Synopsis: England's Tower of London was the terrifying last stop for generations of English political prisoners. A Dangerous Inheritance weaves together the lives and fates of four of its youngest and most blameless: Lady Katherine Grey, Lady Jane's younger sister; Kate Plantagenet, an English princess who lived nearly a century before her; and Edward and Richard, the boy princes imprisoned by their ruthless uncle, Richard III, never to be heard from again. Across the years, these four young royals shared the same small rooms in their dark prison, as all four shared the unfortunate role of being perceived as threats to the reigning monarch.
Again I will preface this by saying that I am not a huge fan of Weir, however, I was interested to see how this would play out with three of the main characters (the Plantagenets: Kate, Edward, Richard) having lived and died long before Katherine Grey came on the scene. There are essentially three stories: Katherine Grey, Kate Plantagenet, and the Princes in the Tower.
I will start with Kate Plantagenet, illegitimate daughter of Richard III, and of whom very little by way of fact is known, especially of her childhood. Could she have known John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, with whom she was said to have had a relationship with in the novel? It is possible that she knew him if she was living in the household of her uncle as following the death of Richard's own son Edward, first Edward of Warwick then John de la Pole became his nominated heir. As both Edward and John were nephews of Richard, would he have counternounced a relationship between his own daughter (illegitimate or not) and his nephew and heir?.
After Richard succeeded to the throne Katherine was married to William Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon, (1455-1491) as his second wife. On 29th February, 1484 Herbert covenanted 'to take to wife Dame Katherine Plantagenet, daughter to the King, before Michaelmas of that year'. Richard paid for the wedding and granted the couple an annuity of 400 marks from the lordships of Newport, Brecknok, and Hay on March 3, 1484. They probably lived at Raglan Castle, the Herbert family seat in Monmouthshire.
When Henry Earl of Richmond landed in south Wales in 1485, it is likely that a Herbert sent word to Richard of Henry's landing. William Herbert. however is not recorded as having fought for his father-in-law at Bosworth, though de la Pole quite possibly did. At the coronation of Elizabeth of York in November 1487, William Herbert is referred to as a widower, the marriage is not thought to have produced any children. What happened to Katherine is speculation - though it is commonly thought that she had died prior (she is last mentioned in March 1485), possibly in childbirth.
Now to Katherine Grey - one of the famous Grey sisters, the others being Jane and Mary; all granddaughters of Henry VIII"s sister, Mary. Katherine was initially wed to Henry, Lord Herbert, the son of the Earl of Pembroke (1553) - however when the plot to put Jane on the throne failed, this marriage was annulled and she was returned to her family (1554). She and her sister Mary were, at one stage, considered as potential heirs to their cousin, Elizabeth I of England. However, Katherine incurred the wrath of Elizabeth by secretly marrying (1560) Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford (it was forbidden to marry without the Queen's consent - it was considered treason to do so). Arrested (c.1561) after the Queen was informed of their clandestine marriage, Katherine was confined to a life in captivity until her death (1568), having borne two sons in the Tower of London.
The only tenuous link between the two women is that both their husbands were, at one point, Earls of Pembroke and both were in close proximity to the throne.
So my thoughts. Unfortunately, I found it rather average. What appeared to me to be two potentially separate stories were merged together with the mystery of the princes binding them together in some strange manner. The different narratives - first person for Katherine, third for Kate - does not really work and was at times unclear in its direction. The addition of the "supernatural" element (supposedly binding both women together through history) merely creates a fog over the narrative and lends itself to confusion. Then Weir trots out her standard anti-Richard bias.
Did either of women embark on a search for the truth behind the "princes in the tower" mystery? Highly unlikely as I think both would have been more focused on their own survival in what were periods of great uncertainty. Her handling of the paranormal component was not done well - she could easily have left Kate Plantagenet out of it altogether, the story may have flowed a bit better. And I question whether Katherine Grey would have even considered that Richard was innocent of the crimes landed at his doorstep, if indeed she gave any thought to this at all.
I did like Weir's portrayal of Elizabeth's nastier side - people tend to forget that she was a jealous and vindictive woman, only seeing her as Gloriana. That was a refreshing change and the one upside.
So for me, this was average novel from Weir. Just because she has written much on the era does not make what she writes as the gospel truth or perfect, there is always a great deal of supposition and inference in her works. This was not her best work of fiction - and is really only one for the Tudor fans.
