Normal Women: 900 years of making history

Looking at the historical record over the years, history has generally been told via the lives of men. In Normal Women, Philippa Gregory has used a variety of sources to look at the role of women in Britain during 900 years.

The book is divided into historical time-frames - 1066-1348 Doomsday; 1348-1455 Women Rising; 1455-1485 Women at War; 1485-1660 Becoming a Weaker Vessel; 1660-1764 Locked Out and Locked In; 1765-1857 Making a Lady; 1857-1928 Separate Spheres; 1928-1945 Into the World; 1945-1994 A Woman Today.

In each section the author looks at the way women have been treated by family and society including the power held by some women during some time frames. Sexual attitudes to women and their perceived role in the society in which they lived is also provided.

This is an informative, well referenced examination of the role of women in daily life and the life of the nation.

Detailed notes and a select bibliography appear at the end of the book along with the index.

Dawnlands

Dawnlands is the third book in the Fairmile Series by Philippa Gregory. The time period in the novel covers 1685-1688 when James II was King of England and Ireland. In Scotland he was known as James VII. He was the last of the Stuart kings. There were those who wanted the king to restore the power of the Roman Catholic church in England while others wanted the country to remain protestant.

Ned Ferryman returns to England from America to join the protestant armies opposed to the king. As he is leaving he notices a native lad who he knew when he was in the area known as Dawnlands. The lad is about to board a slave ship so Ned purchases him to take to England where he will be free.When he realises that his new purchase is actually a girl he names her Rowan allowing her to keep her true identity hidden during the voyage.

Back in England Alinor and Alys are now running a profitable business as owners of a wharf and storage sheds where goods from overseas can be stored before being sold. The two women have been foster mothers to Matthew, the son of Livia - a woman who always seems to cause chaos in other people's lives. She has been summoned to the palace as a lady-in-waiting for the new queen and soon greatly extends her power and influence in the life at court and the lives of other people who have the misfortune to know her.

In these tumultuous times with the threat of rebellion against the king ever present, Livia manages to persuade the queen to grant her son the manor at Foulmire and surrounding lands, allowing Alinor the opportunity to return to the area where she grew up. This land was the setting of the two previous books. This, of course, allows Livia the opportunity to use the largesse from the queen to further manipulate Alinor's family.

When the uprising against the king fails Ned and Johnny find themselves in Barbados - an island thriving on sugar and slavery. Along with religious intolerance, slavery is one of the themes in this work of fiction set against a historical background.

Dark Tides

Dark Tides is the second book in the Fairmile series by Philippa Gregory. Commencing in June 1670, twenty-one years after events in  Tidelands, the first book in the series, this novel continues the story of Alinor, her daughter Alys and grandchildren Sarah and Johnnie who now live in London. Alinor and Alys operate a small warehouse on a wharf in a poorer area on the Thames and just manage to make a small profit. 

Their lives change when Livia arrives from Venice claiming to be the widow of Alys' brother Rob. She begs for their assistance and promises to repay them generously if they assist her to bring Venetian antiquities into England to sell. But is Livia really who she says she is? 

Alinor is convinced that her son is still alive and she asks Sarah to travel to Venice to find Rob and to verify Livia's stories.

Meanwhile Alinor's brother, Ned, has left England to make a new life in New England in America. Ned's story runs parallel with the events in London and Venice as he struggles to decide where his allegiences lie when it is obvious that unrest is brewing between the English settlers and the American Indians who Ned has befriended.

A bibliography, if readers want to further investigate some of the events mentioned in the novel, is provided at the end of the book.

Tidelands

Philippa Gregory has been writing books, particularly historical fiction, since 1987. She is perhaps best known for her series of books on the women associated with the Plantangents and the Tudors. As co-author of Women of the Cousins' War  she described in the introduction how she undertakes the research for the stories that she writes, when information is available, but also it is often necessary to imagine what life would be like living in the historic period described based on the known facts.

Tidelines is the first novel in a new series - The Fairmile series. It is set in the year 1648 and tells the story of Alinor and her family who live in a small fishing village an hour or twos walk from Chichester. Alinor's husband has disappeared so she is left to bring up her two children working as a midwife and a herbalist plus any other work that she can find. This is a time of prejudice and fear of witchcraft making life particularly difficult for a young woman trying to make an honest living without the support of a man.

This is the time of the English Civil War (1642-1651) and the parallel story in this novel concerns James, a priest and loyal supporter of King Charles I, who is on a mission from the King's wife living in France to assist the King to escape from his captors in England. Alinor's brother, Ned was a soldier in the army fighting the supporters of the king. Consequently the reader is aware of the tensions the Civil War has created in different parts of the country and the constant state of fear in which people live.

Tidelines is a detailed and sometimes dark novel conveying a picture of life in a small village during these troubled times. It will be interesting to read the second novel in this series when it is published.

Philippa Gregory takes a new direction in four book deal - The Bookseller 21 April 2017

Philippa Gregory on the challenges and thrills of launching her new series - Explore Entertainment 19 August 2019

Philippa Gregory biography 

The women of the cousins' war

This non-fiction book contains sections by Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin and Michael Jones about three of the women prominent in the Wars of the Roses - the Duchess (Jacquetta of Luxembourg), the Queen ( Elizabeth Woodville) and the King's Mother ( Margaret Beaufort).

In the introduction Phillipa Gregory writes about her love of history plus the writing of historical fiction. She then relies on original documents, plus some site visits and archaeology, to write a short biography of Jacquetta of Luxembourg. David Baldwin then writes about Elizabeth Woodville, the wife of Edward IV while Michael Jones writes about the mother of Henry VII, Margaret Beaufort. The Woodville and Beaufort families figure prominently in the story of the Wars of the Roses.This book provides interesting background to attempting for understand events in English history from 1455-1485.