{"id":5476,"date":"2023-12-26T06:24:40","date_gmt":"2023-12-26T14:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5476"},"modified":"2023-12-26T06:27:43","modified_gmt":"2023-12-26T14:27:43","slug":"jeri-westerson-the-twilight-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/jeri-westerson-the-twilight-queen\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeri Westerson: The Twilight Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"

King\u2019s Fool #2<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I am a hardcore Tudor fan, mostly because of the long ago 70\u2019s TV series The Six Wives of Henry VIII <\/em>and Elizabeth R.\u00a0 <\/em>I inhaled everything Tudor during high school and went on to major in history in college.\u00a0 So when Jeri Westerson asked me if I\u2019d care to read her book about Will Sommers, Henry VIII\u2019s jester, the answer was easy.\u00a0 Set a few months before Anne Boleyn’s ultimate demise, Will is called to the Queen\u2019s presence one evening as she\u2019s discovered a corpse under her bed.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t know who the man is, but she does know that a dead body in her chamber will be bad and she asks Will to move it. Reluctantly, he agrees, and moves the man to the garden.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve of course read Hilary Mantel\u2019s Wolf Hall <\/em>trilogy<\/a> which follows Thomas Cromwell\u2019s path to power as he places two women on the throne, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour, followed by his ultimate downfall. Westerson comes at her story from the point of view of a servant instead of a member of Henry\u2019s administration, so the focus is a different one.\u00a0 Will Sommers was a real person, but Westerson has embellished his life, adding a wife (with handy ties to the nobility) and a gay sex life that his wife tolerates. Both are good additions, rounding out Will\u2019s character and giving him more range in his investigations, as his lover is also a member of the nobility.<\/p>\n

I thought the strength of this book lay in the vividness of Westerson\u2019s portrayal of the court.\u00a0 It\u2019s like a city in itself, with nobles and servants having rooms and apartments within the castle, all revolving around Henry.\u00a0 In this period \u2013 1536 \u2013 Anne has given birth to Elizabeth, who is three, and is increasingly desperate about Henry\u2019s obvious infatuation with Jane Seymour.\u00a0 Jane had her own apartment at court, next door to her brother and his wife, and connecting to the King.\u00a0 She\u2019s obviously Anne\u2019s polar opposite \u2013 quiet, meek, godly.<\/p>\n

Westerson portrays in a non-confusing way the intricacies of court politics, and for this reader, she truly illuminated the way a fake plot accusing Anne of multiple lovers could have been orchestrated. Westerson brings humanity to her story through her portrayal of Will, his loving marriage, and his relationship with Henry, whom he calls \u201cUncle\u201d.\u00a0 Will is one of the few who can tweak the King, and he\u2019s often caught between a rock and a hard place.\u00a0 Pleasing everyone at court is never possible.\u00a0 One of the most trenchant illustrations of this (for me) was Will\u2019s playing with the toddler Elizabeth and then reluctantly catching Mary, Henry\u2019s first child and now a lady in waiting to her usurper, out of the corner of his eye.\u00a0 He tries to give her some message of friendship but he has to hide it.<\/p>\n

The mystery part is fairly straightforward, and Will\u2019s investigation is somewhat hampered simply by his status at court, though, as the King\u2019s Fool, he can come and go almost wherever he pleases.\u00a0 He is Henry\u2019s servant<\/em> though and Westerson is also excellent at conveying Henry\u2019s complete assumption of royalty.<\/p>\n

I loved the details of the food, the clothes, the way people lived in the palace, even the description of the man in the stables who makes the saddles.\u00a0 I really loved Will himself and loved Westerson\u2019s imagining of him, and I appreciated the way she was able to further illustrate Tudor court life through her clever story.\u00a0 If you are a fan of the Tudors, don\u2019t miss this read.\u00a0 Westerson has a good historical afterword at the end that highlights and explains Anne\u2019s upcoming fate.\u00a0 That\u2019s a story I always hope will end differently – but it never does.\u00a0 — Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

King\u2019s Fool #2 I am a hardcore Tudor fan, mostly because of the long ago 70\u2019s TV series The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R.\u00a0 I inhaled everything Tudor during high school and went on to major in history in college.\u00a0 So when Jeri Westerson asked me if I\u2019d care to read her … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1508,1509,1510,10,1506,1276,486,1505,1504,1507],"class_list":["post-5476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-anne-boleyn","tag-court-jester","tag-henry-viii","tag-historical","tag-jeri-westerson","tag-robin-agnew","tag-severn-house","tag-the-twilight-queen","tag-tudor-england","tag-will-somers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5476"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5487,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476\/revisions\/5487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}