As Starkey points out in his introduction, the story of Henry VIII
and his wives has everything: love, violence, death, treachery,
betrayal and hunger for power, in quantities that would put a
modern soap opera to shame. Although the events in question took
place more than 400 years ago, their ramifications have echoed down
subsequent centuries of British history, to the extent that there
are few Britons alive who are ignorant of at least some of the
facets of this extraordinary story. Although the author might come
under fire from ardent feminists for his jokey classification -
again in the introduction - of the wives into stereotypes such as
'Dim Fat Girl' and 'Sexy Teenager', Starkey does a remarkable job
of bringing the women vividly to life while almost rendering Henry
himself invisible. Here, the focus is on the wives themselves,
their motivation, their social circles and their political and
religious leanings. Instead of treating them as toys, to be picked
up or discarded according to the King's whims, we gain a very
powerful sense of them as people in their own right. As one might
expect, the major part - nearly the first 600 pages - of this
doorstep of a tome is devoted to the first two marriages: the 20
years Henry spent with Catherine of Aragon, whose saintly demeanour
was tempered only by the warrior-like tendencies she had inherited
from her parents, Ferdinand and Isabella; and his comparatively
brief marriage, after a long courtship, to Anne Boleyn. The
implications of the latter, naturally, sent seismic shockwaves
throughout not just England, but the whole of Europe and shaped
Britain as it is today. Hence it is right that Starkey spends much
of his time describing the key players in the religious and
political manoeuvrings that took place around this time. He clearly
has some admiration for Anne Boleyn's keen intelligence, and his
deft penstrokes render her, as in his descriptions of all the other
wives, a living, breathing entity. Indeed, although this exhaustive
historical work is crammed with reference and detail, Starkey's
very readable popular touch makes it a real page-turner. He spends
comparatively less time on each of the subsequent four wives,
although he manages to imbue Catherine Howard, the penultimate,
with a more sympathetically rounded personality than many other
historians have achieved, citing her warm-hearted attempts to
reconcile his rival daughters, the half-sisters and future Queens,
Mary and Elizabeth. A thoroughly enjoyable read: if you buy one
history book this year, make it this one! (Kirkus UK)
THE QUEENS OF HENRY V111:Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced,
beheaded, survived: CATHERINE OF ARAGON the Catholic Spanish
Princess, who suffered years of miscarriages and still births and
yet failed to produce a son...She was the mother of Mary Tudor;
ANNE BOLEYN, the pretty, clever, French-educated Protestant with
whom Henry Vlll was madly in love.-. for a brief period. She was
the mother of Elizabeth 1; JANE SEYMOUR the demure and submissive
contrast to Anne Boleyn's vampish style. She died soon after giving
birth to the longed-for son (Edward VI); ANNE OF CLEVES, 'the
Flanders mare': He was horrified because she was so plain and she
was appalled because he was so fat...CATHERINE HOWARD, the
flirtatious teenager whose adulteries made a fool of the ageing
king; CATHERINE PARR, the shrewd Protestant bluestocking who
outlived him.
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