Alison Weir's A Dangerous Inheritance covers two periods of English
history that are at times linked together. One narrative, covering the period
of 1483-87, focuses on Richard III’s baseborn daughter, Katherine Plantagenet,
referred to as Kate.
The
other narrative, covering the period of 1553-1568, is told by Katherine Grey,
whose sister Jane is known as “The nine-day queen”, though she never had chance
to rule, nor was she officially a queen at all, for that role was undertaken by
(Bloody) Mary I. Jane and Katherine Grey’s mother was daughter of Henry
VIII’s sister, so the famous Tudor king’s blood flowed through the young
sisters’ veins.
Alison Weir does a great job of swapping between
these narratives, of which Kate’s is written in third person past tense, while
Katherine’s is in first person present tense.
Both heroines walk the fine line between royal
greatness and eternal disgrace. Each girl let’s her heart rule her head and
this proves to be their undoing. The inheritance of regal blood is indeed a
danger. To quote from narrative:
“Tangling with princes rarely brought anyone
anything but ill-fortune and grief.”
One would have to possess a hard heart not to
sympathise with these two heroines, both of whom I took a shine to, especially
King Richard’s loyal daughter.
Although before reading this I was quite familiar with aspects of
English history during the times covered in this novel, I knew little of Katherine Plantagenet's life and wasn’t even aware of Katherine Grey’s existence. I therefore found these stories – despite (and because of) the obvious fictional passages
the author used to fill in the gaps – most interesting.
The princes in the Tower make an interesting
subplot. Kate believes her father had nothing to do with her cousins’
deaths – assuming they *were* killed and not taken somewhere safe – and she
writes down her theories, which Katherine discovers years later and becomes
fascinated by the tragedy. She in turn wants to discover the truth.
I believe that a good book should be engaging
throughout, while a great one should be continually engrossing – this novel
fits the latter category for me.
