The Tower by Flora Carr
‘She is feathered, a bird twisting and turning, like a swallow dancing in the sky, exultant in the knowledge that, finally, it is returning home.’
The Tower by Flora Carr
This deftly crafted, atmospheric debut by Flora Carr begins in 1567 on the tiny island in Loch Leven, central Scotland, where the twenty-four year old Mary Queen of Scots has been imprisoned by her own nobles. Two serving women and a childhood friend are her only trusted companions. In this intimate imagining of the relationships among the four women during this pivotal year in Mary’s life, Carr shows us a new perspective on the recorded history.
At the heart of the story of Mary Queen of Scots is a struggle for power and control. Not for Scotland alone but for the perceived far greater prize of the crown of England – ‘with all its wealth and promise’ - to which Mary has a strong claim. Instead of supporting her, the self-interested Scottish lords have come to resent the existence of their young, female, Catholic sovereign and their loyalty is never secure.
‘The problem the Scottish lords have with Mary is that she is flesh and blood, still accessible. Still fertile: all that power, all those royal bloodlines in one body, all to be taken by men other than themselves. The rightful heir to Scotland and England.’
In short, Mary is all that these men are not and cannot be, and they despise her for it. Her place as a female sovereign emasculates them and confounds their sense of identity, itself fuelled by the Protestant Reformation and its leader, John Knox, who railed against the ‘monstruous regimen [rule] of women’.
‘Never again do these men want to scrape and bow to a female ruler.’
Against this context of furious male ambition and misogyny, Carr sets the four women imprisoned in the eponymous tower on the loch. We experience the visceral, unvarnished details of their lives and, through them, perceive a credible and fundamentally human study in loyalty, devotion, and love in all its forms. Passion – both suffering and lust – is woven through the story. From a place of despair Mary comes to reflect on a moment ‘pulsing with opportunity and chance’, her desire for her birthright later manifesting as a deeply felt physical desire. An imaginary conversation with her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, reignites her drive to take back her crown and pursue her English claim:
‘It is your body and blood that contains power. Think of it: Scotland was only ever his [her son’s] because it was yours to give. It is yours to reclaim.’
Carr’s portrayal of Mary and her motivations is sympathetic but not unduly so. Nor does it give in too easily to trope or cliché about this much documented figure. The author has ably captured the complexity of Mary as both frail and resilient, joyful and deeply serious, a living feeling woman and a towering, powerful prince.
Birds feature as a motif throughout the novel and call to mind the seven hundred songbirds released at her first husband’s coronation in 1559 when, already Queen of Scotland, Mary seemed at the pinnacle of her power and possibility. Mirroring the players and the action throughout the novel, the birds time and again represent freedom - of movement and thought and being - versus the strictures of the women’s stay on the island and, indeed, of a woman’s allotted place in Scottish society of the time.
When we leave Mary at the end of the novel on the banks of the loch she still has everything to fight for and every reason to believe she will achieve it:
‘She is still rising; her story is yet to be written.’
As she flies to reclaim her son and her crown, we, as readers of fiction, are invited to travel with her and imagine what might yet be at that moment. As readers of history, who know how the story of Mary Queen of Scots will end, Carr’s novel hands us a lens through which to consider anew structures of power and how, and by whom, that power is wielded.
About the Author
Flora Carr was named one of 40 Emerging Writers 2020/2021 with the London Library and has a short story published in the program’s anthology. She is a previous winner of the British Vogue Talent Contest, and in 2020 her short story Starling was Highly Commended for the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize. She was also shortlisted for the 2018 V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize, and is a graduate of The Writing Squad. Her journalistic work has appeared in the likes of TIME Magazine, British ELLE, and The Observer New Review. Flora grew up in Yorkshire and currently lives in London. The Tower is her first novel
