Category Archives: History

Arts, Books, France, History, Scotland

Book Review: The Thistle and The Rose

LITERARY REVIEW

HISTORY has taught us and we have become accustomed to the idea of Henry VIII being so vile and dastardly to his wives that it has been easy to overlook the fact that he was equally cruel and beastly to his sister.

Margaret Tudor was born two years before Henry, and he never seems to have forgiven her for arriving first. Add in the fact that she became Queen of Scotland at the age of just 13 when he was still only Prince of Wales and you have the makings of a sibling rivalry that stretched until Margaret’s death in 1541.

Instead of squabbling over who was better at Latin or who had the nicest pony, the royal brother and sister indulged in vicious politicking which descended into their respective kingdoms taking up arms against each other.

Henry outlived his sister by just over five years, but it was long enough to ensure that he won the PR war. Consequently, Margaret Tudor has gone down in the historical records as a silly woman who spent her time buying clothes she couldn’t afford and of being highly promiscuous.

Repugnant of all, Henry accused his sister of writing him begging letters and whingeing about being short of money. What he didn’t mention was that he had deliberately withheld from her the fortune that she had inherited under the terms of their father’s will. In the circumstances, she had every right to complain.

In this passionate act of rehabilitation, Linda Porter argues that Margaret Tudor was a lot more than an airhead who didn’t know where to stop with the diamonds.

From the moment she arrived north, barely into her teens, to marry James IV of Scotland, she developed a subtle but powerful sense of what needed to be done to prevent Scotland from fracturing into warring clans. You have only to know that the people around her were called things such as Archibald the Grim, James the Gross, and Robert Blackadder to soon realise that this was a wild and wuthering place.

The one saving grace in Margaret’s new life north of the border was her husband, King James. Modern alarm bells will ring when it is known that he was 30 and she 13 years old, but the record documents that he seems to have been a genuinely loving and attentive husband.

He also appreciated the subtle power that came with dressing well, and he showered his young wife with expensive furs, silks, and jewels so that she looked as glamorous as any French princess. Readers will recall that Scotland and France were historically bound together in the “Auld Alliance” which, naturally, gave Henry the jitters.

Of more significance, and from a tactical point of view, was that Margaret produced a string of babies in the first few years of her marriage, ensuring the Stuart dynasty’s security for the next generation and beyond. One of her grandchildren became Mary, Queen of Scots.

It was his sister’s fertility that made Henry especially furious. Despite having been married to Katherine of Aragon for seven years, he was still childless, which meant that, should anything happen to him, Margaret would inherit the English throne, quite possibly with James ruling alongside her. For such a competitive man, the thought was unbearable.

This simmering bad feeling came to a head in 1513 at the Battle of Flodden between the English and Scots, which led to the bloody death of James and most of his nobles.

For the rest of her life Margaret found herself in a tenuous position. Her baby son was now crowned James V and she was installed as his Regent. But this arrangement was never going to please ruthless Scottish clansmen, who now vied to see who could dethrone her.

At this point Henry could have stepped in to help his sister. Instead, he took perverse pleasure in making things difficult.

When she announced her intention to divorce her next husband, a rotter called Archibald Douglas who had siphoned off what remained of her money, Henry delivered a condescending lecture on her low moral standards. This was particularly rich given the way that he was going through wives like a hot knife through butter.

Ironically, in the long term, it was Margaret who won this deadly sibling feud. Despite his multiple marriages, Henry failed to establish a secure Tudor bloodline – none of his children produced an heir.

By contrast, Margaret’s great-grandson, ruled Scotland as James VI and, in 1603, on Queen Elizabeth I’s death, was invited south to become James I of England.

Within a year he decreed that he would be known as the King of Great Britain and insisted that Scotland and England would walk together in unity. But as history clearly shows there have been many subsequent attempts to divide. Certainly, the monarchy in Scotland is seen very differently to how it is perceived in England.

Linda Porter has drawn on the latest scholarship and offers an entertaining book that lights up a shadowy and fascinating corner of Tudor history.

– The Thistle and The Rose by Linda Porter is published by Head of Zeus, 400pp

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Britain, History, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Politics, Saudi Arabia, Society, United States

Middle East history. It needs to be understood.

MIDDLE EAST

Ancient indifferences are reshaping the Middle East and forging unlikely new alliances

GEOPOLITICAL statements come no more obscure than one given earlier this week by an Israeli news site.

A member of the Saudi Arabian royal family had reportedly told the broadcaster Kan that, in his view, Iran had started the Gaza war by instructing its proxy group Hamas to attack Israel on October 7.

Tehran’s attention, according to this nameless royal, was to thwart the imminent normalisation of diplomatic relations between Israel and the Saudis.

This is so important because it symbolises the extraordinary transformation under way in the politics of the Middle East. For a Saudi royal to express such a view – that a Muslim country instigated the conflict for the purpose of spreading discord – would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. But that’s not the only way in which the winds of change are resettling alliances in this volatile region.

Five days ago, the ayatollahs of Iran inflicted their first direct attack on Israel since they came to power in 1979.

For some 45 years, the Islamic Republic has plotted the destruction of what its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei calls “the evil Zionist regime”. But it has left the actual attacks to its proxies, such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

This fresh assault did almost no damage, thanks to the defensive coalition that shot down almost all of the weapons directed at Israel.

The US and UK played a role in this. But they were joined by two other countries for whom defending the Jewish state would have been fanciful until recently: Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

For most of the time Israel has existed, Saudi, as one of the leading Muslim nations and home to the holy city of Mecca, has been its implacable foe. But now it is on the verge not just of tolerating Israel but becoming an ally.

Similarly, back in 1967, Jordan actually invaded Israel – a disastrous move which lost it the territories of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Yet now Jordan, too, has stood alongside Israel to protect it from Iranian bombs. This newfound cooperative spirit continues apace: it has emerged that both the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates had passed helpful intelligence to America to use in Israel’s defence, with Jordan further agreeing to let the US and “other countries’ warplanes” use its airspace, as well as sending up its own jets. The rise of Iran – and its chilling proximity to a nuclear weapon – has driven old foes closer.

Iran now dominates a vast region from its borders with Iraq, through Syria and Lebanon, to the Mediterranean. Through its Yemeni proxies, the Houthis, and its own navy, it is causing chaos and major disruption in the key Red Sea trade route.

And it has turned the Palestinian cause into a strategic vehicle for its own ambitions through two other proxies, Hamas (Gaza) and Hezbollah (Lebanon). This chaotic and meddlesome statecraft has appalled other Muslim countries.

The story of the Middle East used to be “Israel versus everyone else”. However, that is no longer true. To understand how all this has come about, you need to go back to the very roots of Islam – and the schism within it. In 610AD, Mohammed unveiled a new faith. By the time he died in 632AD, he and Islam were all-powerful in Arabia, and within a century it had subjugated an empire stretching from Central Asia to Spain.

But as history teaches us, Islam was split over who should succeed the Prophet. One faction argued the leadership should be passed through his bloodline. They became known as Shias, from shi’atu Ali, Arabic for “partisans of Ali”, who was Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law.

The others, the Sunnis (followers of the sunna, or “way” in Arabic) said leadership should be determined on merit.

Ali was elected as “caliph” (spiritual leader) in 656AD but within five years was assassinated, enshrining an enduring split.

Fast forward to 2024, and about 85 per cent of the world’s 1.6billion Muslims are Sunni, while 15 per cent are Shia.

Two countries now vie for the leadership of Islam, Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran. Since the mullahs seized power in Tehran 45 years ago, the divisions and mutual hatreds have only grown.

As a minority within Islam, the Shiites have historically been treated as subordinate in Sunni-dominated countries. But there has been a significant growth of the Shiite population in Gulf nations. This has increased anxiety among Sunni rulers over the growing power of Shia Iran.

In Gulf states such as the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, and especially Saudi Arabia, the Shia threat – in other words the threat from Iran – is seen as existential.

Egypt, too, which has had a peace treaty with Israel since 1979, is also an arch enemy of the mullahs. In Israel’s 2006 Lebanon war with Hezbollah, Sunni countries were, behind the scenes, willing Israel to triumph, just as it is said now that Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia want Israel to destroy Hamas in Gaza.

The rapprochement of some Sunni countries was embodied in the 2020 Abraham Accords which normalised relations between the UAE, Bahrain, and Israel, and later Morocco and Sudan.

There is logic, then, to the deepening alliances between Sunni states and Israel. The Arab nations understand that while Israel has no ambitions to dominate its neighbours, Iran seeks to control all of the Middle East.

What’s indisputable is that if you don’t understand this split and history, you can’t understand the Middle East at all.

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Arts, Books, History, Literature, Scotland

Scottish author says Shakespeare got Macbeth wrong

SHAKESPEARIAN TRAGEGY

AS generations of pupils learned in English classes, Lady Macbeth, the cold-hearted, scheming villain who casts her dark shadow over one of literature’s most famous plays, and driven by a lust for power, persuaded her weak-willed husband to commit murder most foul.

Yet, according to one of Scotland’s illustrious top crime writers, Shakespeare got the tragedy of Macbeth all wrong.

Novelist Val McDermid – with a helping hand from former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon – has written a book exploring the real story of the woman who became Queen Macbeth, first Queen of Scotland.

And part of her aim, she says, is “setting Shakespeare straight”.

According to the Bard of Avon, the Macbeths are motivated by merciless ambition which ultimately leads to their downfall. Their tragedy stems from their decision to seize the throne by killing King Duncan while he is asleep.

But McDermid, whose novels have sold more than 19 million copies and been translated into more than 40 languages, recasts the tale in a feminist light – as a historical romance seen from the perspective of a strong and determined woman fighting for life and love.

As befits a crime writer, the book contains a major plot twist. But in a departure from the gritty “tartan noir” genre for which she is highly acclaimed, McDermid also ventures into the realm of erotic fiction.

In the author’s notes at the start of the book, she claims the Macbeths were “not the power-hungry bloody tyrants that Shakespeare wrote of in his Scottish play”.

And in highlighting other inaccuracies, she says: “For a start, Macbeth wasn’t even his name – it was Macbethad. His wife wasn’t Lady Macbeth – she was Gruoch. If he couldn’t get their names right, how can we trust anything else he tells us?”

She also claims the Elizabethan playwright made an error about the death of King Duncan. “Yes, Macbeth did kill Duncan, but it was on the field of battle, not in the dead of night when Duncan was a guest in his castle.”

Queen Macbeth, to be released shortly, tells the fictionalised life-story of Gruoch Ingen Boite, who is forced into a loveless arranged marriage, but finds true love with a nobleman called Macbeth. In the acknowledgements, the author thanks her friend and fellow book lover Ms Sturgeon, “whose animated dinner conversation resolved an awkward plot point for me”. She added: “It’s amazing how a few glasses of red wine release the imagination…”

The novel contains echoes of Shakespeare but imagined from a feminist perspective. The witches who prophesy Macbeth’s doom are replaced by three women – a healer, weaver, and a seer – whose powers make the men of mediaeval Scotland deeply suspicious.

The tale starts with Gruoch and her companions fleeing from plotters who believe she stands in the way of their ambition for power.

As the narrative develops, Gruoch recalls the stirrings of her love for Macbeth, including a racy description of their first moment of intimacy, saying: “Where our bodies touched it was like a lick of flame running through me.”

Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth encourages her husband to commit murder, but McDermid’s version urges caution when Macbeth considers revenge against a rival, saying: “Better to be slow than to shed innocent blood, surely?”

The book is part of Polygon’s Darkland Tales – dramatic retellings of key moments from Scottish history, myth, and legend.

Pre-publication publicity promises McDermid will reveal “a new Lady Macbeth, bringing a schemer in the shadows out into the light and exposing the patriarchal prejudices of history.”

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