As mesmerising stories will, The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory pulls you in from the beginning and doesn’t let go till the very last line, when you are left wondering how could such an apparently predictable story lead to a most unexpected and full-of-possibilities ending.
I have just finished reading The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory and I’m eager to share my impression on it. Overall I thought it makes a good narrative and that the general setting and atmosphere in the book is according to the historic time described.
The author has quite a talent for describing the characters’ appearance, especially their dresses and features, which made the story come to life as I could imagine the characters walking, talking and doing all those actions. To me the way the writer describes them is appealing precisely because what they do is in harmony with their personality as described. I am often disappointed when in a book a character does something completely out of style based on his or her supposed personality and thus makes the story come apart or takes the reality out of it.
In The Lady of the Rivers there was no such feeling and all the characters remained true to their traits
The descriptions of the palaces and the battlements were not very detailed, but there was an emphasis on the type of wounds received from fights, which was not particularly attractive to me. I would have liked a more clear description of how they were grouping before and how they found a strategy to win the battle. However, the story does create the excitement to know the outcome of each battle and somehow, even though it seems obvious after reading that the queen was not destined to win, at each and every step in the story it seemed like this might just be the time when she turns luck to her favor.
There is a general sense of foreboding transmitted from those times which the author captured very well, related to the fear of reading books that weren’t allowed or of playing cards or trying to see the future. The book opens with Joan of Arc’s story and it keeps emphasizing it until the very end ”Joan was a young woman who tried to walk her own path in the world of men. And it led her to this cold tower, this swan dive, this death”. All through the book each time a female character fails in something Joan’s story is brought up again, as if to enforce it. However, the very ending shows that things have changed and will continue to do so.
Jacquetta, the main character, is the very symbol of women succeeding instead of becoming victims of history. Her gift or foretelling and the long line from her ancestor Melusina, the siren, gives a magical inkling throughout the main plot and even though it could have been of more practical use, the gift still appears and helps the heroine in critical moments, mainly those when her family or the king are in danger.
Jacquetta’s very story is in contradiction to the set norms, since after being married to the Duke of Bedford she made an unconventional marriage to his squire which could have brought her death, but somehow only makes them pay a huge fine. Their continued success at the court, where loyalties and alliances change all the time shows that even then there was a chance to succeed beyond having a title.
A particularly emotional point in the story is when Jacquetta and queen Margaret watch the battle from the church bell tower and, realizing their army lost, suddenly know they are in mortal danger and could be overcome and taken prisoners by the victorious army, being far away from their guards.
It was touching the way the author described King Henry’s illness, how he could not wake up after Jacquetta told him ‘Do not see! Do not look!’ for the very thing that ended his rational life. While he was in a coma all the efforts to wake him up and the aggressive treatments used at the time made it seem more like torture, as Jacquetta herself concludes. Even though later the king does wake up, his life will never be the same after he saw his counselor and friend betray him. He never seems to remember it and he fluctuates between the real world and a fantasy of peace, making the moment when he witnessed the betrayal a defining turning point in his life.
The story is dedicated to the sign on the cards first found by Joan of Arc in the reading that took place in the first chapter: The Wheel of Fortune ‘which can throw a woman so high in the world that she can command a king or pull her down to a dishonored agonizing death’. Margaret of Anjou’s evolution, from a young girl of 15 coming to marry the king, command of the realm, battles and finally fleeing her own country shows how luck can change. The same thing happens to Eleanor Cobham, who betrayed her employer and married the duke of Gloucester, became the second most important person in the realm only to end up condemned in the tower, turned to a haunting spirit.
In my view the story implies that women who tried to impose their will aggressively without caring about others at all have lost their position and privileges, but those who were mindful of everything that happened around them and also tried to help the poor people and were compasionate were kept safe and eventually became successful, regardless of who was ruling the kingdom.
I particularly appreciated the ending of the book because it’s not putting a stop to things at all, but clearly marks a positive change compared to how things were in the beginning. If Joan of Arc died for staying true to her opinions in the opening pages, the ending, in fact the very last paragraph shows there is room for change and that conventions and customs will not stop success. The son of the duke of York is anointed king against all tradition for the royal line and Jacquetta’s daughter, a widow with two little children looks set to rise on the Wheel of Fortune.
”I leave the window and open the great hall door to them myself. I see Elizabeth’s flush and the young king’s bright smile, and I think to myself this is fortune’s wheel indeed – can it be? Can such a thing be?”
