The female struggle through history, as told by Philippa Gregory

Aug 27 2010 By Hannah Stephenson

Philippa Gregory talks to Hannah Stephenson about translating her tales on the historical plight of women for the screen.

Historian and novelist Philippa Gregory can recall the day she looked across a meadow and saw a pack of hounds and Henry VIII emerging in conversation with Anne Boleyn’s brother.

“It was a timeless moment, when history literally came to life. It was like it was really happening,” the author recalls.

She was on the TV set of her best known novel The Other Boleyn Girl, which was also made into a film starring Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman.

Gregory, 56, says that the strong female characters in her books lend themselves to film adaptations and has already had some interest from TV producers regarding her latest novel, The Red Queen.

The second in The Cousins’ War series, it tells the story of Margaret Beaufort who became the matriarch of the Tudor dynasty.

Margaret uses the discord of the War of the Roses and elimination of rival heirs to advance her son Henry (who became Henry VII) to the throne. Gregory explains how Margaret marries three times to help her cause, but never for love.

“I think the story of a woman struggling against the most likely outcomes, death and failure, is very powerful. And nobody knows much about her.”

Gregory describes how The Other Boleyn Girl, published in 2002 and made into a film, helped bring such historical stories into the mainstream.

“It didn’t change my life but it meant that I sold many more books because of the film. It meant that I could carry on doing what I was doing.”

Involved with the movie, which was filmed in England, Gregory describes the film as “an enormous machine like a huge circus travelling around the country”.

“You had these incredibly beautiful stars, who command staggering sums of money, getting out of their trailers and trudging across the mud, working in the rain and cold. It’s a world of very great contrasts,” she continues.

“Scarlett and Natalie were really endearing. They’re about the age of my daughters so I had a sense of affection towards them from the start.

“Scarlett had her copy of my book in her hand practically all the time she was on set and kept saying to the director, ‘We don’t seem to have this scene, but it’s a key scene...”’

The resulting film wasn’t necessarily how she would have written it but Gregory says she enjoyed it anyway.

“The film wanted much more to tell a story about female rivalry. As a film, it was very successful.”

Her latest novel paints a grim picture of women’s lives during the same period – the suffering they endured, the young age at which they married, their frequent death in childbirth and abuse by their husbands.