Alison Weir – The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1991) (32)
General Information
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Title: The Six Wives of Henry VIII
Author: Alison Weir
Read By: Simon Prebble
Copyright: 1991
Audiobook Copyright: 2002
Genre: Nonfiction
File Information
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Number of MP3s: 32
Total Duration: 22:38:47
Total MP3 Size: 312.94
Encoded At: CBR 32 kbit/s 44100 Hz Mono
ID3 Tags: Set, v1.1, v2.3
Book Description
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A wonderfully detailed, extensively researched collective biography.
Although the book is undoubtedly the work of a Tudor scholar, with sources
ranging from previous biographies of these women to private papers,
letters, diaries, and diplomatic sources, it is also the work of a competent
fiction writer. The narrative is free flowing, humorous, informative,
and readable. Weir’s research abilities and deductive reasoning have
shed a whole new light on the political maneuverings of the era and
thus on the myriad forces that drove Henry VIII, his wives, and his
children. Personal and obscure facts about the women, Henry’s relationship
with his nobles, and quirks of the times enliven the text. Genealogical
tables for all the families involved are included. This book can be
used for research, as it contains a wealth of information. However,
students who don’t read the whole book (even though its size may intimidate
them) are missing a once in a lifetime opportunity to have the Tudor
era laid open for them.
– Debbie Hyman, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to
an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
Weir (the genealogical Britain’s Royal Family–not reviewed) here 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 to Weir,
through their pregnancies, miscarriages, and infants’ deaths, both the
profligacy of nature and the dependence of political power on sexual
prowess. Yet Weir offers this sensational chapter in history in the
cautious tone of a college term paper, doggedly and unimaginatively
piling up facts and occasionally lapsing into naiveté, as when Mary
(whose mother, Catherine of Aragon, had been banished to die alone)
and Elizabeth (still too young to understand that Henry had beheaded
her mother, Anne Boleyn, in order to marry Jane) are invited to court:
`
At last the King,” Weir writes,
`was settling down to something
resembling family life.”
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