The Queen's Lover

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The life story of Marie Antoinette fascinates many a lover of historical fiction. One of the many questions not completely answered throughout time is whether she had an affair with Count Axel von Fersen of Sweden. This book reads as Count von Fersen's memoir - with some additions from his beloved sister Sophie.

Gray’s book is a magnificent tale of silk-clad French courtiers, bloody-handed executioners, and the gay, doomed Marie Antoinette. We see the queen through the tender eyes of her lover, Fersen, and witness his anguish as the French Revolution rages toward its inexorable climax.

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When they used to go on stage, they lit it up; you could look on the audience’s faces and know that they were really enjoying it. Through the untold love story between Marie Antoinette and Swedish aristocrat Axel von Fersen, acclaimed author Francine du Plessix Gray weaves history with romance in a captivating novel that also offers a fresh vision of the French Revolution. Between 1373 and 1379, Swynford and John had four children, all given the surname Beaufort. By 1381, the duke’s reputation was at an all time low, and Swynford was targeted as “ an abominable temptress.” John was forced to make a public denouncement of her and end the relationship, but this was a ruse. The two continued to meet in private.

There’s a huge hole in the industry where they used to be, a space that can never be replaced. They were both excellent performers. One hopes that somewhere in Heaven, Marie Antoinette is enjoying the beatific vision and thereby distracted from the knowledge of the truly wretched historical fiction industry her life has generated. She must surely rank next to Richard III as the monarch who has suffered the most at the hands of either those who elevate them to sainthood or damn them to perdition using the same life story.

Philippa is a member of the Society of Authors and in 2016, was presented with the Outstanding Contribution to Historical Fiction Award by the Historical Writers’ Association. In 2018, she was awarded an Honorary Platinum Award by Nielsen for achieving significant lifetime sales across her entire book output. There does seem to have been a change, however, by June 1566. The English diplomat Henry Killigrew wrote that, “Bothwell's credit with the Queen is greater than all the rest together.” Mary’s son, James, had been born five days before, and although there is no question that he was Darnley’s son, her relationship with her husband had now completely broken down thanks to his involvement in the murder of her secretary David Riccio the previous March. The Queen's Lover is the fictional memoirs of Count Axel Von Fersen, memoirs he wrote later in his life. These memoirs are being prepared for publication posthumously by his sister, so you get the odd chapter here and there where she inserts notes to clarify certain events and what not. I could waste time and words giving you a run down on the historical events this novel covers, but the book blurb tells you everything that happens and you could just read that and be done with it. Then someone acts in secret, and for Elizabeth, Dudley and the emerging kingdom, nothing will be as planned. There’s no record of Edward having a mistress before Perrers, and out of respect for his ailing wife, Phillippa of Hainault, the affair was initially kept low-key. Perrers became more prominent at court after Phillippa’s death in 1369. Over the next eight years, as the king’s health deteriorated, he showered her with gifts, gave her jewelry once belonging to the queen, made her his “Lady of the Sun” at a public tournament, and allowed her to accumulate enough land and wardships to make her the richest and most powerful woman in England. She was also an independent businesswoman, moneylender, and property owner, and although she remarried in 1375 (without the king’s knowledge), she retained her image as a self-reliant woman (a femme sole).

Dudley already had a wife, who now prevented him from marrying the queen. He had wed Amy Robsart for love as a teenager in 1550. If Elizabeth ever intended to marry Dudley, Amy’s death under suspicious circumstances in 1560 ended any chance of that. Elizabeth was too savvy a politician to risk her throne as Mary I of Scotland had, and although Dudley would spend the next 18 years trying to get her to change her mind, Elizabeth never married him. During that period, Elizabeth was a queen only in position but hardly in command. She still was not what the historians termed her as the queen of the Golden Age. There are some interesting politics in the story and those mainly involved the queen’s councilor, William Cecil. He was the one who used to do all the plotting for her. Other than that, the story was just a love triangle between Elizabeth, Robert, and Amy. Du Plessix Gray had a long and varied career, in the 1950s as reporter for several French magazines; book editor for Art in America New York City; staff writer for The New Yorker; several professorships, including at Columbia University. Both were equally devoted to their husbands, and it was not unusual in the 18th century for women to write romantic-friendship letters in the same language as they used with male lovers. It may be that the sentiments expressed were only pronouncements of a strong and deep friendship.Until the early 1980s, when she released her debut album, Breakout, which she described as a disappointment. Educated, interested in learning more, repulsed? Yes, all three of these. Ms. du Plessix Gray spares nothing with her character nor with her writing style to bring this somewhat pivotal individual to life in this book. Whether or not von Fersen slept with Marie Antoinette or not he did have a deep relationship with the royal family and was responsible for the arrangements for their almost escape from France.