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    The Last Tudor
    The Last Tudor
    The Last Tudor
    Audiobook19 hours

    The Last Tudor

    Written by Philippa Gregory

    Narrated by Bianca Amato

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The final book of the Tudor series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory features one of the most famous women in history, Lady Jane Grey, and her two sisters, each of whom dared to defy her queen.

    Jane Grey was queen of England for nine days. Her father and his allies crowned her instead of the dead king’s half-sister Mary Tudor, who quickly mustered an army, claimed her throne, and locked Jane in the Tower of London. When Jane refused to betray her Protestant faith, Mary sent her to the executioner’s block, where Jane transformed her father’s greedy power-grab into tragic martyrdom.

    “Learn you to die,” was the advice Jane wrote to her younger sister Katherine, who has no intention of dying. She intends to enjoy her beauty and her youth and fall in love. But she is heir to the insecure and infertile Queen Mary and then to her sister Queen Elizabeth, who will never allow Katherine to marry and produce a Tudor son. When Katherine’s pregnancy betrays her secret marriage, she faces imprisonment in the Tower, only yards from her sister’s scaffold.

    “Farewell, my sister,” writes Katherine to the youngest Grey sister, Mary. A beautiful dwarf, disregarded by the court, Mary keeps family secrets, especially her own, while avoiding Elizabeth’s suspicious glare. After seeing her sisters defy their queens, Mary is acutely aware of her own danger, but determined to command her own life. What will happen when the last Tudor defies her ruthless and unforgiving cousin Queen Elizabeth?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateAug 8, 2017
    ISBN9781442394025
    Author

    Philippa Gregory

    Philippa Gregory is an internationally renowned author of historical novels. She holds a PhD in eighteenth-century literature from the University of Edinburgh. Works that have been adapted for television include A Respectable Trade, The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen's Fool. The Other Boleyn Girl is now a major film, starring Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman and Eric Bana. Philippa Gregory lives in the North of England with her family.

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    Reviews for The Last Tudor

    4/5

    212 ratings13 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This was really interesting read and puts Elizabeth 1 in a different light. Elizabeth is portrayed as someone who really didn’t know how to love anyone but herself. The author shows this quality in the second and third part of the story really well.
      I would have liked more detail about the Elizabethan period as a backdrop to the story and less emotional handwringing and wretchedness that the author puts us through. I understood the immense suffering the sisters went through but too much written about personal feelings for me. A bit too much poetic license Apart from that a great read!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Loved to hear about the three sisters. Always learn more about history in Ms Gregory’s books then I did in school.
    • 5/5
      This one broke me. I cried like a baby. This is the first of the authors to make me cry.
    • 5/5
      I am a huge fan of Phillipa Gregory. I love historical fiction. It was heart wrenching to learn about the lives of these 3 sisters and what they endured. I could not stop listening.
    • 5/5
      Excellent story telling! I love historical fiction! Can't wait to listen to the other Boleyn Girl.
    • 5/5
      This one is the best and most encouraging. I am looking forward to seeing Lady Queen Jane in heaven one day soon.
    • 5/5
      Hard to put this one down!! It conjured up in me a great curiosity to know more about the historical figures and places of this time.
    • 3/5
      This is my first historical fiction by Philippa Gregory. You may ask why I would start with book #14 in a series. In attending our weekly trivia game, one of the questions had to do with the name of the Queen of England who lasted but nine days. We knew the answer was Lady Jane Grey, but did not know much about her life, so decided to investigate further, and this book came up in an online search. This book is basically a character study of the three Grey sisters, with approximately a third of the book devoted to each.

      This storyline is filled with political intrigue, imagined and real conspiracies, religious differences between “Papists” and “Reformers,” and rationale for various claimants’ rights of succession to the throne. I enjoyed the historical part of this novel, learning more about Jane, Katherine, and Mary Grey than I had known previously, along with prominent families such as the Stewarts, Dudleys and Seymours. I particularly enjoyed the way the author handles Lady Katherine’s pets. She gives them each a personality and I found it endearing when the sisters interacted with them.

      Unfortunately, there’s only so much action to be found when one is confined to the Tower of London or placed under house arrest. Visitors and letters were used as vehicles to relate what was happening off stage. Elizabeth is portrayed as a one-sided villain, a capricious ruler who locks up her cousins due to jealousy. I found it repetitive and the ending felt rushed. It contained references to items and knowledge that didn’t exist in the 1500’s and communications would have taken much longer back then. Even so, it held my interest through fifteen audio discs, and it spurred me to look up more about these historic people. The narrator of the audio book, Bianca Amato, did an excellent job of portraying many characters with distinct voices. I plan to seek out non-fiction about the lives of the Grey sisters and Queen Elizabeth I to see how much of The Last Tudor is based on fact and learn more about this period in English history.
    • 4/5
      NEVER thought I would like this book. I'm not a fan of English Monarchy - I'm not well versed in it... but I LOVED her writing!! I may go back and start at #1!
    • 4/5
      I guess no novel based on the tragic lives of Lady Jane Grey and her two sisters could be anything but gripping.Narrated in three sections by each girl in turn, this begins with the author's perhaps least successful creation of the three - Lady Jane is an insufferable prig, and not entirely convincing because of it. Her swift and inexplicable turning from horrified refusal at accepting the crown to a fiercesome determination that it is right to do so also confuses. Nonetheless her time in the Tower awaiting her end is well described, watching the body of her executed husband carted off, knowing she is next...Middle sister Katherine is Jane's complete opposite, preoccupied with the frivolities of life.Now in the bizarre situation of being returned to Queen Mary's court (with her younger sister) as maids..."constant companions of the queen who executed my sister and my father", she soon falls in love with nobleman Ned Seymour. But as the capricious Elizabeth I takes the throne, they realize they must marry in secret...the ensuing revelation means they (and their sons) are seized and imprisoned for years. Fear of another claim to the throne? Sheer cruelty? As Mary Queen of Scots' escapades are revealed, the constant hope that the unmarried Elizabeth will appoint the Protestant Greys as her heirs and release them is endlessly roused and dashed...And youngest sister, Mary, tiny, perhaps the most likeable, also finally marries for love...the tall sergeant Thomas Keyes. It all seemed terribly ill-judged, given Katherine's fate; despite Keyes' humble background, which might seem less dangerous than that of a lord, they too are separated, the husband dying shortly after release from a lengthy spell in a 'very small cell' in the Fleet prison.Elizabeth I comes out of this with more in common with the tantrumming character on 'Blackadder' than the fearless monarch. The meaningless imprisonment of these individuals, the ruined lives, certainly show another facet to the queen's character.Not great literature but very very readable and informative!
    • 1/5
      [The Last Tudor] by [[Philippa Gregory]]Why, oh why, do I keep giving Philippa Gregory another chance? Especially when her books just keep getting worse? I thought [The Other Boleyn Girl] was OK, rather liked [The Queen's Fool], and I liked [Earthly Joys] until she stuck in an impossible gay affair that never would have happened (when you're a duke and the king's lover, you don't risk fooling around with the gardener on the side). The rest have been drivel. Yet her I sat for an interminable amount of time listening to the audio version of this one. Much of the same wretched formula is on display here: Elizabeth I is a vicious bitch and a whore and her other female characters are either so weak and pathetic that you want to slap them or impossibly strong for women of that era. Others readers have noted her tendency to pit women against each other; sure, it happens in real life, but I doubt it was a constant, even in Elizabethan days. This one focuses on the three Grey sisters, Jane, Catherine, and Mary. I've never read a characterization of Jane Grey that is quite so boring and self-righteous, and I was glad when her head came off and the proselytizing stopped. As for her sisters, they both made the same fatal mistake: marrying for love without the queen's permission. So one martyr to Protestantism, two for love. Of course, the suffering both endured for this mistake is historical fact, but it didn't make for very captivating reading. As next heirs to the throne, and as ladies-in-waiting who had seen firsthand how the queen responded to such elopements, they should have known better, Gregory plays their patheticness to the hilt. Again, boring boring boring. Halfway through, I couldn't wait for it to be over. I have two more of her books on audio, [The Taming of the Queen] and [Three Sisters, Three Queens]. Hopefully it's not too late to return them.
    • 1/5
      Where to start? The style of writing was quite simplistic - very "See Dick and Jane run. See Spot run." The Grey sisters were all extremely unlikable. Jane was a sanctimonious prig, Katherine a fool, and Mary a fool as well. As written, they were puffed up with their own importance and seemed to be deluded about the events going on around them versus the reality they made up in their heads.

      Jane pretty much had to die. Mary couldn't keep her alive as a rallying point for rebellion. Jane was so obnoxious here that I wasn't sorry to see her go, which is a terrible thought to have about a teenager. My favorite parts of this section were when her mother checked Jane's rampant assholery.

      Katherine could not marry because any children of hers (especially sons) would also be a rallying point for rebellion. How is it possible that Katherine did not realize this? How did she come from a prominent family, spend so much time at court, watch her sister's life unfold, and still not know this? It has just happened, too! Henry VII pretty much wiped out the Plantagenet line because he wanted no rallying point for rebellion.

      So Mary did the same stupid thing that her sister did! Married without permission. And assured herself and her husband that all would be well, even though her sister was at the time imprisoned for her marriage. And yammered on and on and on about her royal blood while marrying a commoner, who died for his pains. But hey, she got a nice house and red petticoats at the end, so it was all good.

      Extra [negative] points for:

      -pointing out who was who and what their titles were ad nauseam. Stop patronizing your readers. We can remember that Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, are cousins.

      -the vicious slandering of Elizabeth. Thirty one years old and elderly with gray hair and wrinkles? Constantly calling her a whore and barren? Implying that she was unintelligent and had no skill at statecraft? No wonder she hated the Grey sisters. I'm more a Plantagenet fan than a Tudor fan and I rather hate them, too, now.

      -the sisters' extreme pride in their lineage (understandable for the time) juxtaposed with the fact that none of them had the skill to actually rule. Plus their frank contempt of Elizabeth, who actually did have the skill to rule and the attributions of that skill to luck.

      -dwelling on Mary's height. There was no need to mention it over and over. And then mention the husband's height over and over. We get it. And we get that the sisters were beautiful - no need to mention that over and over again, either. That's particularly obnoxious in a first person account.

      One star because I couldn't give it fewer. This was so so bad.
    • 4/5
      The story of the three Grey sisters: Jane, Katherine, and Mary. Their grandmother was a sister to Henry VIII so their mother was a cousin to Elizabeth I. After the death of young Edward (Henry VIII's only son), her father and his allies made Jane Grey the queen even against her wishes. Jane is a strong believer in the Protestant faith. Her reign lasted only nine days because the Catholic followers of Mary, Edward's half sister raised an army and imprisoned Jane. She was later beheaded while Mary was queen.Katherine, the second sister, loves life and has no intention of being caught up in the political mess. She marries Ned Seymour, the brother of her best friend and relative of the mother of King Edward. By this time, Elizabeth I is on the throne. Elizabeth does not approve the marriage and Katherine finds herself pregnant and imprisoned. She will spend the rest of her short life in prison but does have contact with Ned and gives birth to another son. Katherine starves herself to death and dies at an early age.Mary Grey was considered a dwarf but it is unsure of what her real condition was. She was extremely short and therefore often ignored by the court although she does serve as a lady -in waiting to Elizabeth. Mary does fall in love with an extremely tall keeper of the gate, Thomas Keyes. Again Elizabeth does not approve and Mary is imprisoned in the homes of several different families. Thomas eventually dies and Mary is released but lives a quiet and fairly independent life.A typical Phillipa Gregory novel; interesting, historically pretty accurate, interspersed with fluff.