The Six Wives of Henry VIII (Starkey)

Author: David Starkey
Publication Date: 2004  
Number of Pages: 880
Cost: You can literally find this book for almost any cost these days--used copies go from about $2.00 up to around $10.00, and there is a Kindle edition available.  
Where Did I Hear About It: Well, it's almost impossible NOT to have heard about this book somewhere if you're a fan of Tudor history. I purchased this book years ago, and I used it as a reference for a long time before actually reading it cover to cover.  

The Backstory

I think we've all heard it: Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived. Henry VIII is England's much-married monarch, and the story of his relationship with each one of his wives is enough to make a book of its own (and, in some cases, it already has). However, there's something about treating Henry's wives all together that makes the story particularly interesting to the reader. This approach allows the author to draw conclusions about the similarities and differences from wife to wife and relationship to relationship that only a book a of this kind can do.

In case anyone is unclear, Henry's six wives were: Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard, and Katherine Parr. His marriage to Katherine of Aragon was the longest of all and perhaps the most dynastically significant given her impressive Spanish royal descent. Anne Boleyn, the woman who supposedly "stole Henry's heart" from Katherine, produced the famous Elizabeth I but quickly lost Henry's love and ended her days prematurely on the scaffold. Jane, dutiful, quiet, and brief, was the mother of Henry's only living son, Edward (and her significance in history pretty much ends there). Anne of Cleves was the product of a second foreign marriage (Katherine of Aragon being the first), but Henry's lack of attraction to her quickly ended the marriage on favorable terms for Anne, who remained in England. Katherine Howard was the much-younger woman who invigorated an ageing Henry, but whose indiscretions landed her the same fate as her unfortunate cousin, Anne Boleyn. Katherine Parr was perhaps more a companion than the others, save perhaps Katherine of Aragon, whose attachment to religious reform nearly ended her life. It's debatable how successful each of these relationships truly were. Eventually, something went wrong somewhere along the line, and, to Henry, if he had to end a marriage that fell into that category, he was always the victim. Some of this story makes for a more interesting read, naturally, than other parts. Katherine of Aragon had a pretty conventional dynastic marriage to Henry for some time, and, under most circumstances, the story would have began and ended there. Anne Boleyn's part is probably the most exciting and interesting. Although Katherine Howard offers a splash of color a bit later down the line, the rest of Henry's marital history is a bit duller than might be expected. However, as a whole story, it is a fascinating, and unusual, one.  

What About The Book?

 David Starkey is a great historian. There is no question that he consulted a long list of applicable sources to write this book. Whenever he offers analysis of a detail that has been long accepted or interpreted by other historians in a different light, I would definitely trust Starkey's assessment on that point. However, I am not sure this is the book that Starkey truly wanted to write.

How much Starkey actually focuses on the "six wives" varies from wife to wife depending upon his interests in the characters and how much new analysis he can offer on the topics. His section on Katherine of Aragon was a very enlightening read, for example, as is his treatment of Katherine Howard, using some of the original documents that are rarely included by other historians. However, I really think Starkey was more interested in some of the other figures of the day than Henry's wives--figures like Stephen Gardiner, Thomas Cranmer, Thomas Cromwell, and, above all, Thomas Wolsey, figure too prominently and often replace insight on the stated subject(s) of this book. The most prominent example of this phenomenon is how Starkey treats his section on Anne Boleyn. He offers a very lengthy analysis of the divorce proceedings in which Thomas Wolsey has a starring role but Anne is only an afterthought. It may be that Starkey felt other historians had covered Anne's relationship with Henry in enough detail and had not gone over the divorce with as much description. There is no question that I would use his discussion of the divorce as a reference for the chronology involved. However, this is advertised as a book about Henry's "six wives." As a reader, I want to know more about Anne and Henry's relationship pre-marriage and how it fell apart later. I am not as interested in Cardinal Wolsey's fall from power as a result of that process. In fact, in order to learn more about Henry's relationship with Anne, I had to pull out author Alison Weir's book of the same name and read the two side by side. Weir almost entirely focuses on Anne and Henry's relationship, whereas I'm not sure Starkey was very interested in it. Starkey seems to fall into the same trap I see a lot of (primarily male) Tudor historians fall into--he loves the men of the age, but he knows he can't write a book about Thomas Wolsey and hope to sell it, so he inserts him rather annoyingly often into a book that is about the more popular topic--unfortunately for his readers.

A big bright spot in this book is his treatment of Katherine Howard. His is the most detailed analysis of Katherine, where she came from, and what really happened to bring about her fall, that I have seen anywhere, even in Katherine's own (fairly poorly written) biography. For example, he uses an inventory of the many jewels Henry gave Katherine to ascertain that a well-known portrait claimed to be Katherine actually must be her. He also includes documents about Katherine's previous relationships with other men that were too vivid to be printed in Victorian histories on the topic.

This is a massive book--or, it feels massive to the reader (Weir's book is of similar length, but I feel it is a faster read). And, it suffers from it's ups and downs, focusing rather too little on the overall subject at times. Starkey has a little bit of a showman-oriented writing style that can both excite interest and annoyance in the reader. However, you can't beat his bibliography, and I don't think you'll find a better analysis of anything he does focus on anywhere else.  

Rating: With such a long book, it is very hard to give this a rating. Instead, I'll rate the different sections by wife: Katherine of Aragon: 8, Anne Boleyn: 4, Jane Seymour: 7, Anne of Cleves: 7, Katherine Howard: 9, Katherine Parr: 7.5 (probably the most balanced section)  
Buy It or Borrow It: You can't beat the price on the many used copies available out there. If you're a Tudor historian and you want a really good reference for primary sources or to double-check information in either other books or in TV specials/movies, it is definitely worth having a copy of this around.

Anne Boleyn (Joanna Denny Biography)

Author: Joanna Denny
Publication Date: 2004
Length: 327 pages with endnotes and an index
Cost: $26.00 for the hardcover, between $15.00 and $17.00 for the paperback, and on the Kindle for $9.99
Where Did I Hear About It: I actually found this in the library in the biography section.

The Backstory

There has never been a character who has fascinated the imagination and polarized historians more than Anne Boleyn.

Anne was born sometime between 1501 and 1507 to Thomas Boleyn and Lady Elizabeth Howard. The family home was Hever Castle in Kent, and Thomas regularly visited the continent during his career as a diplomat. Anne had two siblings--Mary, believed to be the eldest, and George, who may have been older or younger than Anne depending upon the year of her birth (he was born around 1504). Thomas' familiarity with foreign courts and positive reputation led to an offer made by Archduchess Margaret of Austria to have Anne as a part of her household. In 1514, Anne moved on to France to attend Henry VIII's sister, Mary, as Queen of France. Anne later transferred into the service of the new Queen Claude at the accession of King Francis I. In 1521, Anne's father recalled her to England in the hopes that her marriage to her cousin, James Butler, would end a dispute in the family over the Earldom of Ormonde in Ireland.

When these marriage plans fell through, Anne became more of a fixture in the English court. She made her first recorded appearance there sometime in 1522, and she participated in a pageant, much noted because of her appearance as "Perseverance" in it. She was, supposedly, briefly betrothed to Henry Percy, the future Duke of Northumberland, but a combination of forces (may have) worked against this match, including Henry Percy's father and even Cardinal Wolsey, then Henry VIII's chief advisor.

Anne came to Henry VIII's attention sometime between 1525 and 1526. Anne refused to submit to his advances, which only inflamed his infatuation with her. The result, often termed the King's "Great Matter" dragged on for years. It included Henry's multi-front attack on his marriage to Katherine of Aragon--his attempt to draw the French clergy to his side of the matter, his attempt to persuade the Pope to annul this union, and a trial in a public court in England. The result was Henry's decision to declare himself head of the English church, to sever from Catholicism, and to declare is marriage to Katherine null and void because of her previous marriage to his long-dead older brother, Arthur.

After meeting with Francis I in Calais, Henry and Anne married quietly, somewhat secretly, but with intent to legitimize an increasingly visible pregnancy. The date is generally given as January 25, 1533. On June 1, Anne was crowned and anointed Queen in a way never seen before or since--using the same crown of Edward the Confessor that was used to crown reigning monarchs (which at that point, had all been male--this crown was lost, supposedly during the Commonwealth under Cromwell).

Anne didn't last long as wife or Queen. Her first child, Elizabeth, was certainly a disappointment, but a succession of three other failed pregnancies was enough to parallel his failed marriage to Katherine in Henry's mind. In May 1536, she was arrested, taken to the Tower of London, and accused of adultery with five men, one of whom was her brother. The men were tried first and all found guilty. The verdict a foregone conclusion, Anne was sentenced to death at her own trial. Her alleged partners in crime were executed on May 17, 1536, and she was beheaded by a swordsman from Calais two days later.

On May 14, Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, declared Henry VIII's marriage to Anne null and void--Elizabeth was a bastard and Henry went on, 11 days later, to marry his third wife, Jane Seymour.

What About The Book?

This book is very readable. Denny explains people, situations, and events very clearly without entangling herself in the details of the history or the sources. The biography covers the whole history of Anne's life, and it puts forth a number of new theories. Most striking is Denny's assertion that Thomas Boleyn was not the grasping, ambitious man without a care for his children that is often portrayed elsewhere. She makes a very convincing case for his having been a very prudent and loving father--a more compelling case than ever was made to the contrary. Denny reveals that Thomas was not in favor of Mary becoming Henry's mistress, and that he may have even recalled her from her service in France because of her licentious reputation there.

What's wrong with this biography? It is one of the most unapolegetically biased histories of anyone or anything I have ever read. Denny has no love for Katherine of Aragon or her daughter, Mary. She views Eustace Chapuys, the Holy Roman ambassador to England with equal scorn. Her theory is that Anne was an ideal paragon of Christian virtue and that she viewed herself, and her elevation to queenship, as her being anointed by God to promote the cause of Protestantism in England. Katherine and Mary just didn't lay down all to pave the way for Denny's heroine, and they are branded as traitors and plotting the death of King Henry.

Anne was clearly debased by her detractors after her death, and the fact that all of the sources available do not paint her in a particularly good light is a symptom of this. Denny is right to question these interpretations of Anne as spiteful, cruel, and ambitious. However, she swings the pendulum too far in trying to rehabilitate her reputation by trying to make a case (a poor case) for her having been all good instead. A lot of evidence to the contrary is famously written out of this biography--for example, Denny gives no time to Anne's arguments with Henry after their marriage, which seem to be a fairly well-known fact. She also refuses to detect any sign that Henry was tiring of Anne going into the third year of their marriage. As a result, Anne's fate appears to come a little too much out of nowhere.

Denny also sees Anne as a full-fledged Protestant--a fully developed version of what a Protestant may be today. This is short sighted. Although Anne clearly was sympathetic to the ideals of Protestantism, including the availability of the Bible in English, Denny forgets that Protestantism was a mere embryo of itself in the 1530s, between 10 and 20 years after Luther's fated nail affixed his premises to the church door. To claim that anyone was a Protestant, foregoing all of the trappings of long-standing, traditional Catholicism, in this period is in error. Denny claims that as much as half of London was Protestant by the time Anne was executed, and she uses this statistic as proof that Anne couldn't possibly have been as disliked by the people as others believe she was. There are too many reasons to enumerate why this is impossible--it just presumes too much.

One very positive thing that comes out of this is an understanding of just how few sources there are that really shed light on who Anne was. The same sources have been picked over and over again, but they must not be particularly revealing--especially if Denny managed to find enough in them to support a number of her very questionable, very two-dimensional theories.

Rating: Sadly, I have to give it a 3. The bias and presumptions that Denny makes in this biography invade the text too far to allow one to gain much by trying to wade through them.
Buy It or Borrow It: Just don't, either way. Although not focusing on her, you'll get more out of David Starkey's Six Wives on Anne than you will get out of this biography.

Wolf Hall (Historical Fiction)

Author: Hilary Mantel
Publication Date: 2009
Length: 532 Pages
Cost: $27.00 for the hardcover
Where Did I Hear About It: A combination of an interview on BBC Radio 3's Nightwaves program and an independent search for recent historical fiction led me to this book.

The Backstory

Thomas Cromwell, mysterious minister to Henry VIII, is the subject of this novel. The reader will see the events of the English court between 1527 and 1535 through his eyes, and through this lens, the reader will be more extensively introduced to a cast of characters often hovering in the background of other Tudor histories and novels. The reader meets Thomas More, Stephen Gardiner, Thomas Cranmer, and Cardinal Wolsey with a more intimate glimpse than ever before. It is Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Princess Mary, and Katherine of Aragon who are relegated to the background of the novel, even if the events surrounding them do drive its plot.

The novel begins with an event in Cromwell's youth--an escape from a brutally cruel, drunk father abroad where the reader learns later he becomes acquainted with business. In 1527, Cromwell is in Cardinal Wolsey's service, arguably the most powerful man in England at the time. Between the events surrounding Henry's attempt at divorce from Katherine and the introduction of Anne Boleyn, Wolsey is stripped of power and eventually condemned to die. Cromwell, because of his complex personality and ability to maneuver the court politics of the day, rises rather than falls after this, becoming Henry's chief minister. A growing murmur in the background is the dispute over the administration of the English church--Henry's usurpation of control from the Pope and the beginning of the dissolution of the monasteries under Cromwell's observation. The text is full of references to people and events of the day--even the references to food, gifts, and minor characters are essentially accurate, if not based on the best possible information.

The novel ends in 1535, focusing on the events of that year, including the execution of Thomas More.

What About The Book?

This is probably the most detailed, historically accurate portrait of Tudor England at this time that has been put into novel form. The research is exceptional, and Mantel finds a way to weave even the most insignificant events and people into the narrative. Mantel supplies a list of the different characters in the different parts of the book at the beginning of the novel, which is a help to those who do not know the history.

Unfortunately, this isn't a very compelling read. It took me a very, very long time to finish it, and often, I had to think to pick it up. Better novels draw the reader back to them in ways this one does not. I think the novel suffers from two main problems--a lack of endearing characters and the fact that it is a historian's historical fiction.

The characters aren't particularly interesting people. The choice of Thomas Cromwell is a unique one, and much to be applauded. However, you don't finish the novel feeling like you "know" him any better than you did when you started, and this may have been Mantel's intention. Seeing the events through Cromwell's eyes makes him fade into the background, and constant references to his unknown past, his "shady" character, are many, and do not draw the reader into this largely mysterious figure. Most of the figures that surround Cromwell on his own level feel very interchangeable--Wolsey could be traded for Gardiner or Cranmer, and the reader wouldn't notice the difference. One of the problems is the sheer volume of characters. This is accurate given how many people would have been a part of Cromwell's life, but it doesn't make for easy reading, especially for someone who doesn't know the history well. As a result, you don't get to know anyone at all, and it makes it hard to feel anything for the characters as they experience some of the difficulties of the times.

Mantel is interested in the history, and she writes it without sacrificing it to the action of the novel, which is something nearly everyone who writes anything fictitious about this time period does. I am very impressed by that. However, her focus on the history sacrifices a great deal of character development and description of place, of the setting. Most of the work is dialogue-based, so you don't get a sense of the scene at all, and informed readers can probably fill this void with what they know of the period. You don't even learn where the places most often visited by the main characters are in relation to each other. Because she wants to include all of the important events of the day, I think this leads her to incorporate many more characters than safely make up a novel that is readable to historians and non-historians alike.

The title, Wolf Hall, is an odd one, and this baffles me even to this point. Wolf Hall is the family home of the Seymour family, the family from which Henry VIII's third wife comes. Wolf Hall is referenced only a few times in the whole work, and although Seymours do appear now and again, this is well before their rise with Jane's marriage. There is a key reference at the end--one I won't spoil for those who may read this book--that was probably meant to imply the "future" that the novel doesn't cover, but I really think that this title falls very, very flat and even misleads the reader. When I first picked up the novel, I thought it was going to be about Henry's decision to be rid of Anne, his marriage to Jane, and the birth of his son, Edward. The book covers the period before this is even a thought, and I was surprised by that--I am sure I am not the only one who would be.

Rating: This is tough--as a novel, I'd probably give it a 6, but as a historical fiction that is actually historical, it gets a 9.
Buy It or Borrow It: Borrow it--given how much hype it has had, it will definitely be available somewhere accessible for you. However, if it starts to bore you, you may want to put it down rather than wait for the action to draw you back in because it won't. There is A LOT to admire here in the history and in fleshing out at least some of Cromwell, so it is more than worth a try.

History Fact Check: The Tudors Season 1

Program Review

Just in case you missed the endless hype over the last few years, The Tudors is a series, featured on the Showtime movie network, that is based (loosely) on the life of Henry VIII. It has been marketed as Showtime's attempt to compete with HBO's home-grown programming, complete with that historic feel created so brilliantly by the BBC and Masterpiece Theater. The show has run for four seasons, completing its fourth and final season this past spring.

No one is going to claim this is historically accurate, not even the series creator, Michael Hirst. If there is ever a choice between historical accuracy and soap opera-like drama, I'm sure you know where the decision fell. Overall, the series is extremely interesting, even to the strictest of historians (like myself). However, it does have its drawbacks--the series stays true to the changing cast of characters surrounding Henry throughout his reign to the point that the only constant characters are Henry (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk (Henry Cavill). If you don't like their characters or absolutely love someone else that gets absented, you're out of luck. For example, the first season incorporates the incomparable talents of Sam Neill (Cardinal Wolsey) and Jeremy Northam (Thomas More), but anyone who knows the history is aware from the first episode that they will not stay with the series for its duration. The length of time certain characters remain in Henry's life works against the series in the opposite way as well. In a program about a man with six wives, you already know that Catherine of Aragon (Maria Doyle Kennedy) and Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer) will meet their ends before long, but since they remain with the series through the second season, viewers will miss them when the series enters its third.

What's the History?

Season one roughly focuses on most of the 1520s. Henry VIII is married to Catherine of Aragon and has been for "a while," although this period of time is never defined. It is clear that the product of their union is a single daughter, Mary, and that Henry is dissatisfied with this. Of course, there is a lot of womanizing involved in this, mostly focusing on Henry and his friend, Charles Brandon, who Henry creates Duke of Suffolk. Henry is advertised as being "25," but having been born in 1491, he would have been 29 in 1520.

A few things occur that encourage Henry to run headlong toward divorce with Catherine. First, his mistress, Elizabeth Blunt, has a son, Henry Fitzroy, who dies around the age of five or six. There is some implication that Henry considered designating Fitzroy his heir, given he was his only male child. Henry nearly drowns at one point, forcing him to reconsider his reckless lifestyle and lack of a male heir by Catherine. Then, of course, enter Anne Boleyn, beautiful and captivating, and motivated by her grasping family to enthrall the king beyond becoming one of his string of cast-off and soon forgotten mistresses. At the end of the first season, Henry is pursuing a divorce with Catherine through Cardinal Wolsey, desperate to marry Anne.

History Fact Check

The Duke of Buckingham



Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, is played by Steven Waddington in the first season of the series. He is frustrated, being a claimant from the previous Plantagenet dynasty, overthrown by Henry's father. Although he doesn't last long in the series, a few things happen to him--first, his daughter is "corrupted" by Charles Brandon, Buckingham discovering them having sex; second, he hates Cardinal Wolsey, "accidentally" dropping a washing tray of water on him; and third, he is executed by Henry for plotting his assassination.

Indeed, there was an Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, and his appearance in the series around 1520 is accurate. He was a claimant to the throne, but the reference to Edward II is an odd one--Edward II was not a well-liked king. Edward II was overthrown by his wife, Isabella of France, who was subsequently overthrown by her son, Edward III. The Wars of the Roses was based on rival claims to the throne by different descendants of Edward III, so a reference to him would have been more appropriate.

The 3rd Duke of Buckingham was descended from the youngest son of Edward III--Thomas of Woodstock. His daughter, Anne of Gloucester, had a son, Humphrey Stafford, who was created the 1st Duke of Buckingham in 1444. The Buckinghams supported the Yorkist claim to the throne, represented by Edward IV and his children, and the notorious Richard III, Edward's brother.

Although Richard III died in battle at Bosworth Field in 1485, defeated by Henry VII, this didn't mean that the Plantagenet line was entirely extinguished. Edward III had a big and unusual problem in the size of his family--he had many children and nearly all of them survived to adulthood and had children of their own, and to further complicate matters, subsequent generations of his family intermarried, so certain individuals actually had claims to the throne through more than one of Edward III's children. Henry VII knew he was essentially considered a usurper, not only by his own people, but also by monarchs abroad. Henry VIII had an easier time--his father's rule was successful in that it calmed the hostilities that had been fueling the Wars of the Roses, and the English were more than happy to bid farewell to the days of instability and war. By Henry VIII, most had reconciled themselves to a new dynasty as it continued to bring these essential elements to the table.

The supposed liaison between Charles Brandon and Buckingham's daughter is a rewriting of a short-lived relationship between Henry VIII and Buckingham's sister, Lady Anne Hastings. Their sister, Elizabeth, reported this affair to Buckingham in 1510, too early for the series, who immediately told her husband. Her husband, in turn, withdrew her from court and threw her temporarily into a convent. Henry blamed Elizabeth for the loss of his mistress, and he dismissed her from court. This angered Catherine of Aragon, and Henry and Catherine had a very public falling-out as a result.

The 3rd Duke of Buckingham was executed, but not for plotting against Henry in a direct way. The Duke's son, Henry, Lord Stafford, married Ursula Pole, and this presented Henry VIII with a problem. The Poles, like the Staffords, were descended from the Plantagenet line. Ursula's mother, Margaret Pole, was the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, brother to both Edward IV and Richard III. This marriage united both of these pre-existing claims to the throne. This only added to the fact that Buckingham had interfered in Henry VIII's liaison with his sister and his apparent dislike of Henry VIII's favorites, in particular, Cardinal Wolsey. In May 1521, Henry VIII had Buckingham arrested, accused of "witchcraft," attempting by these means to discover how long Henry VIII would live. He was condemned and executed four days later--much to the dismay of Catherine, who was close to his family. The people of London rioted in reaction, but he wouldn't be the last of Henry's victims.

Henry Fitzroy



The series opens with the introduction of Henry VIII's latest mistress, Elizabeth Blunt. She approaches Cardinal Wolsey, explaining to him that she is pregnant with the king's child, and Wolsey makes arrangements for her to leave court in an appropriate fashion. Matters are further complicated by Catherine of Aragon who tearfully confides in Elizabeth regarding her troubled relationship with the king and her inability to have his children.

Elizabeth has a healthy son, who she names Henry. Henry VIII acknowledges that this is indeed his son, and is encouraged by his safe delivery and healthy state. He confers several titles on him later, prompting Catherine to question whether Henry intends to make Fitzroy his heir over her daughter, Mary. Fitzroy dies suddenly, between the ages of five or six, in a personal household provided by the king.



Henry VIII indeed had an illegitimate son he acknowledged named Henry Fitzroy. His mother was Elizabeth Blount, the daughter of a minor noble, who served Catherine of Aragon as one of her ladies in waiting. She was supposedly one of his longer-term mistresses, beginning an affair with him as a teenager. "Bessie" Blount was not married at the time of her affair with Henry, and this diverts from the series (the series shows a young woman in her mid-twenties who is married). In 1519, somewhat before the series is supposed to begin, she gave birth to Henry, called "Fitzroy" in acknowledgement of his parentage (Fitzroy translates to "son of the king"). Her affair with the king supposedly ended after this, and in the series, she is very distraught by his apparent lack of interest in her. In 1522, she married Gilbert Tailboys, whose family was supported by Cardinal Wolsey and who was probably chosen for Bessie as a suitable husband after her affair with the king concluded.

Henry Fitzroy was indeed given several titles, including Earl of Nottingham, Duke of Richmond, Duke of Somerset, but the most telling was his affirmed place as Warden of the Marches toward Scotland. This basically entitled him to govern the north of England. This was a big deal--the only comparable position was given to his daughter by Catherine, Mary, who was sent to the Welsh Marches in the fashion of all those previously given the title "Prince of Wales." Not surprisingly, many people thought this was a sign that perhaps Henry would acknowledge Fitzroy as his heir. However, Henry was indeed aware that setting an illegitimate child on the throne could potentially provoke civil war in favor of any of the remaining Plantagenet claimants to the throne or in favor of his daughter's birthright, so if he ever considered this course of action at all, it was short-lived at best.

Fitzroy did not die as a young child. He was married in 1533 to Lady Mary Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk and member of the Boleyn faction at court, then in favor with the king. However, Fitzroy was sickly, dying of consumption in 1536 without any children.

The end of Cardinal Wolsey



Cardinal Wolsey is introduced in the series as Henry's most trusted advisor. He is clearly looking for advancement, and is willing to sacrifice his moral well-being to do so, which is in direct contrast to Thomas More. He is charged with the task of getting a divorce for Henry VIII so he can marry Anne Boleyn. Since the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, successfully invaded and occupied Italy, the Pope was in his control, and being Catherine's nephew, a divorce would be next to impossible to grant. Wolsey sets up several means to examine the matter, including a local examination with English churchmen, a trial presided by Cardinal Campeggio from the Vatican, and an attempt to solicit the support of the French clergy in favor of his being able to administrate on the matter himself. Through all of his varying successes on the matter, Thomas Boleyn, the Duke of Norfolk, and the Duke of Suffolk conspire to bring him down. Unable to achieve the divorce, Henry strips Wolsey of his titles and authority, sending him to York to live out the remainder of his days in obscurity. Some of his double-dealing is discovered and reported to the king, upon which Wolsey is dragged from York back to London and imprisoned. Presumably while a comedy satirizes Wolsey's life, Wolsey takes his own life in prison.

Cardinal Wolsey climbed up the ranks to become Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor, coming from somewhat unclear but perhaps modest origins. He was the Archbishop of York, but after becoming a cardinal of the Catholic Church, he had precedence over the Archbishop of Canterbury, traditionally the chief churchman in England. Wolsey made a number of enemies while he was in favor, and in addition, he was unable to firmly deliver the divorce from Catherine that Henry so desired. Cardinal Campeggio, sent by the Vatican to preside over the proceedings to decide the validity of Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine, decided that the trial would need to be heard by the Pope himself in Italy rather than decided in England--probably with the Pope's encouragement. Anne and her family managed to convince Henry that this was a sign that Wolsey was deliberately slowing the proceedings. As a result, he was stripped of his offices, but he was allowed to remain the Archbishop of York and ordered to return to his see.

Wolsey's main problem was his addiction to power. He had held it, in increasing increments, for many years, and he was unable to view his fall from it as his having gotten off very easy. Anne and her family were aware that as long as Wolsey was around and kicking, he could return to power, and if he did, it was very likely he would work against them. In the meantime, Wolsey offered his services to Chapuys, Charles V's ambassador to England, and to di Passano, Francis I's (of France) ambassador to England. He seemed to be advising them on how best to work against Henry, and this was dangerously close to treason. Henry was, at first, reluctant to proceed against Wolsey, but a coded letter intercepted from Wolsey to the French ambassador in 1530 sealed the deal. On November 5, Walter Walsh, Groom of the Privy Chamber, and Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, arrested Wolsey for high treason. He began the long progress to London, but he never made it--he died on November 29, 1530 in Leicester. He addressed a letter to Henry VIII, warning him against his divorce proceedings and the coming threat of Lutheranism. Although neither Anne Boleyn nor her family were mentioned, his hatred of them was certainly implied.

Verdict

Season 1 lacks a lot of historical content, compromises history for drama, and simplifies many issues and personalities for the sake of translating history to the TV screen, but the program is still enjoyable to watch. One thing is certainly done very, very well--each program ends on a note that drives the viewer to see the next episode as soon as possible to discover what will happen. That is quite an achievement.

However, I do not recommend ANYONE watch The Tudors in the hopes of learning the history outside of the book. Tudor history is extremely popular, and there are many historians who cover it admirably in very well-written books.

Want to learn more? Here are some suggestions:

Most books on the Wars of the Roses are good, so type it in on the subject line in the library catalogue and see what comes up.

The end of the Plantagenets:

Richard III by Paul Murray Kendall. Probably the most iconic biography of the ill-fated king. If you want to learn about the discrepancies between how we perceive Richard III (see Shakespeare's Richard III if you need to read up on exactly what I mean by that), Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time explores these, but is certainly biased towards clearing his character.

The early Tudors:

The Making of the Tudor Dynasty by Ralph A. Griffiths and Roger S. Thomas fully explains the origins of the Tudors, and is a short, quick read.

Henry VII of the Yale English Monarchs series by S. B. Chrimes is a little dry, like most of the series, but is a very, very good reference for Henry VIII's father.

Catherine of Aragon by Garrett Mattingly is the only biography of Catherine out there that I am aware of. It was first published in 1941 and reprinted in 1990, but will probably be hard to find. However, it is very comprehensive and actually explores many things that other historians gloss over in their general histories about Henry VIII and his wives. If you can find it, read it.

The First Queen of England: The Myth of "Bloody Mary"

Author:Linda Porter
Publication Date:2008
Length:About 418 pages, not including Index and Bibliography
Cost:List price is $27.95
Where Did I Hear About It:Browsing through the Biography section of the local library

The Backstory

Mary Tudor, later Mary I of England, was the only living child produced by the union of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. She was born in 1516, the first child to survive after her mother's four miscarriages, one stillbirth, and the death of an infant son in his second month of life. At first, the fickle Henry was encouraged by his little daughter, taking her as a sign of healthy sons to follow. When he eventually lost all hope of other heirs by his wife, he took steps to have his marriage to Katherine annulled, and later, Mary bastardized. Mary and Katherine, physically separated but in regular correspondence, were suddenly thrust backstage. Henry severed England's ties to the Roman Catholic church, thereby allowing him to put away Katherine and take a new wife in the form of the much maligned Anne Boleyn. In the meantime, Mary was urged, coaxed, and threatened into renouncing her titles and rightful place in the English succession. Upon the birth of her sister, Elizabeth, she was sent to live in her household and serve her as one of her maids of honor--an unprecedented move against the heir presumptive to the throne. After her mother's death, she bowed to pressure from all sides and admitted the illegitimacy of her parents' marriage and thus, her own illegitimacy.

Relations between Mary and her father improved through the intercession of three of his subsequent wives, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, and Katherine Parr. Upon Henry's death in 1547, both Mary and Elizabeth were still considered illegitimate, but they were written into the succession after their brother, Edward. Edward, a fervent Protestant, was extremely hard on Catholic Mary, desperate to make her conform to the laws of the land. Mary, conscious of having bowed to pressure regarding her legitimacy, was unwilling to breach her conscience a second time. Equally heavy coercion had no effect on the practice of her religion. However, things were bad enough that Mary considered escaping from England to her Hapsburg relations on the Continent. It is fortunate that she did not take this course of action--Edward was dead in 1553, the victim of a respiratory infection. Edward and his council attempted to subvert Mary's succession by declaring her cousin, Jane Grey (see above) queen, but this was short-lived.

Mary was queen for a very short time, but she was England's first woman monarch in her own right. She and her council ruled the country effectively, attempting to adapt an English version of Catholicism to the changes that had already taken place in the church. She had a very effective council, and her many years of struggle had produced a capable, strong woman with the resolve to lead the country. She married Philip of Spain in 1554, but Philip's priorities were in the Low Countries, and although he was kind to Mary, he was less-than-content with a bride 11 years older and having remained so long content single. Mary suffered two "phantom pregnancies," and she died in 1558. Philip and Mary never had children, so she was succeeded by her younger sister, Elizabeth.

Mary is a much maligned character in English history, often viewed by seemingly objective historians as both a less-desirable precursor to the more famous Elizabeth and as a momentary set-back to England's inevitable course towards patriotic Protestantism. She earned the nickname "bloody Mary" after sentencing 300 Protestants to death by burning for heresy.

What About the Book?

This was an exceptionally enjoyable book, which I didn't expect. I figured that Mary's life would be a good follow-up to Jane Grey, and I enjoyed this biography far more. Linda Porter is a very good writer--capable of taking complicated historical documents from the period and transforming them into a coherent narrative, easily readable by the least proficient historians. Although over 400 pages long, it doesn't feel that way to the reader--the reader is constantly seeking to learn more, to read one last page, and it is a hard book to put down.

The history is good in this book--Porter clearly takes her information from existing sources. She is mindful of the weaknesses of some of these sources and the authors who composed them, and this is a point she makes often to her readers. However, this is a biography of Mary and not an examination of why Mary obtained the nickname "bloody Mary," which makes the title deceiving. She does flesh out Mary's character in ways that other authors have entirely ignored--Porter did not come to the table having formed any opinions about Mary, and she allowed the available sources to tell her who Mary was rather than relying upon the prejudices of generations of previous historians, colored by the magnificence of Elizabeth's reign.

There is the occasional flaw in her work--on the minor side, she includes a portrait that probably isn't Mary and identifies it as the queen about 7 years before she was crowned. The sitter is a very matronly, but very attractive woman, who bears no resemblance to portraits of Mary known beyond a doubt to be her. Given there are so many likenesses of Mary to choose from, this choice seems a poor one. In addition, the end of the book wasn't quite as good as the rest. Porter covers Mary's reign in the context of its events. It reads like a chronology rather than a biography, with fewer insights into Mary and her view of the events of the day. She indicates that Mary wrote often to her husband, Philip, but she doesn't reference many, if any, of those letters, and they are probably the key to seeing events from Mary's point of view. Porter also asserts that Mary died of a viral fever that was widespread in 1558, and other biographers seem to believe that Mary had some form of cancer as evidenced by her last phantom pregnancy.

The Epilogue of the book was probably the biggest let down. Rather than examine the development of the myth of "bloody Mary," like the title implies, Porter gives a rundown of what happened to each of the biography's characters in a post-Mary world. Although interesting, I think that the reader would have been more interested in how Mary's reputation was blackened in subsequent years. Porter does touch upon this in the narrative, but only one source is referenced several times without further examination.

Overall, this is an exceptional read--it puts Mary in a whole new light, even for people who have been studying the Tudor age for some time. It also breeds a sense of respect and understanding for Mary in the reader that has hitherto been undeveloped and even stifled by our perception of Elizabeth, constructed by countless histories, biographies, TV miniseries, and movies.

Rating:8.5, maybe even a 9
Buy it or Borrow it:This is a tough one. I liked it enough that I wouldn't have minded adding it to my library, and I will probably read it again somewhere along the line. If you find a good used copy of this, it will probably go for under $10, and if so, it is well worth opening your wallet. You probably can find a softcover edition of this, too--if not now, then, soon--and that would be worth it. However, if you're skeptical about the content, and perhaps even don't like Mary much, you may want to scout it out in a library first, just to make sure you'll like the content.