Books (re)Read in 2016: ‘The Six Wives of Henry VIII’ by Alison Weir (audiobook read by Simon Prebble)

There is a good amount of historical background on each of the women—Weir does a great job of digging up and documenting what is known about their origins and experiences before their lives fatefully intersected with Henry’s. I will also stick by my earlier assertion that Weir isn’t the biggest fan of Anne Boleyn. Though she does a good job of presenting most of the information in the book in a relatively objective manner, most of what is included about Anne Boleyn presents her in the worst light possible. Even Catherine Howard—who was actually guilty of adultery which Anne was innocent of but still executed for—gets a kinder portrait painted of her than Anne Boleyn.

Throughout the first part of the book, we get the life history of KA—with more details about her parents (Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand) and siblings (and her siblings’ marriages) than we get about anyone else. As the only person of royal birth that Henry married, there is much more documentation about her family than any of the others. A lot of focus is placed on the negotiations between Henry VII (Henry Tudor) and KA’s parents on the marriage contract between KA and Prince Arthur—including all the haggling over the dowry, when it would be paid, how it would be paid, etc. And it takes quite a while for the book to actually get to the point at which KA and Henry VIII finally get married.

Then, once they do marry, it quickly glosses over the twenty-four years of their marriage to get as quickly as possible to Anne Boleyn. Yes, it is hard to give Anne Boleyn’s backstory without cutting into the ability to focus on KA and her marriage to Henry; however, given that he was married to her for twenty-four years, and the other five wives all fit into the last fourteen years of his life, it might have been nice to have less of a focus on KA’s childhood, extended family drama, and dowry issues before her marriage and more information on what KA and Henry were like as King and Queen of England before he decided to get rid of her.

One of the tidbits of history that is adjacent (but not about) Jane Seymour that I’d either forgotten or missed the first time listening to this is actually about her brother Edward (played with great effect by Max Brown in The Tudors)—and that is that he was married twice. His first wife bore two sons, but it was almost certain that his own father had actually sired the two boys; and when Edward’s wife died when the boys were still very young, he disowned them and was estranged from his father for many years. And it’s likely one of the main reasons why Henry didn’t lavish titles and estates on Jane’s father the way he did with Anne Boleyn’s father. It’s also probably why Jane did not attend her father’s funeral once she was Queen.

Jane . . . is boring. She was probably much more intelligent and educated than most historians/novelists give her credit for. But unlike Anne (or perhaps because of Anne’s example—after all, she was a maid of honor/lady in waiting to both KA and AB), she’d learned to hold her tongue lest she incur Henry’s wrath. (There is one recorded instance of her speaking “out of turn,” when she spoke up on behalf of men who had participated in the traitorous Pilgrimage of Grace—for which Henry reminded her of the fate of her predecessors, who had also meddled in his affairs.)

Most of the gloss-over histories we’re told about JS make it sound like she married Henry, got pregnant, had the baby, and then immediately died. They were married for about seven months before she got pregnant. Then, she was in labor for three days before finally giving birth. However, it took her twelve days to succumb to the fever that eventually killed her. It is believed that due to the difficult birth (most likely caused by a breech birth position), she died either of an infection from tearing in the perineum or because of a retained placenta. Either way, it was painful and unpleasant.

Because not much is known about Anne of Cleves’s early life, not much is included here. So most of this part of the book focuses on the political machinations of Cromwell and Cranmer and those in the reformist movement around Henry to convince him to ally openly with the Protestants by marrying one. There are several well-known anecdotes about the first meeting between Henry and Anne that, surprisingly, Weir did not include here—I’m not sure why; they’re represented in every other piece of fiction or nonfiction I’ve ever read about AC.

Catherine Howard was an idiot—who didn’t deserve to be sacrificed by her ruthless and ambitious relatives to a lecherous, murderous old narcissist like HVIII.

Henry was an idiot for marrying her. Sure, he was going through a massive midlife crisis and wanted to feel young and vigorous and desirable again. But let’s face it: He wasn’t. And he likely knew that a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old girl like CH was most likely only flirting with him because he was King. And that she couldn’t refuse him or her family might lose their positions, land, and wealth—and she might lose more than that.

But as soon as her husband died, Henry decided he wanted to marry her, so he sent Thomas abroad and put on the full-court press with KP, and he made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. Literally.

Of course, as a woman who’d seen two husbands through their final years, she may have realized that Henry wasn’t long for the world and she could bide her time until he died and then she could still marry the love of her life.

Kathryn, after Jane, was one of Henry’s most honored and respected wives. He even made her Regent, ruling England in his stead, when he went off to war in France during their marriage. She was also one of the most highly intelligent and educated of his wives, publishing two books while Queen.

However, because of her intelligence and education, KP loved to debate—and she loved to debate theology with Henry. And as a secret Protestant, her theology didn’t always match up with his. The Catholics in England were regaining power at this time and wanted to get rid of KP, so that she wouldn’t have an undue effect on Henry and hurt their cause. So they managed to convince him to let them arrest her and have her tried for heresy. However, one of KP’s attendants found the warrant and told her about it. KP managed to convince Henry that the only reason she debated him—and disagreed with him on so many points—was so that he could educate her. After all, he was the supreme head of the church, and of her as her husband, and she depended on him for her spiritual education.

After Anne of Cleves, Kathryn Parr is the luckiest of Henry’s wives. He died before anything bad could happen to her (like the Catholics coming after her again or Henry getting tired of her). And then she was able to go on and marry the love of her life. Which story we get in brief at the end of this book (because, after all, it ties in with several key events in the life of the young woman who would become Queen Elizabeth I).

Weir is an expert at finding and making readily accessible the extant documents and records of the Tudor era and bringing them entertainingly to life for the modern reader. (See the quote from Francis I about Catherine Howard in my status update above for a prime example.) Because she has also done some novelizations of these historical events/people, she brings that creativity and style into her nonfiction prose; however, at times, I do have the same problem with her nonfiction that I have with her fiction: she tends to get sidetracked by her fascination with minor historical details . . . which she wants to describe and/or explain in full, even when it’s not really all that pertinent to the forward movement of the events she’s relating. But, then again, because of this, there are the interesting historical tidbits, like that of Edward Seymour’s first marriage and the reason for the estrangement from his father. I guess as a reader/listener, one must be in just the right mood at the moment for it to be an interesting tidbit instead of an uninteresting tangent.