Monday, November 28, 2022

The Godmother's Secret by Elizabeth St.John presents a new angle to the Princes in the Tower story

The Wars of the Roses between the Lancaster and York dynasties, and the fate of the Princes in the Tower, have been the subject of numerous historical novels. Each posits its own solution to this real-life mystery from 15th-century England, but the larger story has become well-known to readers of the genre. With her latest novel inspired by women from her family tree, Elizabeth St.John manages to shine an entirely new light on familiar happenings.

The author’s heroine – Lady Elysabeth (St.John) Scrope, who narrates – is someone who would have had a front-row seat to key events and was linked by blood, marriage, or promise to nearly all the major players. Yet I hadn’t heard of her. It feels like her story has been hiding in plain sight all these years, just waiting for someone to discover it. The Godmother’s Secret is a wonderful novel: well-paced, richly characterized, and infused with the author’s theme of how loyalties can influence choices and divide families.

The wife of Yorkist baron John “Jack” Scrope of Bolton Castle, Elysabeth is also the older half-sister of Lancastrian heiress Margaret Beaufort. In the year 1470, Henry VI, last king of the Lancastrian branch of the Plantagenets, asks Elysabeth to witness the birth of, and stand as godmother to, the newborn York heir, thus “placing a cuckoo in the York nest,” as Margaret puts it. Though wary of this undesired responsibility, Elysabeth takes her holy oath to safeguard young Ned's welfare very seriously, even as it sets her against family members and even her husband. Her narrative charts the complex, dangerous path that follows the rise and fall of Fortune’s wheel, as various individuals from the York and Lancaster contingents challenge one another, often with subterfuge, and seek ascendancy.

Besides Elysabeth herself, one of the few who holds the York princes’ welfare close to her heart, there are many other finely delineated characters. The incessant scheming of Margaret Beaufort, with her unique blend of piety and maternal ambition, proves incredibly vexing for her older sister. That said, Elysabeth feels protective towards Margaret, who was forced to marry too young and remains devoted to her only son, Henry Tudor. The love story between Elysabeth and husband Jack unfolds in a moving way, even as she weighs whether to assert her will and flout his wishes. This is also the rare story that fleshes out the personalities of the young princes, Ned and Dickon. The era was an uneasy time for royal children.

This epic novel moves quickly, though it’s worth slowing down to savor the language (“men may fight across hill and dale, but the women draw their own York and Lancaster battle lines across planked and herb-strewn chamber floors”). Elysabeth has multiple secrets to keep, including the Princes’ fate, but another is the existence of her own sovereyntĂ© – the agency to decide things for herself. Her determination to chart her own path underlies her actions in this well-researched and engrossing book.

The Godmother's Secret was published in October; thanks to the author for sending me a Kindle copy.  See also my earlier reviews of the author's Lydiard Chronicles: The Lady in the Tower, By Love Divided, and Written in Their Stars.

6 comments:

  1. Wow, I thought the Wars of the Roses had been thoroughly covered, but this looks great! Looking forward to reading it.

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    1. Yes, this story was an eye-opener - especially to someone like me who loves browsing through family trees. Elysabeth may have been a minor character in other Wars of the Roses novels I've read, but if so, I don't recall it, and her role and family relationships weren't highlighted.

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  2. Thanks for the lovely review Sarah, and I'm so glad you enjoyed meeting Elysabeth. So often these secondary characters that witnessed history are forgotten, and it was a joy to discover her and think of the story from a woman's perspective. So often it is the men that are the lense of history - especially when women didn't have the sovereynte that Elysabeth was seeking. Lady Scrope does make an appearance in The Sunne in Splendor, but you may not recognise her - Ms Penman called her "Alison Scrope" probably to distinguish her from other Elizabeths in the novel.

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    1. It was a pleasure to read! "Alison Scrope" does ring a bell, now that you mention it... and in looking through the text on Google Books, Sharon Penman says she changed her name for that reason. I loved that book as well but haven't read it since it first came out.

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  3. This sounds very good and I'll take a look at St John's Lydiard Chronicles also. Those princes crop up in so many books - Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time" comes to mind and I've been reading some of Nancy Bilyeau's Joanna Stafford books too. All so interesting and sometimes bewildering to keep track of all the blood connections. Thanks!

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    1. Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time is a classic. I agree it's challenging to keep up with who's related to who. The Lydiard Chronicles are excellent!

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