My review of The Young Elizabeth: The First Twenty-Five Years of Elizabeth I, by Alison Plowden

The Young Elizabeth: The First Twenty-Five Years of Elizabeth I

by Alison Plowden

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

So many greats have come along since the emergence of Alison Plowden, who hardly pioneered but was undoubtedly among the key players instrumental in reshaping this genre into its popular modern form.

This first in what became collectively known as Plowden's 'Elizabethan Quartet' was my starting point, many moons ago, when it seemed that the only established alternatives were the plainest of textbooks, the thickest of dusty tomes or the most absurdly romanticised of fictional accounts.

In my first year at secondary school, I was so bored by so much ... except Elizabeth I, who intrigued me so much I talked my father into driving me around England to the many historic buildings she had lived in or famously graced with her regal presence. To stand beneath those same trees on those very grounds, touch those brick walls, tread on those same floors, gaze from windows Elizabeth had gazed from had me riveted to a subject I've never since left alone. Coming away from such sites left me with indelible memories which only reading Alison Plowden reinforced and kept alive in my restless, easily distracted but hungry young mind, which stubbornly never settled for just any old thing.

This first book also complimented and reinforced my then still fresh viewing of Glenda Jackson's Elizabeth R TV series, itself not recordable before the advent of video.

With much to thank this author for, after a lifetime of special reading she introduced me to, I occasionally revisit her pages which lull me into a haze of other, more personal, nostalgia while reminding me what a fine biographer she was.

For those just beginning the Elizabethan trip, or aficionados extending their coverage, this now comparatively basic piece, in what has evolved into a seemingly infinite genre, will, in my humble opinion, always make for sound, essential reading.

My review of The Six Wives of Henry VIII, by Alison Weir

The Six Wives of Henry VIII

by Alison Weir

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Some biographers are blessed with a voice that resonates, and Weir is an original of her kind.

This book I got around to after reading numerous other, individual, biographies on each wife. I had, therefore, turned to this after seemingly 'running out' of good material on this special genre (like withdrawal from an addiction, forever seeking to recapture that elusive initial elation).

Considering this was not new ground for me and had, since its 1991 publication, been vastly elaborated on by others I'd read, it did not disappoint. 

Proportionate to their lengthy marriage is the quantity allocated to Katherine of Aragon, Henry's most majestic and widely revered consort. If not for her childbearing misfortune the English-speaking world would perhaps have become vastly different to that of today.

Anne Boleyn is, as we'd expect, at times petulant, even spiteful, yet we rightly also pity her despite those famous shortcomings.

Plain Jane Seymour is less rounded here than I'd found her elsewhere, though she is typically the least dynamically portrayed of Henry's wives and had only a short time as consort.

Anne of Cleves is, as always, so very likeable, winning our respect with her combined humility and common sense.

Wild Katherine Howard I like more every time I read about her.

Erudite and sagacious, Katherine Parr is just as gracious, kindly and devoted as she should be and a little bit more.

It would be difficult to tire of this author. By her use of background and settings, décor and costume, foibles and mannerisms, she successfully makes a done-to-death topic seemingly fresh and inexhaustible.

This sumptuous 20+ year-old work has a stylistic and conceptual longevity. Avoiding the academic dryness of some and the gushing romanticisation of others, it has earned and maintained its place among the popular classics of its genre.

My review of Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen, by Joanna Denny

Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen

by Joanna Denny

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I was drawn to this by the rumble of differing user reviews it generated. I was intrigued as to what had elicited such a polarised response. What I found was a well written, if sympathetically biased, take on this infamous consort.

Few would read only one biography of such a queen and consider it gospel. History was so changed over this one marriage that readers must strike their own balance of knowledge, expect to encounter differing biographical positions and respect the entire consensus spectrum. We must then make up our own minds given all the available facts.

I concur that Katherine of Aragon is done an injustice and that the author sounds anti-Catholic in certain passages. That is her prerogative. This is not journalism, which demands greater impartiality. All history is recounted with some subjectivity. Consider the vehement anti-Anne Boleyn bias that dominated such material for centuries with her apologists out on the fringes. It is no crime for contemporaries to seek rebalance to such entrenched propaganda. 

I allowed that it may not be so much Denny's pro-Protestant stance per se that is so glaring, but the sensitivity of her pro-Catholic detractors in their reviews? With neither Catholic nor Protestant leanings, I remained fairly indifferent to all this, an observer rather than a participant in the debacle, as I read Denny's fine work. 

It is well documented that, despite her partly self-serving zeal for religious reform, Boleyn died as devout as Henry did in their old, if preliminarily Anglicanised, faith. Henry balked at taking the Reformation all the way, leaving his son to oversee this. Even Henry and Anne's daughter, Elizabeth I, who so famously saw in the first shining light of the new faith in her Golden Age, took a more compromising, halfway position on Church of England ways than future monarchs would. So much so that the notoriously indecisive Gloriana was criticised for being neither one thing nor another. Neither Anne Boleyn nor Henry VIII called themselves 'Protestant' in their lifetimes.

I've perhaps elaborated disproportionately here on that debate, but that was the catalyst for my reading of this book which, religiosity and pro versus anti Katherine of Aragon aside, I found highly readable.

I would not rate this in the same important reference category as, say Eric Ives, whose masterpiece on Anne suffers such bookish dryness, despite its academic brilliance, that it perhaps falls outside the parameters of leisure study. I maybe even prefer Antonia Fraser's or Alison Weir's sumptuous stylistics (the latter published specifically on this queen, while both wrote books on Henry's six wives). I do feel, nonetheless, that Denny has earned her place with this book, in this seemingly infinite reading line. I have read far worse Anne Boleyn coverage than this. The quality is indisputably high.

For those seeking diversity of views on a contentious historical figure, I consider this to be as important and valid a take as any other quality biography. Every angle is worth exploring and this one, in my opinion, is expressed stylishly and eruditely.

I enjoyed this passionate, courageously one-sided account of a woman we'll possibly never know certain vital adjudicating factors on. There were many fine Anne Boleyn biographies before this and will be others to follow, some not so good. This one definitely belongs on my 'good' shelf.

My review of Elizabeth and Essex, Lytton Strachey

Elizabeth and Essex

by Lytton Strachey

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Though not everyone's favourite book of this period, this retains its genre's benchmark status. 

Once considered the definitive piece after its 1928 release, it has in more recent times been superseded by works of academics and aficionados with the advantage of modern research methodologies. 

Yet this vital contribution by a master wordsmith in a class of his own cannot be overlooked by today's Elizabethan history buffs.

Perhaps Lytton Strachey never intended Elizabeth and Essex as primarily a detailed documentation of this turbulent royal liaison. He was, first and foremost, a supreme storyteller.

A graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge and founding member of the influential Bloomsbury Group of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists, Strachey notably established a new form of biography that saw empathy and personal insight meet wit and irreverence. 

He was influenced by Dostoyevsky, whose novels Strachey read and reviewed. Similarly, Sigmund Freud's influence over Strachey's work, particularly in Elizabeth and Essex, has been commonly noted. 

Whilst not to everyone's stylistic taste and lacking the 'popular' appeal of more recent Tudor histories, this retains an important place in its genre. I suspected my Elizabethan history reading incomplete before consuming this and on finishing it saw why.

Though I might never have been bought this thoughtful gift from someone dear, I was, and it undoubtedly broadened my literary scope. Having since read dozens of fine historical biographies, I still honour this with pride of place on my shelf.

My review of Catherine of Aragon, by Garrett Mattingly

Catherine of Aragon

by Garrett Mattingly

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

A great biography of a great royal consort, England's beloved Queen Cate.

This daughter of Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon was three when betrothed to Arthur, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the English throne. They were then married by proxy in 1499, corresponding in Latin until Arthur was fifteen, when their parents agreed they were old enough to actually marry.

Henry VII sailed Catherine to England for the marriage. As Prince and Princess of Wales the couple resided on the Welsh borders. Several months later both became ill, possibly with the sweating sickness which swept the area. Arthur died aged fifteen in 1502, leaving Catherine alone in a foreign country, impoverished without a settled dowry. 

Henry VII tried avoiding his obligation to return Catherine's dowry, half of which he had not yet received, to her father. To settle matters, it was agreed that Catherine could marry Henry VII's second son, Henry Duke of York, five years her junior.

In 1509, seven years after Arthur's death, Henry became King Henry VIII with Catherine at his side from the outset. She was twenty-three, Henry a few days shy of eighteen.

Catherine's tenure as England's Queen Consort lasted almost twenty-four years. Such was her immense popularity that even her foe, Thomas Cromwell, said of her 'If not for her sex she could have defied all the heroes of history.'

A patroness of Renaissance humanism, Catherine befriended great scholars Erasmus of Rotterdam and Thomas More. She commissioned Juan Luis Vives' book The Education of Christian Women, which claimed women had rights to educations, and was dedicated to her. She also won widespread admiration by founding an extensive programme for the relief of the poor. 

In 1513 she became England's regent for six months while Henry VIII was in France. During that time, she played an important part in the England's win of the Battle of Flodden. 

After Catherine's many unsuccessful births and only a daughter (Mary) Henry set his eye on Catherine's Lady in Waiting Anne Boleyn, with ideas for a male heir.

Seeking to have his marriage annulled, Henry initiated England's schism with the Catholic Church. When the pope refused the annulment, Henry defied him, assuming personal supremacy over England's church. In 1533 Catherine's marriage was declared invalid and Henry married Anne.

Catherine always considered herself Henry's rightful wife and queen, never accepting him as the Church of England's Supreme Head. Her stance attracted popular sympathy, with the English holding her in such high esteem. Regardless, Henry would only henceforth acknowledge her as Dowager Princess of Wales.

After all those years of struggle to remain Henry's consort, poor Catherine was finally packed off to the country, where she lived out her days at Kimbolton Castle. She was denied contact with even her daughter Princess Mary who, at Anne Boleyn's insistence, was declared illegitimate and removed from the succession in favour if Anne's daughter, Elizabeth.

Sad and alone, Catherine dyed in 1536 aged fifty. The English people hated her usurper and mourned deeply for Catherine.

Heartbreaking material at times, about a widely adored woman of immeasurable human decency and royal dignity, this makes for essential reading for those interested in this period.

Catherine's embittered daughter becomes the infamous Bloody Mary, who we know will take out her troubles on all and sundry - especially Anne Boleyn's daughter, Elizabeth - when Mary wins the crown.

Garrett Mattingly's biography cannot fail to satisfy.

My review of The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn, by Alison Weir

The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn

by Alison Weir

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Alison Weir is a supreme historian and writer on the royalty and courtiers of this era. I always lose myself for weeks in her books.

This one gives us a closer look at Anne Boleyn's plight, with a peep through the bars of her Tower of London cell as she awaits her famous execution.

This character has polarised historians. Many have focused on her cunning, plotting side. Others have argued her innocence, making her a political victim. This split in opinion has seen Anne's personality written up as the schemer and the lamb to the slaughter. Perhaps there was a little of both in this nevertheless remarkable figure.

She was certainly used by her ambitious parents for dynastic and political elevation. She had her heart broken when prohibited the matrimonial love match of her choice. She was adored, while tolerating much, from the tyrannical yet romantic King Henry, but endurance was a two-way street in their marriage. She undoubtedly treated Queen Catherine and Princess (later Queen) Mary appallingly.

She could surely not have been guilty of every absurd charge pressed against her, leading to her death sentence. She may or may not have been a little unfaithful to her husband King Henry VIII. She may have been a mere flirt, or she may have been thoroughly set up by her detractors. 

In fiction no villainess is without her redeeming qualities and no heroine flawless. In non-fiction we hope to see these dimensional layers examined at length. Alison Weir delivers accordingly in this fine work.

My review of Jane Seymour: Henry VIII's True Love, by Elizabeth Norton

Jane Seymour: Henry VIII's True Love

by Elizabeth Norton

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I enjoyed this take on Henry VIII's male-heir-bearing wife. Since 'Plain Jane' Seymour has been traditionally passed down to us as a bland, pious, selfless creature devoted to wifely obedience, this book makes for interesting reading considering that, like Henry's other wives, Jane was not so cut and dried as once thought. There are several sides to every historical monarch and consort.

While Jane was indeed pious and obedient, she could not only also mistily seduce but had a mind not heretofore sufficiently credited. She could perhaps be as shrewd as any aspiring queen consort, in her demurest of ways: as they say, 'it's always the quiet ones you have to watch ...'

Jane knew how to work the system minus the shrewish histrionics or diplomatic clumsiness of her bewitchingly beauteous but hard-faced predecessor, Anne Boleyn. Perhaps she had learnt close-up, on the job, from Anne's mistakes, being her silent but observant Mistress of the Bedchamber.   

What I particularly like about Elizabeth Norton's telling is the woman's eye view of her which, as I've argued a lot, gets us much closer inside the psyche of the subject than plain dry academia. Whilst much of this 'Jane must have thought/felt ...' material supplied here is, arguably, speculative, it is rationally reasoned and well sourced.

I was fascinated, left feeling more knowledgeable, with a more three-dimensional picture of the woman, and entertained while not to the point of feeling as if I'd sat through a melodrama. Thankfully this does not extend to sensationalism. It sticks within the boundaries of credible theory supported by hard enough data.

If Jane was as calculating as some now opine, then she clearly needed to be in a court where heads could literally roll at the drop of a hat. Whatever the truth about her she maintained dignity, composure and humility, the eternal mark of a smart and classy woman who commands our respect from the grave, from where she remains forever this legendary king's sweetheart and heroine in his glorious historic chapter.

My review of Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII's Discarded Bride, by Elizabeth Norton

Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII's Discarded Bride 

by Elizabeth Norton

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The style of this follows a pattern across all Elizabeth Norton biographies I've read: skillfully researched, not too drily academic, and effectively enough written that we feel present in certain episodes.

This never-crowned queen consort, whose marriage was famously annulled, was passed down to us in a assortment of unkind and unjust ways, usually as an uneducated frump, the 'Flanders mare' whose looks and personal odours repulsed Henry VIII so much that he felt unable to consummate their marriage, paying her off with a wealth of palaces and income.

While this royal couple's chemistry was, evidently, all wrong, Anne was actually attractive and intelligent. Attractive enough to have had her admirers' remarks well documented and intelligent enough to negotiate probably the best deal of all Henry's wives, becoming an honorary royal 'sister' who remained in high favour and enjoyed her independence.

Neither formally well-educated nor culturally sophisticated, Anne was skilled in needlework, loved card games and considered 'gentle, virtuous, and docile'. Thought solemn by English standards, she perhaps appeared older than her years, but her paintings had undergone Holbein's 'treatments' to suit her much older king (these likenesses were famously accused of inaccuracies, blamed for overly flattering her to win Henry's approval).

The French ambassador described her as tall and slim, 'of middling beauty and of very assured and resolute countenance'. She was fair haired and was said by chronicler Edward Hall to have had a lovely face.

A sister of Duke Wilhelm of Cleves, Anne was a Roman Catholic who converted to Anglicanism to suit Henry but later reverted to suit his Catholic daughter Queen Mary I. A popular figure with the public and Tudor royal family alike, Anne had a great life and was universally liked and respected. The last of Henry's wives to die, she is the only one buried in Westminster Abbey.

Following the current trend of biographical amendments to Anne's reputation - from spurned, ugly foreign hausfrau to wily, highly esteemed great dame - Elizabeth Norton's contribution may offer no groundbreaking revelations, but her style is among the most accessible. 

Without lowering standards to the emotively driven novel-style of some, Norton strikes a fine balance granting us authentic entry into her subject's personal world without losing that all important scholarly perspective. Here she once more shows herself to be an erudite historian blessed with literary talent and a popular voice.

My review of Katherine Howard: A Tudor Conspiracy, by Joanna Denny

Katherine Howard: A Tudor Conspiracy 

by Joanna Denny

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Joanna Denny has brought dynamism to this erstwhile two dimensionally portrayed girl, who earlier biographers (with no more cited evidence than Denny uses here) wrote off as a juvenile delinquent, a whore, etc. Denny offers a more balanced, wider range of possibilities around Katherine's level of guilt or innocence than earlier writers took the trouble to flesh out.

I contest arguments that this book is best suited for beginners to the period. Beginners do not turn to detailed accounts of this fleeting young queen. They aim to see the outline of Henry's reign, the shape of his dynasty's epoch - in which, contextually, Katherine Howard (sometimes spelt Catherine) was barely relevant. We can only speculate on whether much would have unfolded differently had she survived the axe.

This is a book for those with the Tudors generally mastered but seeking deeper explanations lacking in the works of antiquated savants who grew academically lazy after enjoying higher acclaim from their fraternity than Denny so far has. She has dared offer diversion from the stiff consensus and been castigated accordingly for it. Denny has been made an easy whipping post for the unsubstantiated latter day academic snobbery of a handful of textbook greenhorns.

Those detractors, as they gain the wisdom of a mature readership rather than cramming in memorised indexes of names and dates, will see that all of history is drawn using some subjectivity, some opinion and some primary data. Much of it is dry, boring propaganda. Some of the most highly praised has been proven inaccurate with the passage of time, the opening of blinkered minds and the unearthing of new evidence.

I finished the this greatly entertaining work feeling I'd come to better know and understand this likeable girl, who has been so denigrated over the centuries.

Effective historical biography is a genre of its own, quite separate from plain academia, it strikes a fine balance between hard data and mere entertainment (if you want just data visit the archives or reference library, if you want only entertainment watch The Tudors). I found that special balance here.

Thank you, Joanna Denny.

My review of Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr, by Linda Porter

Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr 

by Linda Porter

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Firebrand (2023) movie’s media criticism of historical inaccuracies, anachronisms and ‘wild conjecture’ prompted me to revisit this book. Cited examples include Katherine (sometimes spelt Catherine) enduring a pregnancy and miscarriage to Henry VIII, which never happened or history would have recorded it, as with Henry’s many stillborn and miscarried heirs. 

I reread reliable sources as a form of revision and confirming doubt around misleading screenplays that leave unwitting viewers assuming to have learnt something and maybe spreading such bunkum via dinner party chat, online comments, etc. 

Other such screen examples include Mary Queen of Scots (2018) depicting ‘that’ meeting between Elizabeth I (Margo Robbie) and Mary (Saoirse Ronan) which famously never happened. And which saw formidable old Bess of Hardwick, one of England’s wealthiest and most powerful landowners, transfigured into a beautiful young Chinese counterpart (Gemma Chan). Or The Tudors TV series, with Henry VIII’s Tudor sisters Margaret, Queen of Scotland and Mary, Queen of France, amalgamated into one composite character (played by Gabrielle Anwar) and corpulent, decrepit Henry VIII portrayed by svelte young heartthrob Jonathan Rhys Myers.

I enjoyed rereading about Queen Katherine Parr who, like Henry VIII's other five wives, became somewhat misrepresented over subsequent centuries.

While Katherine has come down to us as Henry's 'mature' last queen, this fact has been overemphasised (possibly in gauging her against her teenaged predecessor, Katherine Howard). Young enough for Henry's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, to be her godmother, this last one was only 32 when she married him and dead at 36. 

Linda Porter dispels various myths, including that of Katherine having always been an ambitious schemer who as a child declared to her mother: 'My hands are ordained to touch crowns and sceptres, not spindles and needles.'

Katherine was certainly clever and on occasion resorted to subtle survival tactics that evaded Henry's previous queens (indeed she was the one who famously 'survived', outliving him while still married to him - Anne of Cleves also survived him but he annulled their marriage). Katherine was neither ruthlessly ambitious nor gratuitously underhanded and is rightly shown here to be of outstanding integrity and loyalty to Henry despite her discrete passion for further religious reform than he favoured.

Already widowed twice she was set to marry Thomas Seymour, brother of Henry's second wife Jane, uncle of the future King Edward VI. When the lonesome and ageing Henry proposed to Katherine Parr, a year or so after his fifth wife Katherine Howard's execution, she shelved Seymour to become queen then married him anyway after Henry's death.

She was considered brave for marrying Henry, who had notoriously disposed of four of his five previous wives by axe or annulment. Widowed again after Henry, pregnant Dowager Queen Katherine sent away her ward, the future Elizabeth I, from her Chelsea house after finding husband Thomas in a compromising position with her stepdaughter. She then died after having Thomas's baby.

It is in part thanks to Katherine that we have the Elizabethan era handed down to us as was, as she had helped restore Elizabeth to the succession and involved herself in the princess's famous education. Of course, few suspected Elizabeth's brother would die, so it seemed unlikely either of Henry's daughters would rule. This being so, they could have been swept under the carpet and married off abroad.  Henry might have been so inclined if not for Katherine's notable loyalty to her stepdaughters.

She also helped reconcile Elizabeth's half-sister Mary to Henry, restoring Mary also to the official succession ahead of Elizabeth. Had that not occurred Mary, too, might never have reigned and her infamous burnings of Protestant heretics might never have been a reality. 

Renowned for her erudition, diplomacy and dignity, Katherine was made Regent in Henry's absence as he led military campaigns. She was meant to rule as Regent after Henry's death, during young King Edward VI's minority, but new Edwardian court politics saw this plan instantly dissolved before Henry's body was cold.

The later Victorian myth of Katherine Parr having been a sort of surrogate nursemaid to the sickly older Henry has long been dispelled by leading historians, with whom Porter concurs. Henry had no shortage of such intimate carers that he needed his queen to become one.

Linda Porter's biographies are among the more recent ones published and have a freshness that does not sacrifice academic quality. I certainly enjoyed this one, a fine complimentary addition to other such works by Porter's great contemporaries.