arianej's Full Review: Alison Weir - Six Wives of Henry VIII
One might expect a history text to be dry and boring, but this is not the case with the writings of Alison Weir. Although many might be familiar with the sketchy details of Henry VIII and his six wives, this is the book to read for a more elaborate discussion of the details of his six marriages, unions of love, politics, and sometimes a combination of both.
Weir's talent is in bringing history closer to her readers. In her book, she explains that not a lot is always known about the marriages of kings and queens, particularly details of their private lives. With Henry VIII, his private life became highly public since it contained issues pertinent to his rule: his lack of a legitimate male heir, his sometimes short-lived passion for women, his scandalous divorce of his first wife and subsequent break from the Catholic church, and most of all, the grisly end of two of his six wives, the charming Anne Boleyn whom some called a witch and temptress, and the beautiful young Katherine Howard.
The author does not indulge in wild speculation, but there is no need. The facts themselves are intriguing enough as more and more of Henry VIII's personality unfolds. Each of his wives gets a section that details their situation and the current politics at the time they were wed to the king. For Weir, politics and marriage are inevitably mingled in this book, and she does an excellent job of setting the scene in terms of the goings-on in England during Henry's rule. Some of the stories are tragic, and others end as happily as can be expected. Not all of Henry VIII's wives meet an untimely end by the headsman, although it could be said that the majority of his wives ended their lives unhappily.
_The Six Wives of Henry VIII_ is an extremely comprehensive look at Henry's reign and his marriages, the public as well as the private. The reader can get a very good idea about how precarious those times were for women, and how not even the wife of a king was safe from her enemies. For those interested in this time period, Weir has also written an excellent book on the heirs of Henry VIII and their struggles to succeed him, and she has a separate book for the life of Elizabeth I, Henry's daughter by Anne Boleyn and one of the greatest rulers of England.
I recommend these books to anyone who has an interest in finding out more about this fascinating and sometimes tempestuous time in English history.
Henry VIII is perhaps England's most infamous monarch, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. He was married to six distinctly different wo...More at HotBookSale
Weir has tirelessly made her way through the entire labyrinth of Tudor history to tell the collective story of the six wives of Henry VIII--a vivid, f...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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