The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory

Whispers of the Story

What happens when you tell a child that if she gives birth to a son, he will have a claim to the throne of England? She will spend her entire life trying to make it happen, even if that means using people, manipulating, killing princes, and starting a civil war. 

Margaret Beaufort grows up in a world where honour is everything and women are currency. Married off at twelve, valued only for her womb, she decides early on that she is destined for more. She was sold into marriage at the age of 12 with the promise that if she had a son, he could become the next king of England. But no matter how much men plan things, destiny has a funny way of intervening.  When her son Henry Tudor is born, fate refuses to cooperate. The throne slips further away, wars are lost, kings rise and fall, and her child becomes a dangerous pretender.

York wins the War of the Roses and  King Edward IV is a young man with many promising years of rule. He marries a beautiful woman who bears him many children. As a result, not only Henry is far from the throne, but he also needs to run with his uncle in France. 

Margaret does not give up. She waits, marries well, gathers influence, makes deals with queens and enemies alike, and prepares for the moment when her son can come and take his place in history. Years later, when she was the only one hoping for her vision, fate turned in her favour. One king is dead, another one is hated and from the big York family only two young princes remain who vanish in one night. By the time Henry returns from exile, England is exhausted, the board is set, and all that stands between him and the crown is one battle.

Power, faith, ambition and a mother who refuses to lose.

Review of The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory

My first encounter with Philippa Gregory was through The White Queen and The White Princess, and that was it for me. I fell hard for her writing and for the way she drags medieval women out of the margins of history and puts them centre stage. So naturally, reading the entire series felt less like a choice and more like an obligation.

Next up was The Lady of the Rivers, and I instantly adored Jacquetta and Elizabeth Woodville. Which probably explains why I never gave Margaret Beaufort a fair chance. From the very beginning, I disliked her. She came across as rigid, sharp-tongued, self-centred, and far too convinced that God had personally handed her a divine mission and a crown.

To be fair, young Margaret is hard not to pity. She is married off, treated like breeding stock rather than a person, and left utterly alone in a brutal political world. Even after giving birth to a son, her life barely improves, so her hunger for revenge and power makes sense. But somewhere along the way, survival turns into bitterness. She becomes cold, hateful, and increasingly intolerant of other women in power, especially Elizabeth Woodville. Elizabeth has everything Margaret does not: beauty, charm, ease, and a house full of children. Margaret, clinging tightly to piety, despises her for it, convinced that devotion should outweigh vanity.

There are two choices Margaret makes that genuinely baffled me. First, why no more children with her second husband? More children meant more alliances, more leverage, more security for her son. The book never makes it clear whether she couldn’t have more, or simply chose not to.

Second, and far more troubling, is her willingness to order the deaths of the two princes. War is one thing. Blood on the battlefield is easy to justify. But being directly asked what should be done with two boys and calmly ordering their elimination feels like a direct contradiction of the faith she claims to live by. Doesn’t that contradict the Christian belief that every life is sacred or the commandment that says do not kill? Did she truly believe God would forgive her for that? In the end, Margaret twisted the religious convictions to support her actions, believing that God wanted her to win so He wanted her to kill people. (Well this isn’t new in the world.)

All that envy and resentment makes her incredibly effective. Margaret will do absolutely anything to get her son on the throne, and she succeeds. But victory doesn’t soften her. It only sharpens her. Even after Henry becomes king, she keeps pulling strings, asserting control, and fighting anyone who dares challenge her authority. Winning does not bring peace. It just gives her new enemies.

So is she the villain? Maybe. Or maybe she is simply the product of a ruthless world where survival means striking first and mercy is a luxury no one can afford. She became exactly what she needed to become to win. The uncomfortable question is whether we can really condemn her for that.

Whatever my feelings about her and her morally questionable choices, Margaret Beaufort is impossible to ignore. She is shaped by ambition, fear, faith, and circumstance, caught between two royal houses and determined to force history to bend in her favour.

And honestly, the fact that I cared this much says everything about Philippa Gregory as a writer. I flew through the book, was constantly frustrated, intrigued, and emotionally invested, even though I already knew how the story would end. Gregory has a gift for making you feel strongly, whether that feeling is love, admiration, or pure irritation. She is one of those authors I recommend at every opportunity.

Philippa Gregory’s novels bring the women of the Wars of the Roses back to life in all their complexity. These are not neat feminist manifestos, but stories about power, ambition, and survival in a world where women were supposed to stay silent. If you haven’t already, start with The Lady of the Rivers, The White Queen, and The White Princess. They are not feminist books, but bring to life strong characters and wills, and can be seen as role models even today.  There are two TV Shows based on the previous novels, The White Queen and The White Princess where you can see Margaret Beaufort as she plots and succeeds in putting her son on the throne of England. These TV shows are beautiful and follow Philippa Gregory’s novels to check them out.

Happy reading!