My review of The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory

The Other Boleyn Girl

by Philippa Gregory

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The 2008 movie, starring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson, made this title familiar to many who would not otherwise have read the book. That mass publicity was a double-edged sword, with the movie receiving mixed reviews and criticism for historical inaccuracy. Indeed, the novel too suffered some disputed historical accuracy but has far greater subtlety and creative licence.

While Philippa Gregoory's novel makes requisite use of fictional elements, the film took it to extremes, discrediting the book it promoted. Though Gregory need perhaps not concern herself now, with the global success of her subsequent novels, the debacle must then have been tough for this talented, hardworking author. Certain historical details of this tale are black and white, others grey: 

Earlier historians claimed Elizabeth I's maternal aunt, Mary Boleyn, was Queen Anne's younger sister, but her children believed she was the elder, as does a growing consensus of today's historians. Regardless, legend strongly suggests Mary was thought the more beautiful of the two Boleyn sisters, going by aesthetic ideals of the day. With no less scandalous a public record than her beheaded sister Anne, poor Mary has undoubtedly been as much a victim of malicious press as Anne has been a victim of political propaganda.

A rumoured mistress of King Francis I of France, some historians believe tales of Mary's promiscuity exaggerated, while others deem them plainly apocryphal. King Francis's harsh reference to her as 'The English Mare', 'my hackney' and 'una grandissima ribalda, infame sopra tutte' ('a great slag, infamous above all), may have been merely sour grapes after a more innocently romantic public liaison: she did, after all, leave Francis and his court, and his hearing of her subsequent high profile amours could have simply bruised his royal pride.

When Mary returned to England in 1519, she was appointed a maid-of-honour to Catherine of Aragon, queen consort of Henry VIII. She then became Henry VIII's mistress from around 1521 to 1526. After later marrying wealthy and influential courtier William Carey, she was left widowed then secretly remarried for love to William Stafford, a lowly soldier considered beneath her aristocratic rank. This latter choice resulted in her banishment from court, and she spent the rest of her life in obscurity, dying in her early forties in 1543, seven years after Anne Boleyn's execution.

Many preferred this earlier Philippa Gregory book over her later one, The White Queen. This subject certainly holds more popular appeal, but to me that does not equal a better book.

Gregory's greater challenge was surely always going to be The White Queen, as readers are less familiar with that (infinitely more complex) history than with this story and its principal characters. Therefore, Gregory's greater achievement of those two is, in my opinion, the one which presented the harder challenge, The White Queen.

I nonetheless equally liked this, which makes for the more gripping read, its character list tighter and more focused than The White Queen's convoluted ensemble (that, I believe, is why some rubbished the latter, because they found it harder to follow due to their own lack of knowledge).

The Other Boleyn Girl is a good read by a classy, accomplished writer. Its sequel novel, The Boleyn Inheritance, tells the story of Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Jane (Parker) Boleyn.

I like everything of Philippa Gregory's I have so far read.