Extraordinary women

Bestselling North Yorkshire-based author Philippa Gregory speaks to Hannah Stephenson about telling the stories of strong women from history.
HISTORICAL NOVELIST: Philippa Gregory's latest novel The Last Tudor is out now. PICTURE: PA PHOTO/SIMON AND SCHUSTER.HISTORICAL NOVELIST: Philippa Gregory's latest novel The Last Tudor is out now. PICTURE: PA PHOTO/SIMON AND SCHUSTER.
HISTORICAL NOVELIST: Philippa Gregory's latest novel The Last Tudor is out now. PICTURE: PA PHOTO/SIMON AND SCHUSTER.

Bestselling novelist Philippa Gregory has made a habit of focusing on strong women in history.

Take The Other Boleyn Girl, her bestselling story about Anne Boleyn’s sister, which was adapted for the big screen and starred Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman, or The King’s Curse, which introduced us to Catherine of Aragon’s lady-in-waiting, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury.

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Gregory, who lives on a 100-acre farm in North Yorkshire with her third husband Anthony Mason, has sold more than 10 million books around the world, revealing the untold stories of women in history, largely focusing on the Tudors and Plantagenets.

“Almost universally I focus on women in my books,” she says.

“Women’s stories are less well known. Some I’ve written about are almost completely unknown and don’t have any published biography. Those are stories waiting to be told and the research is really interesting.

“Bringing their stories to life is important, because it enhances our view of women’s capacities and women’s histories.”

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Her latest novel, The Last Tudor, centres on the Grey Sisters – Lady Jane Grey, who reigned for just nine days, her sisters Katherine and Mary, and their cousin Queen Elizabeth’s brutal treatment of them, to ensure they would not produce any potential royal heirs.

“I give a very critical description of Elizabeth as a monster. It’s written in the voices of the three Grey girls and it’s very important to me that we see it from their point of view. Elizabeth is completely paranoid about her heirs, who are younger and prettier than her, and who are able to marry for love in a way that she never allowed herself. It’s a negative, nightmarish picture of Elizabeth.”

She has already had interest from film production companies about possible screen adaptations, but is treading carefully. Many of her works, including The Other Boleyn Girl and her Cousins’ War series (which the BBC’s The White Queen was based on), have been turned into screen productions.

“I’ve been very lucky in the attention that’s been paid to my novels. Each adaptation is different and brings a different writer and a different aesthetic. I much prefer it if they stay close to the history.”

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She intends to continue writing about women in history whose stories have not been greatly explored. “It’s not that I keep falling over exceptional women, it’s that most of the women were exceptional,” she says. “Normal women lived their lives struggling for power, struggling for survival, and in the course of that, they experience heroic endeavour. It just so happens that their stories aren’t very much recorded or selected by historians.

“None of the women I write about have legal or political rights, and very few financial rights or rights of safety. They are in an extraordinarily oppressive society and, despite this, they still manage to run a household, run a land, run industries, and sometimes run the country.”

The Last Tudor by Philippa Gregory is published by Simon & Schuster, priced £20.