King Henry VIII of England

The Six Wives of Henry VIII

by: Alison Weir

Amazon Price: $6.64 (as of 06/01/2012)

The author uses the many public records and personal letters of the early 1500's to offer a comprehensive, factual version of the tempestuous private and public lives of Henry VIII and his six wives.

The story is dominated by Henry and the devolution of his character from an "affable,'' "gentle,'' and gifted (he wrote poetry) lover, soldier, and ruler into a porcine, paranoid, impotent old man who was exploited and manipulated by courtiers and women, some of whom he imprisoned, beheaded, or hanged.

Henry's brother's widow, Catherine of Aragon, six years the king's senior, became at 24 his first wife. Thirty years later, she was set aside for the ambitious "virago'' Anne Boleyn, who was in turn beheaded to make room for the gentle Jane Seymour, who died in childbirth and was replaced by the repugnant and scholarly Anne of Cleves. Soon, Anne was retired for Catherine Howard, a 15-year-old "empty- headed wanton'' who, despite Henry's passion for her, was executed--along with three alleged but innocent lovers--and replaced by the king's most "agreeable wife,'' Catherine Parr, who narrowly escaped execution herself for religious quarreling.

Vowing in marriage to be "bonair and buxom/amiable/in bed and at board'' and to produce heirs, Henry's wives illustrate, through their pregnancies, miscarriages, and infants' deaths, both the profligacy of nature and the dependence of political power on sexual prowess.