RIVAL TO THE QUEEN by Carolly Erickson

Years ago while visiting friends in Warwick, UK, I went out for an early morning stroll. Not far from their house I saw an interesting-looking old church, and, being a tourist, I wandered in. In a side chapel I spotted two tombs topped by splendid full-color effigies. These turned out to be the likenesses of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and his wife Lettice Knollys.

I was enthralled. A lover of all things Tudor, I knew that Leicester was for many years the boyfriend of Queen Elizabeth I. I knew he had been accused (and acquitted) of murdering his first wife in hopes that, once she was out of the way, the queen would marry him and make him king. I knew that when he finally gave up all hope of marrying power, he thumbed his nose at Elizabeth by marrying her beautiful cousin. I had no idea, however, that Robert and Lettice were entombed just down the street from my friends' house.

Nor did I expect to find snarky 17th-century doggerel on a wall plaque across from their tombs, extolling Lettice as once "fairest in the land," and going on to describe her as

She that in her youth hath bene

Darling to the Maiden Quene,

Till she was content to quitt

Her favour for her favouritt.

The 38-line poem, signed "Gervas Clifton," is headed by this inscription: "Upon the death of the excellent and pious Lady Lettice, Countess of Leicester, who died upon Christmas-day in the morning, 1634."

Brief explanation: Lettice, Elizabeth's first cousin once removed, attended the queen. At court she met the queen's "favouritt," Robert Dudley. Eventually Lettice's husband and Robert's wife both died, and Lettice and Robert married secretly. The queen found out, of course, and all hell broke loose. From then on Elizabeth wanted nothing to do with Lettie, though she continued to welcome Robert at court.

You'll learn all that and more - much more - in Carolly Erickson's newish historical romance (2010 hardcover, 2011 paperback and Kindle) about Lettice Knollys. Some of what you will learn is factual. Some is invented, but possible (Lettie's adventure in Frankfurt, for example). Some is distorted through Lettice's lens (e.g., the extremely unfavorable portrait of Elizabeth) - and justifiably, since the story is told entirely from her first-person viewpoint. Some is just plain wrong (e.g., the account of Devereux's downfall), as you'll know if you've read Erickson's own history of the era, The First Elizabeth (1983).

I appreciate Rival to the Queen for bringing to life a nearly forgotten but important woman whose very long life spanned the reigns of Henry VIII (who may have been her grandfather), Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth I, and James I. I appreciate it for putting faces on entrancing rapscallions like the Earl of Leicester and his stepson Devereux, and for making Tudor political intrigues slightly easier to follow. I was uncomfortable, however, with Lettice's mindless and perpetual attraction to ill-behaved men, and the way all female characters including the queen seemed to think of little besides their own beauty and their ill-fated love affairs. I wished Erickson had included more details about daily life at court and at home. And as for the scene where Lettice's brother, Frank, plucks a drowning girl out of the sea and discovers ... oh, I won't spoil the surprise. But it was really cheesy.

Maybe I should stop reading historical romances.

I did love Erickson's sly humor in the Epilogue, however. Lettie is in her nineties, and once more she takes up her pen to complete the story she had abandoned 33 years previously. Her great-grandson Gervase pays her a visit:

I must note here that Gervase ... is not a very good poet, though he fancies himself one. His verses are stale.... I am not a poet, but if I were, I would at least attempt to be original.

Gervase has attempted to write my epitaph in verse. He takes undue pride in his few lines. Pray God that when the hour comes, and I am laid in my grave, someone will have the good sense to prevent those lines from coming to light.

HEARTSTONE by C.J. Sansom

Heartstone is C.J. Sansom's fifth Tudor mystery featuring the hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake. I loved the first four: Dissolution, Dark Fire, Sovereign, and Revelation.

Tudor England, with its larger-than-life monarchs and political intrigues and foreign wars and religious chaos, is a novelist's playground. Sansom, who knows his history, has created an engaging protagonist who is enough of an insider to know what is going on, and enough of an outsider to evaluate it for contemporary readers. OK, Shardlake is a bit anachronistic, not only in his language but also in his views about society, women, children, religion, and warfare. If he weren't, the stories would be less interesting, so who's complaining?

Well, I am, but not because of Shardlake's progressivism. Unfortunately, Sansom's writing in book five has gotten flabby. He did not need 640 pages to tell this story, and the story itself is less than compelling. (Shardlake bullheadedly persists in trying to find out who incarcerated Ellen in Bedlam, the London insane asylum, 19 years ago. He equally bullheadedly tries to uncover details about Hugh Curteys, an orphaned young landowner who has been made a ward of the Hobbey family. His saner friends Barak and Guy can't dissuade him; nor can various of his enemies. So he endangers himself and others in picturesque ways for two months before finally stumbling onto the truth, and then of course things get really dangerous.)

Sansom has already abundantly proven that he can do better. He has no excuse for a plot that doesn't get exciting until about page 500, or for a protagonist who continually tells us that he knows something is not right but can't figure out what it is, or for lengthy, improbable conversations structured only to give 21st-century readers insight into 16th-century history and customs. He should not be allowed to put Master Shardlake through so many miseries without any accompanying character development.

And somebody needs to tell Sansom - or his copy editor - that he is being needlessly irritating. His characters are constantly saying something "quietly" (or, toward the end of the book, "gently"); sometimes quietness breaks out three times on a page. Characters, including the narrator, are hazy on pronoun case usage. Comma splices abound. Even the sloppy editing, however, has its delights - when stags and does get together in Hampshire forests, they inevitably produce "fauns."

Yes, Heartstone has gotten some excellent reviews. The New York Times reviewer said it "may be the best novel in this richly entertaining and reassuringly scholarly series," and both Publishers Weekly and Booklist gave it a starred review. If those reviewers actually read the book, perhaps they enjoyed Sansom's detailed descriptions of Tudor warfare: the callousness of Henry VIII and his court, the cruelty involved in conscripting and managing troops, the ignorance of the highest military leaders, the sordid daily life in the camps, the layout of battleships, the view from the deck of the oncoming enemy fleet. His descriptions of civilian life are equally arresting: dangerous, painfully slow travel; children bought and sold so that rich men could grow richer; impossibly corrupt magistrates at all levels; peasants being driven off the land; justice perverted by false accusations and murder.

Sansom's ability to evoke a bygone place and time is probably why even mildly disappointed reviewers give him some credit. As Amazon's UK reviewer charitably noted: "If Heartstone is not quite vintage Sansom, that is perhaps because the author has set (and maintained) such a high standard." USA Today's reviewer, though calling Heartstone "Sansom's least compelling novel,"admitted that it's still "better than pretty much any other historical fiction out there."

Certainly there are pleasures to be found in this needlessly inflated book. Fans of Matthew Shardlake should definitely read it, especially since there is bound to be a sixth book in a year or two. By the time we see Shardlake again, Henry VIII will have died, and either Edward VI will be on the throne or courtiers will be plotting to put their own favorites there. In such exciting times, perhaps Shardlake will get his groove back. Maybe he'll even fall in love.

THE MEMOIRS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS by Carolly Erickson

Is it too much to ask of a historical novel that it be, well, historical?

Alas, The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots, soon to be released in paperback, is not.

Never mind that the author, Carolly Erickson, has a PhD in medieval history from Columbia University, or that she has written some fine biographies from the Tudor period including Great Harry and The First Elizabeth. If you want to learn more about the doomed queen on France, Scotland, and (in her mind, at least) England, don't start here.

To be fair, Erickson never claims historical accuracy for her novel. In fact, in a note to the reader at the back of the book, she writes:

Just a reminder that in this historical entertainment, authentic history and imaginative invention are blended, so that fictional events and circumstances, fictional characters and fictional alterations to the past intertwine. Fresh interpretations of past personalities and events are offered, and traditional ones laid aside.

Of course. That's how every historical novelist operates. In my review of Brenda Rickman's The Heretic's Wife, for example, I point out that she gives a biased Protestant interpretation of Sir Thomas More and I suggest that she too easily disregards the religio-political context of her time. Still Rickman, for the most part, sets her story within a real historical framework.

Erickson, by contrast, plays fast and loose with events. She begins by having Bothwell, Mary's third husband, present at her execution, though he is believed to have died nine years earlier. She admits this "whimsy" in her note, as well as other "thick-coming fancies" that "crowd out sober evidence": Mary and Bothwell's island trip, Mary's meeting with Elizabeth, and the circumstances surrounding the death of Mary's second husband, Darnley. She doesn't mention some of her other fancies: Riccio and Darnley's gay relationship, for example (in reality, Darnley hated Riccio, who was widely believed to be the father of Mary's son).

These are mere peccadilloes, however, compared to her entirely made-up account of Mary's sabbatical from captivity, to which Erickson devotes some 70 pages.

Mary lived in England as Elizabeth's prisoner from 1568 until her execution in 1587. In this novel, notwithstanding, Mary escapes to Rome in 1575, spending two years consorting with the pope and a famous general. She then follows the general to Flanders. When it becomes obvious that he is not going to rescue her, she proceeds to Normandy, where she spends a couple more years with her grandmother and daughter. Eventually she returns to England and begins searching for some letters Elizabeth allegedly wrote to her lover Leicester, proving Elizabeth's complicity in his wife's murder and thus her unsuitability to be queen.

Virtually none of this last third of the book is based on what actually happened. Mary never escaped from her well-guarded house arrest. Even the letters turn the real story inside out. Yes, letters were involved in Mary's trial - but they weren't by or about Elizabeth. Instead, they were allegedly written by Mary to her lover Bothwell, proving her complicity in Darnley's murder and thus her own unsuitability to be queen.

It's easy to understand why Erickson would choose to stray so widely from the historical record. The last 18 years of Mary's 44-year life were, except for a few abortive plots, extremely boring, as critics of Philippa Gregory's The Other Queen have pointed out. No doubt Erickson, who knows her history, decided to have a little fun and spice up the story.

Well, we all know that memoirs aren't necessarily factual, and we expect historical fiction to include invented characters and conversations and events. But we also expect memoirs - even fictional ones - to elucidate a character's inner workings, and we anticipate that historical fiction will bring a long-ago period to life. By building so much of Mary's story on an invented historical framework, Erickson shows us too little of Mary or of the Tudor/Stuart period.

She does, however, give us some charming Scottish ruffians.

THE HERETIC'S WIFE by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

Here's a page-turning historical novel that will appeal to women who like Tudor England, chaste romances, and a clear demarcation between good and evil, especially if they identify Protestantism with good and Catholicism with evil.

The setting of The Heretic's Wife is England under Henry VIII, mostly between 1528 and 1533, and Antwerp, a major trade center where heretics could live and work in relative safety. The underlying conflict is between England's chancellor, Thomas More, and proponents of the "new learning" - scholars intent on translating the Bible into English and reinterpreting the church's traditional theology. The protagonist is Kate, a bookseller whose great-grandmother owned a Wycliffe Bible, whose father died in a Lollard prison, and whose brother has been forced to abjure and abandon his bookshop. Not surprisingly, she soon finds herself part of a network of Lutherans including the famed Bible translator William Tyndale.

The Heretic's Wife has a lot going for it. Vantrease is a fine storyteller. She deftly interweaves several stories that eventually intersect without ever confusing the reader or letting any of the multiple plots lag. Her characters are well drawn. Though Kate strikes me as a bit insipid, she's a nice person that readers can identify with - unlike fiery Anne Boleyn, disgusting Henry VIII, and sado-masochistic Thomas More. Vantrease uses period detail well: food, clothing, streets, pageants, prisons all come to life without overwhelming the story. And she usually writes conversations that are formal enough to sound historic while colloquial enough to sound real.

Vantrease used to be an English teacher and a librarian; she holds a PhD in English, and she has traveled widely in Britain. She has done her homework, and it shows. I wish I could give the book a glowing recommendation, but I can't.

Her portrayal of Thomas More - and, by extension, all those who opposed the reformers - is simplistic and misleading. Her Sir Thomas, the villain of the piece from beginning to end, is a monomaniacal heretic hunter propelled by a perverted need to inflict pain on himself and others.

To be sure, More was not the gentlemanly saint portrayed in A Man for All Seasons - at least not by contemporary standards. As Peter Ackroyd notes in his brilliant biography, The Life of Thomas More, the chancellor hated heresy, threatened heretics, approved of burning them, and sent several to the stake. "In that respect," Ackroyd writes, he "was no different from most of his contemporaries.... Burning was the natural remedy for those who refused to recant or who later relapsed."

This does not mean, however, that England's air was black with the smoke of burning martyrs, as one might think from reading The Heretic's Wife ("Tidings from England grew ever more disturbing. With each new ship, frightened refugees brought stories of burnings"). During More's three years as chancellor (1529-32), only six heretics were burned.

That's six too many, but bear in mind that in 1525 Luther published a tract urging people to "smite; slay, and stab" intransigent peasants, "secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or dev­ilish than a rebel." Calvin famously burned Servetus at the stake, and he also burned quite a few women as witches. Sixteenth-century ideas of justice were not the same as ours, and More was a man of his times.

If More was not a crazed executioner, neither was he the sadistic torturer portrayed in this novel. As Ackroyd argues, it is highly unlikely that he tied heretics to a tree in his garden and whipped them mercilessly, though this was the claim of some detractors. As for self-flagellation, Vantrease's descriptions make More sound like a sexual pervert, not an ascetic penitent following a discipline also practiced by men such as Francis of Assisi, Ignatius Loyola, and John Paul II.

Vantrease is a novelist, not a historian, and she's entitled to invent characters any way she likes. (Hilary Mantel, this year's Booker Prize winner with Wolf Hall, also depicts a thoroughly disagreeable Thomas More.) What Vantrease loses in her characterization of More, though, is any sense of why he might have behaved as he did, apart from his own moral flaws. Thomas More seriously believed that the church, England, and the world were teetering on the verge of hell. And for people living in the 16th century, hell was more real than London.

How can we, in our secular society, imagine More's fears? Think of Thomas More as the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Think of Martin Luther as Osama bin Laden and William Tyndale as one of his agents. Think of all Protestants as terrorists, and think of the English Bible as a nuclear weapon. What would you expect More to do?

C.J. Sansom's four Tudor novels (which I reviewed here, here, and here) convey the chaos of the era and the suspicion, terror, and misdeeds that characterized all sides of the conflict - Roman Catholic, English Catholic, and Protestant. By contrast, The Heretic's Wife is a simple tale of good and evil in which pure-minded lovers of God and Scripture bravely combat bad doctrine, repression, and cruelty. It's propaganda, not history - but it's a good read.