Anya Seton (1904–1990)

I selected this historical novel because I thought that my ancestors might be in it. The book is a historical biography of Elizabeth Fones Winthrop, daughter-in-law to John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. My people were cousins to John Winthrop and lived in the same English village as the Winthrops. Lavenham is also known as the birthplace of Harry Potter. Yes, my people are in the book and some of them traveled with Governor Winthrop in 1630 to the Massachusetts Bay show more Colony on the Arbella. I highlighted my copy of the book each time an ancestor was mentioned.

The Winthrop Woman was published in 1958. Elizabeth Fones was the niece of Governor John Winthrop and she married her cousin Harry Winthrop, which gave her prestige among the Puritan set. Elizabeth was a Puritan in name only. She scandalized her family and community with brazen behavior such as sleeping with a cousin before marriage, necessitating the marriage. Before her marriage Elizabeth blasphemed God during a conversation at home and was flogged in front of the entire family and household staff. She became areligious after the flogging and despised her uncle Winthrop for demanding that she receive the beating. Although Elizabeth was in love with her cousin Jack, she agreed to marry Edward Howes after Jack left England. She broke that engagement after dillydallying with Jack's brother Harry. At first, Elizabeth and Harry were happy in their marriage but Harry was an alcoholic and a spendthrift. When Jack returns to England he is shocked that Elizabeth did not wait for him, even though he never told her of his desire for her. Elizabeth still loves Jack but is stuck with Harry. In order to tame his son, Governor Winthrop demands Harry move to the new world with him. On the way, Harry is drowned. Elizabeth follows him to the colonies, not aware that she was a widow. She is unable to abide by societal rules here either, maintaining her damning reputation.

I was surprised that Governor Winthrop became more conservative after emigrating to Massachusetts Bay Colony. He wanted to please the colonists who were already on American soil. The Separatists in Plymouth Bay were much more conservative than the Dissenters in Massachusetts and, being politically ambitious, Winthrop did whatever he had to do in order to be re-elected as the Governor of Massachusetts Bay. Sound familiar? He was cruel toward anyone who opposed him and loved to think up punishments for alleged wrongdoers. You didn't have to actually violate the law to be accused of wrongful acts. Sound familiar again? Some of these acts included celebrating Christmas, which Winthrop celebrated when he lived in Lavenham. However, his conservative views became radicalized as he gained more and more power. I had been taught in elementary school to idolize these first Americans but their personal foibles are fully on display here. Their politics are no different than the brash politics of today with everyone distrusting everyone else. As the saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same.

This historical novel was very readable even though it was written over 60 years ago. I loved reading about the people who began this American experiment. I was struck, though, by the similarity of our politics in the initial 25 years on our continent with the politics of today. There is no difference. During the first three elections for selectmen and governor, Governor Winthrop and his buddies changed the voting boundaries to ensure that only their kind of Puritan was elected. There was also alot of name calling. I can only conclude that we are what we have always been. As for our Elizabeth, she was only able to get away with her misconduct because of her affiliation with Winthrop.

5 out of 5 stars. show less

Rating: 3 stars out of five, but only because I still love the memory

The Book Report: The book description says:

This unforgettable story of undying love combines mysticism, suspense, mystery, and romance into a web of good and evil that stretches from 16th-century England to the present day. Richard Marsdon marries a young American woman named Celia, brings her to live at his English estate, and all seems to be going well. But now Richard has become withdrawn, and Celia is constantly haunted show more by a vague dread. When she suffers a breakdown and wavers between life and death, a wise doctor realizes that only by forcing Celia to relive her past can he enable her to escape her illness. Celia travels back 400 years in time to her past life as a beautiful but doomed servant. Through her eyes, we see the England of the Tudors, torn by religious strife, and experience all the pageantry, lustiness, and cruelty of the age. As in other historical romance titles by this author, the past comes alive in this flamboyant classic novel.

My Review: My sister used to have a book store. She, our mother, and I all spent the summer of 1973, damn near 40 years ago now, reading this book. We'd been stealing it back and forth from each other until finally she gave Mama and me our own copies so she could read it in peace. We did a sort of group read on the book, and oh my heck how we liked it!

I was a teenager then. I wasn't an inexperienced reader, but I was completely suckered in by anything to do with reincarnation. Mama was just getting the Jeebus infection that ate her sense of humor, compassion, and decency...all oddly enough while sexually abusing her teenaged son, funny how often religion masks corruption...and my sister was in one of the periodic hellish patches that have punctuated her road through life.

We all resonated with the travails of the characters, trying to work out their manifold interconnections and karmic debts. The book's very Gothicness was deeply appealing to each of us for our own reasons, and gave us hours and hours of fun things to talk about. For that, a whole star in grateful memory.

Rereading this at fifty-two was probably a mistake. The writing is very much what one would expect of an historical novelist whose career began in the 1940s. She was renowned in the day for her meticulous research, and yet says in her Preface (p. vi of the 1973 Houghton Mifflin hardcover I got from the liberry), “Source books make for tedious listing, but for the Tudor period {of Green Darkness} I have tried to consult all the pertinent ones.” Imagine someone, even a novelist, trying to get away with that now! There would be calumnious mutterings and sulphrous aspersions cast on the character and the ability of such an author. As if it matters in a work of fiction.

The humid Gothic atmosphere of lust and love denied, the surrendered to, then disastrously brought to a close, was a little hard on my older self. I like romantic stories just fine, but the moralizing you can keep. And there is a deal of moralizing! Whee dawggie! The gay characters are ugly...as within, so without, and Seton clearly has the attitude of her day towards gay men...the lusty lower-class wenches get their bastards and get turned out, the Catholic Church and its hypocrisy suffer agonies at the hands of the vile Protestant politicians...Seton was raised a Theosophist...good people turn hard and cold when given property to protect...the Exotic Hindu Doctor who understands Modern Medicine but Knows How to Be In Touch With the Spirits, oof!...oh, the lot!

So not so much on the attitude. I get it, and in those days I absorbed it because it was the way my family thought, but how I wish I could go back to 1973 and smack this book out of my young hands! Along with Stranger in a Strange Land, its misogyny and homophobia leached right into my brain and lodged there. Never made me one whit less gay, just made me feel terrible about it, like the culture's messages continue to do to young and impressionable kids to this day.

But the fact that the lady wrote this, her next-to-last book, when she was nearing seventy and had only just been divorced from her husband of nigh on forty years, and was beginning her long decline into ill health, makes Green Darkness a poignant re-read for me. Her life was unraveling, and mine was too (what little there was of it at that point); I think both my mother and my sister felt the same way. I suspect some resonance of that bound all of us to this book and spoke to each of us about its unhappy people in unhappy lives. There is, in the best romantic tradition, a happy ending. But I for one have never believed it. show less

An exceptional classic of historical fiction!

First published in 1954, the KATHERINE of the title is Katherine de Roet Swynford (1349-1403), one-time household governess, then mistress, and later third wife of John of Gaunt (1340-1399), 1st Duke of Lancaster. And a fascinating woman in her own right. Her chief claim to fame is that their descendants founded the ever-popular House of Tudor. She's also happens to be the sister-in-law of Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400), author of THE CANTERBURY show more TALES.

When I first read this book many years ago, I knew little of English history during this time period. But I found the story and especially the character of Katherine so compelling that it launched an entirely new fascination. So much so that I've now read dozens of books about assorted members of the House of Plantagenet, and its offshoots, the York and Lancaster rivals.

In a quirky piece of historical irony, John of Gaunt's son and heir by his first wife, Henry Bolingbroke, later King Henry IV (1367-1413) was instrumental in starting the Wars of the Roses (1455-87), whereas his great, great grandson, Henry Tudor (1457-1509 - aka King Henry VII) is credited with ending those wars.

The book is considered a well-researched historical romance for its time period (when far fewer resources were readily available) and is just one of the dozen well-received novels American author Anya Seton (1904-1990) wrote. Several of which were made into movies. For me, this was a true page-turner.

It's a shame Seton is not more widely known today because for me, she is one of the best historical novelists I've come across. She made Katherine, John of Gaunt, their romance, AND complex histories -- all come alive. I actually became extremely invested in whether their Beaufort descendants should be considered legitimate. (Read the book to find out more!) Clearly this is one of those works of historical fiction that has stayed with me over decades. show less

It is important to say up front that I am a sucker for good historical fiction. I like knowing that these people existed, that these events are part of the human record, that no one can know what these people actually thought or felt, but that this is one possible scenario that fits all the historical information. What is sure is that some things about people do not change with the exchange of horses for automobiles and kings for ego-driven politicians and that it is our ability to find show more common grounds in our feelings that make us relate to history so viscerally.

Having laid my prejudice for this genre on the table, I wish to say Anya Seton excels at what she does. I was completely invested in Katherine and John of Gaunt as historical characters and as individual people. It took quite a lot to survive in the sphere of the royal house in the 1300s and it is fascinating that these two persons so far down in the line of succession would be the grandfather and grandmother of a bevy of future kings and queens, including the Tutors.

It has been a long time since I have stayed up until 2:00 in the morning because I could not wait until the next day to finish a novel. I could not bear to leave John and Katherine hanging on the edge of finishing their story. I didn’t want to break the flow of the narrative and when I was done I was not ready to let go of these characters at all. I hope the real Katherine Swynford was half as strong and resilient as this novel heroine; I hope John was as handsome and charming and torn as this John. I hope they did experience a love that transcended common understanding. They broke the rules of their time. He lifted her to his station. There was a reason for that, that only a great love could explain. We all have heartbreak and tragedy, but not all of us have a love that makes that tragedy a footnote.

I have marked all Seton’s novels to read. I hope I enjoy them all this much. show less