Few would dispute the truth of this statement, yet the process by which such visions are vouchsafed is a mysterious one. What is it that inspires authors to put pen to paper: curiosity, sympathy, passion, obsession? In her own words, Suzannah Dunn reveals what fascinated her about the reign of Mary Tudor … We shy away from Mary Tudor. If she appears at all in fiction or films, she’s dowdy and earnest if not also vengeful and deluded. Her problem is that she wasn’t glamorous, to say the very least. Worse, for the English, she’s embarrassing: that un-English religious fervour of hers, and the pitifully public nature of her lifetime of humiliations and rejections. And so she was – and still is, almost five hundred years later – eclipsed by the success story: her half-sister, Elizabeth. We all seem to forget Mary’s own considerable claim to fame: she was England’s first-ever ruling queen. And hard though it is to believe it now, she came to the throne amid such jubilation, it’s said, as had never been seen before nor has been since.
What do You think about The Queen's Sorrow (2015)?
