The Forbidden Queen

QUESTIONS FOR YOUR READING GROUP

1. What do you think of Katherine? What appeals to you about her and what doesn’t?

2. Apart from Katherine, who is your favourite character in the book and why?

3. What influence did Katherine’s childhood have on her as a young adult? To what extent do you consider our adult characters to be formed in these earliest years?

4. Katherine was described as ‘tall, fair and beautiful.’ Yet history has written her off as the archetypal ‘dumb blonde.’ Do you, from the decisions she made and the way she responded to influences at the English court, think this does justice to Katherine?

5. After Henry’s death, Katherine is left with no role to play, her part in the childhood of her son is restricted by those placed in authority over him and her. How does Katherine react? What would you have done in a similar situation?

6. Shakespeare wrote a wonderful love scene for Katherine with King Henry. Do you think that the evidence merits it? If not, why did he do it? Can we forgive authors for writing their own version of history?

7. What is your feeling about Henry V’s relationship with Katherine? Could she have done anything to improve it?

8. Katherine lived though a period of bloody warfare and yet seems untouched by it. Can we excuse her for this, even when the war is between the two sides of her family, English against French? Would we expect her to have more sympathy with her disinherited brother?

9. Katherine’s relationship with Edmund Beaufort was at best foolhardy, at worst politically dangerous. Can we have any compassion for her? Is her falling in love with Owen Tudor just as foolish and lacking in judgement?

10. Do you consider that Katherine deserved the punishment and restrictions inflicted on her by the Duke of Gloucester and the Royal Council?

11. In what manner does Katherine’s character develop when she falls in love with Owen Tudor? Is she a better or worse person? Does your reaction to her change throughout the novel?

12. What do you think of Owen Tudor? Is he hero or villain? Did he fall irrevocably in love with Katherine, or merely use her to improve his own lot in life?

13. At the end, faced with impossible pressures, Katherine retires to Bermondsey Abbey. Could you have done the same in similar circumstances?