The Six Wives of Henry VIII by David Loades
ISBN-13: 978-1848683358
Amberley issue 2009; Reissue of earlier edition in 1994
Review copy provided by the publisher, thank you!
The Burton Review Rating:

The marital ups and downs of England's most infamous king. The story of Henry VIII and his six wives has passed from history into legend taught in the cradle as a cautionary tale and remembered in adulthood as an object lesson in the dangers of marrying into royalty. The true story behind the legend, however, remains obscure to most people, whose knowledge of the affair begins and ends with the aide memoire Divorced, executed, died, divorced, executed, survived. David Loades' masterly book recounts the whole sorry tale in detail from Henry's first marriage to his brother's widow, to more or less contented old age in the care of the motherly Catherine Parr.

Historian David Loades presents a convincing narrative as he summarizes the events of Henry VIII's six marriages in almost a conversational format. This work is a reissue in 2009 put out by Amberley with some updates to a previous 1994 title by the author. Most Tudor fans know the stories of each of the wives and like me, may have read many Tudor novels surrounding these women. I found interesting snippets of information in this summarized work, as well as it reading like a refresher for the times and nuance of Henry VIII. I enjoyed the introduction which explains the importance of the Royal marriage market and the process that was accepted among many to marry towards other Royal houses in order to increase land holding or some royal significance such as potential heirs to a throne. Which was not the way that Henry VIII operated, as he chose from his courtiers and fellow noble families when he was wife-shopping.

Loades presents the wives in chronological order, and I found Catherine of Aragon to be once again a formidable lady who put up with a lot from her King. Loades describes the failed pregnancies and how this disillusioned the King with each passing day. Their daughter Mary comes into play of course, and she is portrayed as extremely hostile once the 'Boleyn Whore' succeeds in her quest to the throne. Anne Boleyn's demise and therefore the chapter on her seemed to go by quickly, as Cromwell effectively removed her and her family from the courts of Henry VIII by the farce of a trial that sent her, along with her fellow accused, to the executioner's block. One particular sentence that peaked my interest was regarding Anne's sister-in-law, Lady Jane Parker Rochford: "Not a great deal is known about his{George's} trial, and the story that his wife testified against him may well be apocryphal. There is some circumstantial evidence that she later accepted his guilt, but that may have been the only way in which she could get a property settlement out of the King." He goes on to state that the homosexual references to George are probably more of a twentieth-century speculation. Anne's character was portrayed as a bit of a wild child who did not know how to control her tongue, and Loades stated that it was her wit and sexual attraction that appealed to Henry VIII from the start, but it was this exact wit and sexual attraction that created her downfall as well.  Most of the noble families were hateful of the upstart families of Anne, and they were eager to displace the Boleyns and the Howards from the peerage. The fact that Anne was innocent meant nothing to the jury.

Loades goes on to write that the day after Anne was executed, Henry was betrothed to Jane Seymour. Jane has always been an enigma to me. Was she truly the Plain Jane as contemporary novelists like to characterize her as, or was she eyeing the crown from the beginning of her royal courtship? Loades describes her as frumpy, so what did Henry see in this Plain Jane? The author surmises that she was almost an exact opposite of Anne Boleyn: no overt sexual traits, no outspoken mannerisms and her family was well liked, unlike the Boleyns and the Howards. If hereditary genes had anything to do with it, Jane also showed promise of being fertile, as she was one of nine children. And Henry once got his heir, Jane died, so onwards to wife number four and the first true marriage-for-the-good-of the-realm, which was a disaster in bed because she was not attractive to Henry.

Anne of Cleves is presented a bit different than I had expected; she was still the naive person when it came to consummation, but she was also annoyed with Henry when he later married Catherine Parr, the last wife.
She may have been annoyed when he married Catherine Howard after her, but it was probably too early for her to realize what was going on due to her foreign surroundings. But the flirty Catherine Howard had replaced the unseemly Anne of Cleves, reducing Anne to the status of the sister of the King. Catherine's character was portrayed as we typically imagine her, and she seems to have been simply to young to deal with the politics of the times and was extremely stupid in her need for boyfriends. The author goes into the political machinations that brought each of these wives in and out of the picture, and the major players in this function. Jane Parker is again mentioned, as she the one who helped Catherine illicitly meet with Culpeper. Loades does not state why Jane would help the young queen to do such a thing, but does note that she quickly gave incriminating information but was not spared execution. And soon Cromwell was also summarily executed in a quick timeline as Loades tells it, lacking the drama of what was going on behind the scenes to cause it to happen. Catherine Parr rounds out the tale as the last wife, yet for once Loades gives some more background information on her as she was once known as Lady Latimer and Catherine Neville. The factions of the families were explained and brought up; from the hated Boleyns to the tolerable Howards to the respectable Seymours.

Although I do enjoy Alison Weir's writing, the main difference I found in this text by David Loades is that he uses less "supposedlys" and sticks to facts and not conjecture. Those readers wanting a more detailed account of all the events relating to the wives and the times would not get much of a good taste in Loades summary, but this could be very much treated as a summary of the marriages of Henry VIII but not necessarily of the wives themselves. The writing style itself made this an easy read, as Loades never went too far into depth into the politics or religious topics, instead just touching on them as they related to the wives. I enjoyed the sporadic moments on when I felt I learned something new, but I would not recommend this for the very seasoned Tudor reader because of the lack of insight. Alternatively, this would be a fantastic non-fiction read for those who would like to learn a few facts about Henry VIII's wives without having to suffer through a five hundred page account such as the books by Starkey, Weir, and Fraser. At 240 pages which includes author's notes and bibliography, Loades successfully reviews the marriages while educating the reader, with a look at some interesting illustrations as well. Loades states that there were plenty of "Six Wives" titles on the market, and especially more recently, and he adjusted this work accordingly as to not saturate the reader with the same amount of facts that have been used and reused and reiterated. Which is why I feel this was an excellent work to read when wanting a quick look into the familiar stories regarding the six wives of Henry VIII.

This book is also perfect for entering my Tudor Mania Reading Challenge and I will include this review link there. I just may win my own contest!

Secrets of The Tudor Court by D.L. Bogdan
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Kensington; Original edition (April 27, 2010)
ISBN-13: 978-0758241993
Review copy provided by the author, thank you!
The Burton Review Rating:

When young Mary Howard receives the news that she will be leaving her home for the grand court of King Henry VIII, to attend his mistress Anne Boleyn, she is ecstatic. Everything Anne touches seems to turn to gold, and Mary is certain Anne will one day become Queen. But Mary has also seen the King's fickle nature and how easily he discards those who were once close to him. . .



Discovering that she is a pawn in a carefully orchestrated plot devised by her father, the duke of Norfolk, Mary dare not disobey him. Yet despite all of her efforts to please him, she too falls prey to his cold wrath. Not until she becomes betrothed to Harry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond and son to King Henry VIII, does Mary finds the love and approval she's been seeking. But just when Mary believes she is finally free of her father, the tides turn. Now Mary must learn to play her part well in a dangerous chess game that could change her life--and the course of history.

This is another great read to add to your Tudor fiction library. It is full of the Tudor speculation and gossip that Tudor fans have come to enjoy and love, but this is not told in an over the top fashion. It is fast paced and intriguing, as the Tudor courts and the events of the demise of Henry VIII's wives are merely a backdrop for Mary Howard's story. Although an avid fan of Tudor history, this particular story is new to me, as I have never registered the fact that the shrewd and cunning Thomas Howard, known to many as simply Norfolk, had a daughter named Mary Howard.

The story begins with Mary Howard's vicious birth, and it is vicious because Norfolk is busy beating up Mary's mother Elizabeth Stafford when she is in labor. The entire novel is full of Norfolk abusing the women in his life. His wife, his daughter, and then being the one main force behind both of his niece's Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard wedding Henry, and eventually their demise. Mary Howard grows up under the thumb of her father, and she finds some comfort with her brother Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, until she realizes he is a chip off the old block. Initially, though, her brother and she enjoyed sharing poems with other literate members of the court. Through all the events of the wives of Henry, Mary is watching and trembling with fear throughout, but it is told with her fresh point of view and made me really care for Mary. It was a sad life for Mary, being unloved, until she finally is wedded to the admirable Henry Fitzroy, who was none other that the king's own illegitimate son. Just when Mary thinks she will be able to have a life of her own and have babies, which is her deepest wish, her father decides that although they can marry each other, they cannot actually be together till he deems fit.

Mary watches her mother being beaten by Norfolk, and eventually the abuse moves towards Mary as well. These were hard scenes to get through, and displayed a lot of madness and cruelty of Norfolk. Mary is used as eyes and ears for Norfolk at court, and she witnesses the political machinations behind all the evil that occurs at the Tudor Court. It was not all Henry VIII's doing, it had a lot of Thomas Howard's hands in it. This is not a depiction that is any way favorable on Thomas Howard by any stretch of the imagination, but makes one wonder what really went on behind the closed doors of the Tudor courts. Along with the relationship with her family, we are also subject to Mary's friendships with her father's long-standing mistress Bess Holland, and with friends at court such as Margaret Douglas who was a niece of Henry VIII constantly in the middle of court issues.

This was an impressive debut for Bogdan, covering a lot of material within the myriads of rumors and gossip of the courts, and I enjoyed it immensely. This is a wonderful addition to my Tudor fiction library, though not for those who would prefer more fact than fiction with regards specifically to the Tudors and the mention of some of the rumors that have since been believed as false. The reason they were included is because the author felt it would add to the atmosphere of the Tudor courts, since most of the rumors were believed to be fact at the time. The novel covers the reign of the queens Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr, ending with Edward VI on the throne. As a complete and total Tudor junkie, I found that it was full of suspense, drama, and garnered my admiration for Lady Mary Howard, making me want to look for more information on this young woman who was witness to much of the turmoil of the Tudor courts, and daughter to the creator of many of the secrets of the Tudor courts.

This was my first read specifically for the Tudor Mania Reading Challenge which starts today. See the Challenge post and learn how you can win a book of your choice. Arleigh of historical-fiction.com and I read this at the same time and we were emailing each other back and forth about a lot of the events in the book. It is a great group read! Her review is here, as part of the Tudor Mania Challenge, so be sure to look for that.

Also, please visit the recent interview I posted with this author, which includes a giveaway for the Autographed finished copy of this book. If you like Tudor fiction, this is an absolute must read for you.

NO WILL BUT HIS by Sarah A. Hoyt (Berkley Trade Paperback Original; April 6, 2010; 978-0425232514; $14.00) is the fourth in a series of historical novels about the wives of Henry VIII, whose lives and loves shaped the future of all of Britain .

Her name was Kathryn Howard. Cousin to Anne Boleyn, the women for whom King Henry VIII changed the world, the orphaned Kathryn grew up a poor relation in a household where discipline was lax. Her youthful indiscretions would have hardly mattered if the eye of the aging King had not fallen on her. But she caught the King’s attention and, a Howard, Kathryn was ambitious. Henry called her his rose without a thorn, and she assumed the role of his untouched child bride, his adored fifth wife. Meanwhile, Kathryn relatives conspired to make sure that the truth was kept from the King.  Read an excerpt.

Mind Over Matter by Sarah A. Hoyt

The writing of No Other Will Than His – or at least the selling of it – started five years ago, when apropos very little in a phone call with my editor, Ginjer Buchanan, I found myself disputing her assertion that Kathryn Howard fifth wife of Henry VIII was “just a slut” and not very bright. Eventually my vigorous argument got me a contract to write a book about her.

I confess my opinion in the matter was probably colored by having attended an all girl highschool, where the class slut was also one of the brightest students. But there were more material considerations. Every other of Henry’s wives was smart and accomplished in her own way.

In fact, taken all in all, Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour might have had little else in common, except that every contemporary agreed each one was a very intellectually accomplished female. Oh, certainly, Katherine of Aragon’s mind might run to theology, but she was also an able and accomplished agent for the relationship between England and Spain and proved more than a worthy adversary for Wolsey and all the King’s men. And Anne Boleyn was undisputedly quick of wit and as prompt with song and line as the king himself, if not more so. Jane Seymour, on the other hand, as quiet and domestic as she might have been – or at least played – was adept at managing the not inconsiderable royal household and was friends with her stepdaughter, Mary Tudor, who was herself no mean scholar.


With this in mind, and taking in account that part of what might have given Henry a disgust of Anne of Cleves was her inability to converse nimbly in English, it is highly unlikely he would have chosen a dumb bunny for his fifth wife.

I’m not disputing she was ignorant. The surviving letters from her are certainly pitiful. Though I will maintain you don’t have to be dumb to write near illegible letters. I have known mathematical and musical geniuses who could barely string two words together. On the other hand in her day book learning was not in general favored for women – beyond the king’s daughters themselves. Her step grandmother, too, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, might have kept Kathryn deliberately ignorant so as to make her more pliable – and that’s assuming that she was interested enough at first to care if she learned or not.

However, even though she might have been proffered to the king as a puppet, something in her must have caught the king enough to marry her. Her cousin, Mary Howard, was at one point encouraged to make the king her paramour, but never to attempt to marry him. Kathryn, however, who was still a child in our terms, was told to aspire for the top, and did manage it.
In the hothouse environment of the court, there must have been many other dainty, pretty young damsels to take the king’s eye. But only Kathryn captured him in matrimony and that bespeaks both courage and intelligence – the daring to aim for the top and to achieve it.

Yes, afterwards she might have miscalculated her position and ultimately paid for it with her life. Strategic brilliance cannot be expected of a girl who died before eighteen.

But in a brutal time, she used her looks AND her mind to best effect and even though her romantic heart might have preferred Thomas Culpepper embraced the challenge of capturing the crown.

Her fall was as fast and precipitous as her rise, but with all that, let’s pause for a moment and admire a young woman who has often been much maligned, but who in life must have been a creature of considerable courage, decision and intelligence.
 
NO WILL BUT HIS by Sarah A. Hoyt is available for purchase from Amazon, Ebay or your favorite booksellers.

The Duke of Norfolk is quite pleased with his niece's beauty and feigned innocence, especially as Henry begins to notice her himself. Unfortunately for Catherine, Henry is now rather fat and unattractive in his eating habits and his leg ulcer getting worse with infection. Catherine's heart lies with Thomas Culpeper whom she meets as she enters the court as Queen Anne's lady in waiting. Thomas Culpeper is a favorite of Henry's, and naive Catherine beds Thomas and falls in love with him. Although in reality, we cannot be sure when Culpeper and Catherine began their affair, the author Haeger writes of it happening rather immediately upon Catherine's arrival at court.

King Henry must always have his way, and if he want to have the rose without a thorn, as he believes Catherine to be, then that is what he shall have. Cromwell meets his demise, Cranmer gets upset that the naive Catholic girl becomes Queen especially since he hates the Howards. Norfolk, Agnes, Culpeper and Lady Rochford feature a lot in Haeger's telling, which makes me hunger for the actual reality of the situation. We know Catherine's fate, but how is it that Norfolk strays from Henry's mad grasp and is not executed along with Catherine? Cromwell was executed because he suggested Anne of Cleves as Henry's fourth wife, so I would have assumed the same would hold true for the Duke of Norfolk, but he successfully untangled himself from the mess that he helped to create. His son, Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, was also a supporting character in this telling, and I have a feeling there is also more to his story. I've had a book titled "Henry VIII's Last Victim" by Jessie Childs which concerns this Henry Howard, and I now have the eagerness to pick that one up.

Catherine's greatest love is portrayed as Culpeper, although she remained faithful to Henry, she still visited Culpeper with the aid of Lady Jane Rochford. Culpeper, Dereham, Rochford and Catherine are all executed. While reading the story of Catherine, I found the title of "The Queen's Mistake" to be quite fitting. Throughout this novel, I had the sensation of shaking my head at Catherine's silly and naive actions. How could she not have learned from her own cousin's downfall, Queen Anne Boleyn, who was executed by her husband Henry in 1536? It was still fresh on the courts' minds as the realized they were having another Boleyn/Howard relation come to the throne. It had to have been on Catherine's mind at some point, but obviously she did not take heed of the silent warning. Catherine employed her prior betrothed, Frances Dereham, as her secretary, and let several other previous acquaintances from Horsham into her court: another mistake. All Cranmer had to do to seal Catherine's fate was to get the jealous girls to spill all they could about Catherine's behavior.

The novel included several important characters as mentioned, but the writing seemed a bit juvenile to me. I had trouble getting into the story from the beginning, especially because of the immorality of Catherine that was evident immediately. I have read Catherine's main events of her life as a queen before, and I had hoped for some insight or to gain a better understanding of her character through the writing of Diane Haeger. By the time this novel was done, I did not feel as sympathetic for her as I would have thought, feeling perhaps that the ends justified the means. I did however appreciate the way that Haeger chose to write the end of this story, and wish the same dramatic feel could have been used more liberally throughout the preceding pages. This is an easy to read fictional account of Catherine's days at court and would be enjoyed by those who do not know the story already. Haeger demonstrates how Catherine made many mistakes, yet I would still like to know more of the facts surrounding her swift downfall and the relationships that she had at that time. Haeger successfully intrigued me on the characters of Thomas Howard, Thomas Culpeper and Lady Jane Rochford so much so that I am going to dig up some non-fiction material to quench the thirst for more. Somehow, the Tudor era continues to beckon my soul, no matter how many books I read concerning these eccentric courtiers.

(The surviving letter from Catherine Howard to Thomas Culpeper)