For a Queen's Love: The Stories of the Royal Wives of Philip II

By Jean Plaidy

Power-hungry monarch, cold-blooded murderer, obsessive monster—who could love such a man?       
 
Set against the glittering courts of sixteenth-century Europe, the Spain of the dreaded Inquisition, and the tortured England of Bloody Mary, For a Queen’s Love is the story of Philip II of Spain—and of the women who loved him as a husband and father.
 
Philip was a dark and troubled man, who, like many royals, had been robbed of his childhood. His first marriage, a romantic union with childlike Maria Manoela, brought him tragedy and a troublesome son, Don Carlos. Then followed marriage with the jealously possessive Mary Tudor, a political union that ultimately failed to bring Philip an heir that would solidify the unified power he so deeply desired. And finally, marriage again to a young bride Philip stole from his unbalanced son, sowing the seeds of brutal murder. But history is seldom what it seems, and in the hands of beloved author Jean Plaidy, we hear another side to the story of Philip II—the most powerful of kings who was at once fanatic, murderer, husband, father, and lover.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 2, 2010
• ISBN: 9780307589583

Jean Plaidy

Jean Plaidy, the pen name of the prolific English author Eleanor Hibbert, was one of the preeminent authors of historical fiction for most of the twentieth century. Her novels have been translated into more than twenty languages and have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. She died in 1993.

Reviews for For a Queen's Love

[philsyphe · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A patchy novel, this, and at times too bland. Too much “telling” instead of “showing” is the biggest problem. The consistent use of the passive voice slows the narrative down. For example, we get "The Emperor stood at a window of the palace" instead of the active "The Emperor stood at a palace window".Wasted words also slow the narrative pace: "It was the month of November" instead of "It was November."As for the story itself, it reads like an episodic novel because of the three different wives. The material in first and third wives' respective sections were a lot better than the middle part on Mary Tudor, which I found boring much of the time.The most engaging scenes feature crazy Carlos. Because he does wild and unexpected things, like making a shoemaker eat leather, you can't help but become involved in the story. Carlos isn't a likable character, but he's the most memorable one in this book.

[moonshineandrosefire · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

To restore the might of Spain and to bring wayward England back into the arms of the Catholic Church, young Phillip II agrees to marry Mary Tudor. Set in the 16th century amidst the brutal Inquisition of Spain and the tortured England of Bloody Mary, this story traces the life of Phillip II and the intertwined lives of the women who came to know this brutal tyrant as a loving husband and father. I truly enjoyed this story. It's an excellent storyline and I give it an A+!

[jdquinlan_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

From the Back Cover:Power-hungry monarch, cold-blooded murderer, obsessive monster – who could love such a man?Set against the glittering courts of sixteenth-century Europe, the Spain of the dreaded Inquisition, and the tortured England of Bloody Mary, For a Queen’s Love is the story of Philip II of Spain – and of the women who loved him as a husband and father.My Review:This was my very first Plaidy novel and I chose to start with this one because I knew very little about Philip aside from his time as Mary Tudor’s husband. I was hoping to get a feel for this prolific author’s style while learning something new in the process and I was not disappointed.The novel begins with Philip as a child, raised as the heir to Charles I and the greatest kingdom in the world with all of the pressures and formalities that go along with such a heavy burden. He is a solemn child, anxious to perform as expected, almost obsessive in his desire to please and to be loved in return. The novel follows him as he grows and demonstrates how each of his first three wives had an effect on shaping his personality, from the awkwardness and tragedy of first love during his teenage marriage to Maria Manoela, to the smothering, unstable, loveless marriage of state to a much older Mary Tudor, and then on to a more satisfying, if not perfect marriage to the young and pretty Elisabeth Valois of France. And all the while Philip’s first son and heir, the undesireable Don Carlos, haunts his footsteps and creates a great sense of urgency and obligation to produce another male heir.Throughout Philip’s life two frightening themes pop up over and over: the abundance of inbreeding within the royal family, which seemed to be the cause of some serious mental and physical deficiencies, and the horrors of the Inquisition. Philip is devoutly Catholic and was taught from an early age that the greatest threat to his empire was the heretic and thus as he grows older his desire to serve God by ridding the world of heretics begins to consume him. He fails to achieve the English crown, he fails to secure great military victories, but he believes that he may achieve greatness yet in his efforts to please God and feels justified in his actions during the Inquisition, actions that have led to his depiction as a “monster”:"Philip was thinking of God’s pleasure in the drama which was about to be enacted; he was thinking of the delight of God in maimed and tortured bodies, in the cries of agony.The Inquisition in its mercy gives these people a foretaste of Hell that they may repent in time and save themselves from an eternity of suffering."Plaidy's take on Philip appears to be historically accurate for the most part, although the fate of Philip's first son, Don Carlos, is debated. Plaidy has taken the dramatic route in this novel, but while scholars agree he was physically deformed and mentally unstable and there is evidence that he may have plotted to kill Philip, most modern historians believe Don Carlos died from complications of his own ill treatment of his body and not at the hands of his father.I do wonder why the author chose not to go on to Philip's fourth marriage to his niece, Anna of Austria, daughter of Philip's cousin, Maximillian, and Phillip's sister, Maria, who bore him five children over ten years, including Philip III. Historians seem to agree that this was a happy marriage and that Anna had a positive effect on Philip and the Spanish court. It may very well have been that in this last marriage Philip finally received the love of a queen he had so desperately been searching for. After reading up a bit on this last marriage, I feel like no portrayal of Philip’s life could be complete without its inclusion and that’s my main reason for not rating this higher.This novel combines vividly evocative, engrossing, informative, and eye-opening historical content with a poignant tale of a boy turned man turned king who struggled to please too many at the expense of himself. A fascinating, entertaining portrait of a man who has been often overshadowed in history by his father and his second wife. Highly recommended.Rating: 4.25 Stars out of 5

[amandacb_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Yet another novel with which I seem to be in the minority, as I felt no love for the writing or the subject. Perhaps I am just Tudor era-d out, although I do feel the tagline on the cover "A Novel of the Tudors" is a complete misnomer. This novel purports to be about the wives of Philip II of Spain; however, the point of view confusedly jumps from Philip to his son to his various wives. We begin with an unbelievably young Philip's narrative, and perhaps that is what led me on my path of incredulity--I find it hard to swallow a four-year-old's narrative.At any rate, I found the dialogue to be stiff and absolutely, positively unrealistic. Plaidy's prose in between the dialogue was uneven and choppy, and essentially I gave up on the novel three-fourths of the way through. My interest is hard to keep, and I had a hard time feeling any sympathy or caring at all about Philip. I had no clue why we jumped from him mourning for his first wife to him having a mistress--that seemed so illogical to me, I pretty much gave up on the book from that point on. My interest piqued a bit at the portion with Mary Tudor, but unfortunately Plaidy just skimmed over that section.