I just devoured "The Thistle and the Rose" by Hester Chapman. This work detailed the lives of two more Tudors I knew nothing of - sisters to Henry VIII (daughters of Henry VII) - Mary and Margaret Tudor. A long tortuous road for Margaret as Queen of Scotland from a young age was dealt with at three times the length of the relatively simple and straightforward life of Mary as, briefly, Queen of France and then Duchess of Suffolk.
Of course, the plain one, Margaret, received the tougher shakes of life. And Mary, universally considered beautiful, was able to enjoy Tudor court life for much longer, have a brief (82 day) reign as Queen to Louis XII, thence to marry her long true love. One a nightmare, the other a fairy tale. One in the wild inhospitable poorly managed land of Scotland, the other in the rich realm of France.
I side with Margaret. She needed all the help she could get.
No comments:
Post a Comment