of reviews on the book "A Hidden History of the Tower of London" by John Paul Davis and examined what kind of history this place really had. It was so interesting that I always thought that Lucy Worsley would at least dedicated some of her book to some time she perhaps spent there and I was not disappointed. In this second part, we get taken through a personal and deep history of the Tower of London with some of its most notorious cases put on display and taken apart. This of course, starts with one of the most famous unsolved murders in royal history - the one of the Princes in the Tower.

Lucy Worsley addresses the story with caution, making sure that the reader is aware of the fact that many of the details cannot be proven. She also attempts to separate fact from fiction by telling us that there is actually very little if anything that is proven in the case - the crime scene of something that happened in the pre-Tudor period would be something more than simply contaminated with the human fingerprint, it would also be contaminated with propaganda. The author is well aware of this and thus tells us about how the propaganda of the past is relative to that of the present, seeing it through modern eyes can help us understand why certain aspects of the case can be regarded as bordering on conspiracy theory.

Another aspect of the Tower that is covered is not just the murderous, it is the imprisonment of royalty. The daughters of Henry VIII were famous not only for their own (and very different) reigns, but also because they were basically locked up for the vast majority of their early lives until (and I'm taking this part from my own knowledge so please correct me if I'm wrong) Catherine Parr managed to convince Henry VIII to put them in the line of succession. The first person Lucy Worsley chooses is Mary I and again, this is because she's trying to put an end to the misinformation that has turned the language surrounding the legacy of Mary I into some kind of misogynist tirade. In fact, Worsley states that Mary was a very resilient person, managing to keep her head and her faith whilst also living through the reformation acts proposed by her father.

The deep and intimate lives of both Mary and Elizabeth are marred with surveillance and yet, they are also coloured with reading and learning, with both women growing into respected queens. But, with Mary's health problems from an early age, I think she still got the shorter end of the stick here. As the author covers this issue, she also presents us with the wooden effigy of Mary I created for her funeral. A famed swollen stomach possibly presenting a child that never was. A story which connects us to Mary I as women, we definitely feel sorry for a woman who wanted to conceive and was given the false hope of it until it finally killed her.

I very much enjoyed this section in which we could get up close and personal with some of the more sensational aspects of royalty that is still often marred in mystery and conspiracy. I hope that as we move on to part three, there will be at least, a similarity in atmosphere.