The year is 1540 and King Henry VIII has grown tired of his fourth wife from Germany, Anne of Cleves. The aging king longs for another heir to make sure that his dynasty is secure, which means he is searching for his fifth wife. Henry’s wandering eye lands on a young girl who happens to be a cousin of his second wife of Anne Boleyn. The young woman’s name who caught the king’s attention is Katheryn Howard. Henry believes that his new bride is virtuous as well as being very beautiful, but what secrets does this young queen hide? In her latest installment of the Six Tudor Queens series “Katheryn Howard: The Scandalous Queen”, Alison Weir takes a look into the life of this young woman and the men who loved her.
As a fan of Alison Weir’s other books, I knew that I wanted to read this title. I have been enjoying the Six Tudor Queens series so far, even though I don’t necessarily agree with how she has characterized certain historical figures. I have not read any books with Katheryn Howard as the protagonist, so I was intrigued to see how it would go.
We begin our adventure with Katheryn Howard’s childhood and how she entered the household of her grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. This is where Katheryn fell in love with men like Henry Mannox and Francis Dereham. I enjoyed seeing how Weir fleshed out these two relationships and how drastically different they were in Katheryn’s eyes. We see Katheryn try to keep the secrets of her past relationships as she works hard to capture the heart of the aging king, Henry VIII. Katheryn’s relationship with Henry is a bit one-sided at first, but it develops into love on both sides, but not like the love that Katheryn has known before. I found myself feeling sorry for Henry and Katheryn as they suffered a few miscarriages. But none of her other relationships are like her connection with Thomas Culpeper.
I think one of my problems with this particular book is how she viewed certain characters, like Katheryn Howard and Jane Boleyn, the wife of the late George Boleyn. To me, it felt like Weir was repeating the traditional view about these two women. Katheryn Howard has been seen as a young and naïve girl who was used as a pawn by her family to manipulate the King. Jane Boleyn has been viewed as a manipulator who despised her husband and suffered from mental trauma in the end. I think that there is so much more to their stories than how they have been portrayed in fictional representations of their lives. We see Weir try to go a bit further into their personalities, but for the most part, she stays along these lines.
Just because I don’t agree with how these two characters were represented does not mean that I thought the book was bad. I think the story itself was intriguing and Weir’s writing style is engaging like her other books. I think it is a fine novel that shows Katheryn Howard’s rise and fall from power and how dangerous love can be, especially for a young queen. If you want a great escape with a novel about Henry VIII’s fifth wife, check out Alison Weir’s, “Katheryn Howard: The Scandalous Queen”.
A foreign princess who travels to England to marry the king to establish a strong political alliance. To those who study history, this is a story that has been told numerous times, but what makes this particular story unique is the people involved. The bridegroom was the recently-widowed Henry VIII, the shadow of his former self and notorious throughout Europe for having his second wife Anne Boleyn executed. His new bride to be is the German princess Anna of Kleve. To say that they did not see eye to eye would be an understatement as the marriage did not last long. Her story is often swept under the rug. Anna is often viewed as the “lucky” wife of Henry VIII, but was she? What was Anna’s story and what was her marriage with Henry really like? Alison Weir has taken up the challenge to give her readers a taste of what Anna’s life might have been like in this novel, “Six Tudor Queens: Anna of Kleve, Queen of Secrets”.
Henry VIII’s wives were some of the most fascinating women of the Tudor Dynasty. Katherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife, the mother of Mary I, and the first wife Henry divorced. Anne Boleyn, the mother of Elizabeth I and the first English queen to be executed. Anne of Cleves, the wife Henry did not like and divorced. Katherine Howard, the second wife Henry executed, and Katherine Parr, the wife who outlived Henry. All of these women were unique, however, there was only one who gave Henry the son that he so desperately desired. Her name was Jane Seymour. Her death was well documented since she died shortly after giving birth to Edward, yet we really don’t know who she was or what her life was like. Alison Weir decides to explore Jane’s life in her third book of the Six Tudor Queens series, “Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen”. 
Christmas is seen today as a time of gift giving, twinkling lights and joy. We often celebrate it only one day a year, on December 25th, and then we celebrate a few days later the New Year from December 31st to January 1st. However, in the past, Christmas and New Years were a part of 12 days of celebrations. We often think that our traditions for Christmas date from the time of the Victorians, but that may not be the case. In fact, some of our more time-honored traditions for the holidays may in fact date from the Tudors and further back in history. So what are these traditions and how was Christmas celebrated in the time of the Tudors? That is the topic that Alison Weir and Siobhan Clarke wanted to explore in their book, “A Tudor Christmas”. 
The Wars of the Roses was a dynastic battle between the houses of York and Lancaster for the throne of England that lasted for 30 years. There were plenty of people who lived during this time that continue to fascinate us even to this day. Men like Richard III, Henry VI, Edward IV, Henry VII, and Richard Neville duke of Warwick to just name a few. There were also women who worked hard on the sidelines to make sure that their sides would win the wars. Women like Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Woodville, Cecily Neville, and Margaret Beaufort. However, one of the most important person during this conflict tends to get left behind when discussing the most influential people of this conflict; Elizabeth of York, the wife of Henry VII. She was the mother of the Tudor dynasty, yet she does not get the attention that she rightfully deserves. In Alison Weir’s book “Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World”, Weir explores the life of this influential woman and her impact on the world around her. 
The Wars of the Roses was a series of wars from 1455 until 1487 for the throne of England. It is traditionally taught that it was between the houses of York and Lancaster, yet there were a lot more players involved than these two families. In fact the conflict started much earlier with the children of Edward III and Philippa of Hainault. The Lancasters were the descendants of John of Gaunt and his wife Blanche of Lancaster while the Yorks were descendants of Edmund of Langley Duke of York. This was a series over the question of who had the strongest claim to the throne. This question and the series of wars that would try to answer it is explored in depth in Alison Weir’s book “The Wars of the Roses”. 
Elizabeth I was perhaps the most influential monarch in English history. There are episodes in her life that became legendary. From her tumultuous childhood to her reign where everyone either wanted her to marry or put someone else on the throne, Elizabeth’s life was hardly easy. Even though much is known about her public life as queen, we really do not know a lot about her private life. In Alison Weir’s book, “The Life of Elizabeth I”, the gap between the public Elizabeth and the private Elizabeth is bridged in order to give a more complete biography of this fascinating English queen.
Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII and the mother of Elizabeth I. Most of us know her story of how she fell in love with Henry VIII and how their relationship changed England forever as Henry broke off with Rome in order to get a divorce from his first wife Katherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne. Unfortunately, when Anne couldn’t give Henry the son he so desired, their love began to fade. Anne Boleyn’s story ends in tragedy as she was accused of having multiple affairs, plotting the death of Henry VIII, and witchcraft, Anne was found guilty and was killed. Her fall happened in May 1536, a month that changed everything, but how much of these charges are true? Did she indeed have these affairs? Did she plot to kill her husband? What is the truth behind her fall? These are the questions that Alison Weir try to answer in her book “The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn.”
On September 8, 1560, a young woman’s body is discovered at Cumnor Place alone at the bottom of the stairs with her neck broken with no other marks on her body. This would have been declared an accidental death by normal people, however the woman was anything but a normal woman; this was the wife of Robert Dudley, Amy Robsart. It was because of who she was and who her husband was that people speculated that foul play was afoot. 
became the Master of the Horse for Elizabeth, Robert changed. He was at home less and Amy had to take over the household affairs. It is through letters that Amy wrote that Skidmore is able to paint a picture for us about how their household worked. The day that Amy died was very peculiar in the fact that she wanted to be left alone; her husband was with the Queen miles away. The original jury found that this was a case of accidental death, however Skidmore decided to take a deeper look into the case. He decided to explore the possibility of accidental death by stairs, the possibility of a medical explanation on why Amy could have fallen down the stairs, and he found the original coroner’s report, which portrays a different story. The amount of research Skidmore pours into this one accidental death is admirable. The one issue I have with the book is the fact that he describes the type of staircases and the details of the coroner’s report but he doesn’t show pictures of these things so it’s a bit hard to visualize what he is talking about.