Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII - Hardcover

9780694010431: Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII
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No one in history had a more eventful career in matrimony than Henry VIII. His marriages were daring and tumultuous, and made instant legends of six very different women. What could make him marry six times? In this remarkable new study, David Starkey argues that the king was not a depraved philanderer, but someone seeking happiness -- and a son. Knowingly or not, he empowered a group of women to extraordinary heights and changed the way a nation was governed.

Henry took his first bride, Catherine of Aragon, when he was seventeen. They lasted twenty-four years together, but Catherine suffered through many miscarriages and failed to produce a male heir. Henry then fell in love with Anne Boleyn, the mother of Elizabeth I. Their relationship transformed England forever, but Henry had Anne beheaded and married his next wife, Jane Seymour, on the very day of Anne's execution. At last, Seymour gave birth to Henry's longed-for son, Edward VI. What followed was a farcical beauty contest which ended in the King's brief marriage to the "mare of Flanders," Anne of Cleves. Finally, there were the two Catherines: Catherine Howard, the flirtatious teenager whose adulteries made a fool of the aging king and who was the second bride to lose her head; and Catherine Parr, the shrewd, religiously radical bluestocking who outlived him.

Six Wives is a masterful work of history that intimately examines the rituals of diplomacy, marriage, pregnancy and religion that were part of daily life for women at the Tudor Court. Weaving new facts and fresh interpretations into a spellbinding account of the emotional drama surrounding Henry's six marriages, David Starkey reveals the central role that the queens played in determining policy. With an equally keen eye for romantic and political intrigue, he brilliantly recaptures the story of Henry's wives and the England they ruled.

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About the Author:

David Starkey is the Bye Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and winner of the W. H. Smith Prize and the Norton Medlicott Medal for Services to History presented by Britain's Historical Association. He is best known for writing and presenting the groundbreaking and hugely popular series Elizabeth and The Six Wives of Henry VIII. He lives in London.

From AudioFile:
Intrigue. False piety. Self-serving legalism. Backstabbing (figurative). Beheadings (literal). David Starkey's history of Henry's wives (and their husband, children, allies, and enemies) chronicles their struggles for power and survival. The means to their ends, more often than not, were machination and connivance. Patricia Hodge relates this account in a knowing tone that seems to say, "Try as they might to put a decent face on things, we know better, don't we, my dear?" We are entertained. A minor criticism: Hodge's "foreign" accents, applied to the words of non-English characters, are cartoonish and an unnecessary distraction. Unnecessary because there's no dialogue here--no true conversation between characters-- and because all quotes are attributed. T.J.W. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

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  • PublisherHarperCollins
  • Publication date2003
  • ISBN 10 069401043X
  • ISBN 13 9780694010431
  • BindingHardcover
  • Number of pages880
  • Rating

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