A Word on Words; 3407; Phillipa Gregory

ellen johnson until welcome to word on words i guess a distinguished bestselling author philip approach gregory it's great to have you here you're the author of the the while baker trilogy a you've written a book about the audible bolender from the queen's food was another of your nelson and now the versions over the margins lover is robert robert dudley and the virgin is queen of the fridge and ej is back to that and british history when that you're familiar with but three separate worked for about a century and so does the short term and mary bloody mary is she became known has returned and we see just a glimpse of marriage early on in your book and then finally good queen bess

was with the first low one of orion's but she was called lemonade virginia when he was in the region i think it most likely that she wasn't the reason she gets called the virgin queen is because it's a long life and the end of it it's the one thing she has to deploy very powerfully when she's making her image both for the country and for history is to really sell yourself as she calls herself the mother of the country she has no husband she has the people of england the great great pr stunt and it absolutely was aborted a report of two reasons one is that they eat elizabethan image makers project hit very very powerfully and you know she has some of the greatest poets english language has ever produced doing this for culture some fine judge has gone absolutely so that's very powerful but then also she's as she really this is images

increased again because of a victorian historians or it again it's a time where there's a woman of apps that famous chastity is on the throne of england and now the imperial queen another alum very rare occurrences or women on the front so that build up the riches wealth by the time we get this picture it's been absent you run through this kind of virginity spectrum so we might actually buy it and i don't think he was too if you'd asked people at the time because this time there were certain this is that i had never known about aimee aimee dudley or her death on what you've really given us is a murder mystery guess is a murder mystery and i had no idea of where i was going until i was well into the book then old cecil starts talking and sinister tone about what

might happen to saul when was this problem and her problem is that she really love robert dudley a mutual was truly loves and passionately as you put it in again the saints make it clear that in that she is deeply committed to emotionally intellectually sexually i talk a little bit about him i thought like him i don't you don't like it well in metairie many men at his time didn't like him either you know it has a certain way i think is that a man is more attractive to women i mean he's at the road is a dark eventually yes it is it's wonderful thing maybe his nickname her uncle was gypsy and that he has a couple of recorded instance

of him saying you know of course i'm courtship see because i'm not huntsman not fat yeah and it is absolutely gorgeous and in the portrait c a deadly has this wonderful portrait made of him and elizabeth in matching costume almost like a wedding picture for her great visitors cost of kenilworth and in that it's a picture of a man who knows his assets of many as his lovely long legs in the elizabethan costume shows that often it's got this dark serious brooding face with these you know what you call come to bad eyes and the soldiers is absolutely gorgeous but very very ambitious very very determined by unscrupulous and that he i think he is in love with elizabeth i think you generally is but at the same time at that period when your king and queen whoever is on the phone is the only source of power and wealth at their eyes which is why everyone is in love with henry even when henry's apsey despicable that there's nowhere else to get a career so if you want to be

successful you got to focus on the moment or on the pyramid of power and influence comes off and there's no other way to survive here he strikes me as a young as a sad moments as a bit of a rogue one and you write scenes as phil well i mean they grab you and pull you in there is the scene in which amelia country's at war the country is divided catholic and protestant mary with bloody mary negotiate then she kill a prostitute and elizabeth is good queen bess oppose as far as i know she only play a role in killing one person and we're not absolutely sure about that they get to anything one would have to say about him as this

record as compared to assist as recalled bloody marys bloody mary largely because of protestants and when i speak as a person we write the history so the people the week defeat like dr martha white spanish by the french going to english history us as fairly bad people because we need persistent english are best as elizabeth was a great business writing was grateful espionage and torture so although she didn't execute nearly as many as mary did she tortured far more disown mary is the daughter of government are not indeed yes then and then elizabeth is the daughter of the landlord and yes and and their other boleyn women in the story that the ship boys area a seductive and a sometimes sinister oh and the lock on the eye that film about your research on the idea you have you take artistic license obviously but in such a delightful way and and i wonder where fact and fiction

an insect anomaly often do but then also wonder how you take mcpartland well i it probably less license and you might think that this is a time where that the stories where what is going on is apps that extraordinary ending a new book by a young woman coming to the throne she sees you note that in a twenty twenty year she's in the woody allen has been aimed in prison in the tower of london and effect of his own death as his own father saw as elevated as you yemen is a most extend most extraordinary pair of young survivors and all of a sudden they get to the throne of england and the wealth and the possibilities are laid out before them added that i'm certain that deeply julie turner so it's a remarkable time at the same time you have this extraordinary jeopardy of england bingo wall with almost all of catholic europe and a wall with a close neighbor scotland which were almost was awarded so it's you couldn't you know you couldn't make that up you and i make that up it's

so intense that it's a highly dramatic period of english history the bass and i do make up for the bits whether happens to not be much of a record so the character who's almost all fiction is aimee dudley robots wife because we don't know what that birth we know very little about we know when she was married because she marries into a grand family then this week she comes into the record but because she lives apart from him when he's either company for political office wall in prison for treason for them back and elizabeth court yesterday hours as must have a horse and top flavors and probably lover his wife is absent in the shadows both of these society and therefore all the history so we know next to nothing about her except that there was a very powerful rumor that she was being poisoned the rumor was so strong that singing i remember when the doctor refuses to treat it because he says why would i do that if i kill island coney enmity of africa most important beginning and and if i kill

her and i'll be the one he gets blamed for the poison leaders of literature and that's that's on record so you know that i couldn't i went and i you know there there is so much about the history that one forgets and that one never knew i and there is that moment when she finds herself desperately in love with robert dudley and committed to marry a warrior if he defeats the scotts then committed to marry archduke ferdinand if the warriors they'll say absentee and when in season has sorely architect is one moment when he's talking and said i would prefer aaron by other you won over over robert dudley well moment and and how could a woman a strongly she was

i think i guess she is very young and at that point no i've probably pliable and she's robin roberts hands at one point and end cecil's the other season who has only the bombing feelings toward him and what wasn't alma mater well again anyone as a councilor wants to cloned her partly because they wanted her to one to be the people who have the power but also because of his history of patronage a wealth which comes just from the queen the other thing is that what we eat it historians are cursed by hindsight we know where it ends up so we always think that its bad before it's there and one of the greatest conference anybody paid me after they read my book the other boleyn girl was i said i couldn't put it down because i had to know how it would end well you think of that because you can you have to know you have to know you know he doesn't get our clothes shoes a reasonably likely that you can't imagine how they get from where they are but if you know that the time as opposed to being four hundred years later

you would be absolutely rapt in the unfolding of the story when i'm writing historical fiction it's my job not be his dream he says they're going to get that solid tell you how they get there with the knowledge that they get because i'm writing a novel i say you are with me here they are here and none of us know well going in and it'll turn out how it turns out chance is going to play again was thought it was a place of a bit of luck of a bit of bad luck and they'll be in the case of elizabethan courts and in a consummate planning for those of you just in and talking to philip gregory about her new book the virgin's lover and i'd say well your new book about the next book which is you're really which is really a new book which will be on december in a little bit but i i have talked about you're a talent for creating scenes from history that come alive and that seems so real when he'd won robert dudley is talking

to gorillas both to elizabeth their marriage is compelling stuff it is there that i began really to dislike him and then when he goes home to a doctor amy about the divorce bunn it's not that i like him least their ideas biden at that moment he really makes her life its newsroom and to her credit she stands right up to him it's there i think you take some license that had to be natural she had to be furious with them when he demanded you know i want to marry the queen i wanna be the king not the king khan so i want to be the gay what i've seen it was anywhere in your imagination did you

find them the stuff the lakers so tough thing i think because she is a fictional character in the sense that there's no history to draw and i ate i did what i do with any fictional character which is that i do a little exercise and i said say i'm where would i go what would i feel about it and i think most women who at herring husbands and in this case you know were simmering not one coming home sink any forgive me for saying i'm not going to leave you go through a period of time in hysterical rate she certainly beyond the self several times with them but find some kind of strength to survive it and so i think she does that and one of the things that was very interesting is in a novel which is dominated by the protestant faith because they're in the ascendance in this novel was very interesting to me to use a maze of their call to show a woman who was loyal not only to the marriage vows and not only tomorrow the worthless husband that she's actually go to her roman catholic faith because she finds a lot of courage and comfort in the church which is in a sense in the same bad condition

that she's in you know the church that has been the church of england is now absolutely in disarray absolutely been reconstructed in a new shape so the priests to remain faithful are in a sense betrayed as well there is that scene they just run through my mind i can almost purely on the screen in which she wasn't a confession and you and the priest is afraid to go to confession in secret but you're right there he tells her no and don't let any money initially due she's queen and overcharging she can declare a divorce and she doesn't want to clear that she doesn't want to she understands and cecil in the sense that it would be a disaster for her to do that but the priest says to her you stand by your stand by you're going to the churches

the churches which you and beyond that god is with you and that's that's all she needs to hear to reinforce her determination it's not to get much worse gets a very interesting role in which you know what i care about at the time that the order of being the power from god descends god angels saints unseating king's so the queen out guns everybody really emotional then husbands who outgun everybody and then myself to that however it's like they're kind of geneva convention know if your husband asked you to commit a mortal sin although use your mosque in the sun can go and you can in a sense to apply god's will you can interpret it was so interesting is that the protestants you would be that you can apply to god you can sidestep a priest you can apply to go directly so in a sense the independence that amy draws on the independence of spirit is absolutely a protestant independence of spirit which says i can be the judge of this i don't have to be obedient to the hierarchy i understand god's will and that visit i should

obey his will and staying married it's quite i mean it and what was fun about the novel was being really great about the research is a lie is a name in the way that it all fits together say repeatedly sent a time when you've got this incredible destruction in the countryside and this extraordinary change religion you've also got these people say well what else has to it stay what else can be changed because half the country says we don't want any change at all because they're an organ function without the french and most of catholic europe here on one hand and the scots and there when it's got through those rumors as almost of the post and then you do and then you know you can you find me find that cecil having left her at one point now is back advice here again and telling her what he needs to know and

finally acknowledges you know i can ski it would ruin him that would really be a brief ryan and cecil taylor wins it's about or if you do this it's over for you you will be discredited but beyond that you will i knew that he would gut the uk survive in an understanding she says get me out of this problem you know find some way to get me other than done and if we're to believe you devious man the media is around the world know that a tough you have to assume that he's a very hard nosed and diplomat an clearly and clearly an autocrat and a manipulator i didn't like robert somehow like him

i'm in the murdering door that i admired him hire i hate what he did in my eyes the crime but i really thought that he handled himself throughout well i'm very fond of sensible only a very i mean i think he in when he weighs just hours to elizabeth as a father she'd never hired and when you see a vulnerability we knew which comes in this book in a way that you do that that it if youre a strange thing about her is the queen triumphant you don't always think that she was a very very frightened girl for most alive when you when she comes to the throne just to fry and that morning that he gives her that if she marries desolation lose a throne that's absolutely historically based there is evidence that we have the documents of a french pop which was absolutely ready to go when she married dudley to replace with mary queen of scots when that happened they with everybody thought it would happen what what do you think oh i know what you

think because you've written what you think but how much and how much is there for the possibility that with breast cancer well amy got his death it's not very likely that the science was about the gnome to do proper in question him about that the reconstruction of people trying to work out what caused her death she may well be no that's quite possible but she cleared the house of the servants she knew what she was doing and she got the house actually tnt she insisted on them leaving to she was expecting somebody to come that she wanted to meet in secret the queen everything that i say in the novel which really in which the queen alice's soul jointly incriminate not only rhetorically but also incriminate the queen herself that's only recalled elizabeth tells a spanish ambassador two days before any data is that that robot that his wife is on a quote dead

or nearly so it's an sticks with extraordinary things and then when the news comes and then he did that you just were going to die when the news comes to the court but amy's had a name is that they don't send the news as to how she's died and elizabeth says before the news has arrived she must've had a broken neck you go well how would you know that if you're not particularly so there's no doubt in my mind on that one of two francis has to be apparent either elizabeth is such a stumbling from the least you could plot that she tells her worst enemy the spanish ambassador that she's going to kill i love rival and when the news comes she wrote she confesses it not very likely not not na is not remotely thomas didn't just not knowing what we know about her not remotely possible she is not jesus only person jesus mark how all that for my second preference which is that she and sessler decided firstly to dispose of it and then to incriminate robot that any other sport a virtual

but she gets everybody on the house because she thinks roberts from and i think she thought she was actually preparing for secret meeting and someone asked if a secret meeting amazing how this a woman who has quote so by robert dudley but when i'm cecil bum we're so into pledging to married to other men so a virus that crisis and goes on to really become a beloved figure and there's a long way for forty years well done girls grow up interesting for ha ha ha she's still a

girl so of course she gets blown about the recall she gets pregnant and she loses i'm out of a every time she makes a mistake that the last time she makes it she figures out what to do next time so there's a line in the book where she says i am my own pool i have nothing to play but myself and i think the realization which was so much like a mother's realization of berlin's realization that in the end if you're a woman you can at least you got your own capital you can at least play yourself if you play that you might go anywhere and elizabeth's deployment all of her feminine wiles of vanity of the beauty of the power then ultimately of the austerity that she could run over this country which she was now by now she and sosa were making very much according to settled long term plan but she understood it then you have a very very powerful woman and how much she has to grow and he's beginning to feel it though i mean when he says to her your business is my visit your currency is my currency she knows he's going to farther and

she he tells are of state secretary bought that and she says i gotta get out of this and you got to get me out of this and to know you begin this story did you know how she was going to go yes you did you have you had the southern girl to solve a murder mystery what i started with a murder mystery and what seemed to me so peculiar when i read all the historical material about it was i did it like i cried i tracked it like it just happened so i didn't say i'll take one has to endure another i just looked at the evidence and i went who you know firstly who would benefit from this how would they do it how does the evidence much with that and to me nobody else could've done that nobody else wants to do that nobody else has the means to do it and such evidence is we have which is incomplete just seems to me to indicate who does that her

let's talk in the couple minutes we have left about the next book how good it will be out in december i'm very excited that if it's in a sense it's a step back in time it's a storied captain america and again what we're talking about another american mother mary henry's first queen of the magazine up to so much as he pushes gorgeous sixteen years later she's the old queen and she's pushed aside from berlin but when she first comes to england she's a girl of sixteen she was brought up in the alhambra palace in spain in grenada she's the daughter faden and isabella who in the year that they finally expelled muslims and was from spain send christopher columbus off to discover your country set as the most extraordinary time to be a princess and from that spain not very powerfully islam dominate its pain she comes to england and they move into ludlow castle which is a tiny very very cold cost look at the back of my folks hanging from that she has to make herself queen

of england up and have you already so no earthly jaw is already halfway through whether you finish the book that's coming out next year yes that's that was at a novel that i wrote it's it's a sequel there's two there's actually joys which is out now in paperback and virgin earth which as commander there he sees what's been so wonderful is that so many people have enjoyed the other boleyn girl a queen school another virgins at the demand for my work has really increased so we're seeing some of the pakistan and actually to his invention of a manson well thank you so much for joining us on word on words and thank all of you for watching us talk about the virginia lover was your homework done