{"id":218,"date":"2007-06-28T13:47:22","date_gmt":"2007-06-28T20:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/archives\/2007\/06\/28\/henry-viiis-wives\/"},"modified":"2007-06-28T13:47:22","modified_gmt":"2007-06-28T20:47:22","slug":"henry-viiis-wives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2007\/06\/henry-viiis-wives\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry VIII\u2019s Wives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a review of Ant\u00ado\u00adnia <\/a>Fraser<\/a>\u2019s The Wives of Henry VIII<\/span><\/a> (there also seems to be an updated ver\u00adsion, The Six Wives of Henry VIII<\/span> (Women in His\u00adtory)<\/a>), which the book\u00adclub picked, par\u00adtially because I\u2019d read it before and thought it was inter\u00adest\u00ading, par\u00adtially because most of the book\u00adclub mem\u00adbers knew a little about that peri\u00adod but not much and wanted to learn more, and par\u00adtially because one book\u00adclub mem\u00adber will read any\u00adthing and everything about the Tudors. Every\u00adone enjoyed the book, but with some caveats.<\/p>\n

To go with it, I read Alis\u00adon<\/a> Weir<\/a>\u2019s Henry VIII<\/span>: The King and His Court<\/a>. Read\u00ading both books at much the same time was good, I found they com\u00adple\u00admen\u00adted each oth\u00ader and helped me under\u00adstand more of what was going on.<\/p>\n

The Henry VIII<\/span><\/em> book mostly con\u00adcen\u00adtrates on the King him\u00adself, what he was like as a young man (incred\u00adibly gif\u00adted, hand\u00adsome, and strong, if the records are all to be believed), how the court func\u00adtioned, what all the people around the King were meant to do, how much things cost, what the fash\u00adions of the time were. It then goes into the King\u2019s life, and how, to quote Alis\u00adon Weir, Henry began his reign in a medi\u00adaev\u00adal king\u00addom, he ended it in a mod\u00adern state<\/q>. I found the first part of the book to be the most inter\u00adest\u00ading, per\u00adhaps because I got rather lost with all the people who kept chan\u00adging names as they were pro\u00admoted and demoted, and the King him\u00adself became less sym\u00adpath\u00adet\u00adic as he became more dic\u00adtat\u00adori\u00adal and averse to being crossed.<\/p>\n

The Wives<\/em> book (and Alis\u00adon Weir has also writ\u00adten one on that sub\u00adject, which I haven\u2019t read) con\u00adcen\u00adtrates on the wives them\u00adselves, their per\u00adson\u00adal\u00adit\u00adies and their his\u00adtor\u00adies. Ant\u00ado\u00adnia Fraser, unlike Alis\u00adon Weir, gen\u00ader\u00adally uses the same name to describe the same per\u00adson through the book, which makes fol\u00adlow\u00ading along who did what when much easi\u00ader. I also found her fam\u00adily trees to be of more use. She brings up a lot of inter\u00adest\u00ading points about the expect\u00ada\u00adtions placed on women in those times, that people genu\u00adinely believed that Henry ruled by divine right (which makes it easi\u00ader to under\u00adstand some of what happened), and that Henry towards the end of his life was driv\u00aden by the need for a male heir (iron\u00adic\u00adally) and saw his daugh\u00adters, just like his sis\u00adter, as pawns to be used to prop up his king\u00addom by means of alli\u00adances. Even though Henry saw that his own mar\u00adriages should also be use\u00adful (polit\u00adic\u00adally and reli\u00adgiously), he had a great tal\u00adent for con\u00advin\u00adcing him\u00adself that God wanted him to do what he wanted to do any\u00adway and thus he could always con\u00advince him\u00adself that the woman who cur\u00adrently attrac\u00adted him was the one he had to marry.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s inter\u00adest\u00ading to note the dif\u00adfer\u00adences in the books. Alis\u00adon Weir is obvi\u00adously a fan of Cath\u00ader\u00adine of Aragon, and does\u00adn\u2019t much like Anne Boleyn. Ant\u00ado\u00adnia Fraser is sym\u00adpath\u00adet\u00adic to Cath\u00ader\u00adine, but seems to admire Anne, des\u00adpite her sharp tongue and lack of dis\u00adcre\u00adtion. They both sym\u00adpath\u00adize with Henry\u2019s pre\u00addic\u00ada\u00adment, though not with how he chose to solve it.<\/p>\n

The main prob\u00adlem with both books is that there is a lot of detail, and they mostly seem to be aimed at an audi\u00adence that already knows some\u00adthing of the era and the people involved. So those of us who did\u00adn\u2019t study his\u00adtory at school in Eng\u00adland are at a bit of a dis\u00adad\u00advant\u00adage. Over\u00adall, how\u00adever, both books are worth read\u00ading, you might just need to have some ref\u00ader\u00adence mater\u00adi\u00adal at hand (or be pre\u00adpared to skim a bit in the long con\u00adfus\u00ading passages).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a review of Ant\u00ado\u00adnia Fraser\u2019s The Wives of Henry VIII<\/span> (there also seems to be an updated ver\u00adsion, The Six Wives of Henry VIII<\/span> (Women in His\u00adtory)), which the book\u00adclub picked, par\u00adtially because I\u2019d read it before and thought it was inter\u00adest\u00ading, par\u00adtially because most of the book\u00adclub mem\u00adbers knew a little about that \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cHenry VIII<\/span>\u2019s Wives\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}