The Queen’s Tragedy (1907)

The story of Queen Mary, elder daughter of Henry VIII Tudor, is related here with much sympathy for the woman (as opposed to the excoriated ruler), but without whitewash.

Next to the much-reworked Oddsfish!, this may have been Benson’s most difficult book to write, faced as he was with centuries of prejudice and stereotypes.  Benson’s biographer, the Rev. C. C. Martindale, hints that Benson’s hardest task was in presenting the unattractive human being behind the unpleasant myth.

In common with many of Benson’s works, the reader has to decide for himself the meaning of the title.  Of what does the “tragedy” of the title consist?  Was it misplaced religious zeal?  The failure to restore Catholicism to England permanently?  The inability to provide an heir for the stillborn Anglo-Spanish Empire?

A difficult question — and a complex book.

296 pages

ISBN # 9780972982132

$20.00 USD
£14.00 UK

Amazon (U.S.)    Amazon (U.K.)    Barnes & Noble*

*Barnes & Noble no longer lists this edition on their website.

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