From a young age, the Tudor princesses in Philippa Gregory's Three Sisters, Three Queens know that they are exceptional, that they will marry the most powerful men in Europe, and that they must hold onto their power at all costs. For Margaret, sister of Henry VIII, this means watching her sisters like a hawk. Despite being betrothed to the King of Scotland, Margaret is tormented by envy for her graceful sister-in-law Katherine of Aragon and her beautiful younger sister, Mary. Yet Margaret holds a strange admiration for these women, too.
Gregory, author of The Other Boleyn Girl and the Cousins' War novels (which serve as the basis of the Starz miniseries The White Queen), is adept at delving into the minds of female monarchs. She reveals Margaret as a woman who possesses both impressive courage and the vanity of a spoiled teenager. While her life may seem obscure to the modern reader, her relationship to her sisters is in some ways typical of many young women today, who admire, envy and measure themselves against their friends.
After resenting her half-sister for years, Margaret thinks: "Oddly, it is Katherine that I miss as I travel north.... I copy her beautiful way of holding her head. I even practise her little roll of the shoulders.... I think that she will be Queen of England and I will be Queen of Scotland and people will compare us one with another, and that I will learn to be as elegant as she is." --Annie Atherton