My review of Honey Trap, by Anthony Summers and Steve Dorril

Honey Trap

by Anthony Summers and Stephen Dorril

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Profumo affair – one of Cold War Britain’s most famous political scandals – is an indelible flash in my early childhood. Framed by so many vivid, epochal images of my formative years, this fiasco became a defining mark of my generation. For this reason, reading Honey Trap was an irresistible lure down memory lane. 

A neighbour passed on to me the browned and curling paperback, which he had scored for fifty cents in a leisurely browse through our local op shop. Two distinct passages of time come into play here: the twenty-five years approx. between the events the book covers and its publication, and the thirty years between its publication and my getting around to reading it. As if two lifetimes divide the present from the story of Honey Trap. 

This staggered chronological detachment sets an intriguing and reflective context from which to revisit the scandal, which saw Britain's War Minister John Profumo and Soviet Embassy naval attaché cum spy Yevgeny Ivanov sleeping with the same woman, 19-year-old Christine Keeler. The affair's exposure and alleged resulting friendship between Profumo and Ivanov forced Profumo’s 1963 resignation from Government. 

As with other such investigative books, I saw the movie it inspired ('Scandal' 1989) long before reading this. Sir John Hurt stars as sleazy but lovable Establishment scapegoat, bon-vivant Dr Stephen Ward, who introduced the lethal Profumo affair trio and was later hounded to suicide. Sir Ian McKellen plays disgraced War Minister John Profumo. Joanne Whalley is showgirl-turned unwitting spy mistress Christine Keeler, with Bridget Fonda shining as Keeler's sharp cohort Mandy Rice-Davies. Authentic '60s & '70s glamour puss Britt Ekland is fellow seductress Mariella Novotny. Veteran screen legend Leslie Phillips graces the project as Conservative hack Lord Astor. Its haunting soundtrack includes the delectable Dusty Springfield/Pet Shop Boys hit 'Nothing Has Been Proved'. 

The movie's scenes, paired with the original media events they depicted, replayed through my visual memory as I turned each moldy page in wonderment, sneezing at the confetti of dust sprinkling my pillow yet compelled to pursue this nostalgic trip, kept awake into the small hours of three gruelling, impetuous nights.

As per its genre, Honey Trap is more a gripping factual account than a literary experience, so I had adjusted my expectations accordingly (these pieces I find intersect for comfort and convenience with heavier/fictional reads).   

While devouring it as I might a cold pizza on a Sunday morning, I could only ponder in astonishment at what a fuss was made of this tawdry diplomatic bedroom farce, while feeling so sad for Stephen Ward. Of course, certain classified intelligence files would now be accessible that had not yet become so when Honey Trap was penned, outdating various lingering question marks. Yet we hear very little in this wake, as if this book's authors had indeed concluded all there really was to conclude. In that sense, Honey Trap may never become truly outdated. *

Whilst I found Honey Trap's incessant meandering back through certain characters' darkened pasts irksome, along with the sheer volume of these incidental characters, this loss of momentum is often the price for the requisite thoroughness. Even so, the authors (or publishers, or both) seem set on burdening us with the bedroom quirks and petty agendas of a whole establishment rather than three of four main characters. This is my common issue across much reading, non-fiction and fiction alike. If more authors would just stay focused, instead of rambling off track with scarcely related trivia that consumed them in their quest for background padding! We, the reader, are unconcerned with such superfluity. We don't want to be led in pointless circles just to hear about some secondary character's spouse's sibling's boss's partner's irrelevant part-time sexual fetish, just for that extra shot of shock value. 

These gratuitous muckraking delays border on cheapening the effect of the mighty yarn that is Honey Trap. Such, however, is the gossipy nature of this beast. It's perhaps inevitable that the telling of a scandal will be over-embroidered with such, like an ornate cake with too much icing (is there such a thing, some might argue). There's an art to gauging enough titillation then stopping, before tabloid quality looms.

That said, anyone who remembers these times may well tut along with me at Honey Trap's vaguely tacky sentiment, while hypocritically slurping it up anyway. I plead guilty as charged. I'll read it again too.

An essential retrospective read for those who remember these events, a great modern history lesson to those who don't!

*A more recent publication, Distant Neighbours: A New History of Soviet Intelligence by Cambridge historian Professor Jonathan Haslam published in 2016 by Oxford University Press, reveals how the Profumo affair was a higher threat to UK security than previously thought. It finds that the Russian, Ivanov, was able to photograph top secret documents left out by Profumo after being shown into Profumo’s study by his wife, actress Valerie Hobson. Those documents concerned US tactical nuclear weapons and vital allied contingency plans for the Cold War defence of Berlin. Yet little else has emerged, especially concerning the MI5 and MI6's possible roles in Stephen Ward's 'suicide'. Nor has it ever been clarified whether Ivanov aimed to use Keeler to entrap or obtain information from Profumo. Haslam's new research shows Ivanov did not need to use Keeler thus, ultimately being able to steal information directly from Profumo. This resulted from Profumo's lack of office organisation and security protocol. Profumo left top secret documents visible on or in his home desk while out of his study, failing to secure the room or instruct family members to guard against entry. Consequently, when Ivanov visited Profumo’s home socially, Mrs. Profumo invited him to wait alone in her husband’s study. Ivanov merely needed to pull out his spy camera and take snaps, including of highly classified specifications for the X-15, a top secret experimental high-altitude US spy plane. But that's another book, decidedly more academic and less concerned with the sordid lust triangle that Honey Trap focuses on.

My review of The House of Mitford, by Jonathan Guinness with Catherine Guinness

The House of Mitford

by Jonathan Guinness with Catherine Guinness

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

After this sitting considerably far down my Mitford history reading list, I was taken by its erudition. My expectations were cynical, knowing it was penned by family insiders: author Jonathon Guinness, 3rd Baron Moyne, is the eldest son of Diana Mosley (née Mitford) by her first husband Bryan Guinness; his co-author is his daughter the Hon. Catherine Guinness. My tainted expectations could not have been wider off the mark.

Not only is there a marked absence of family bias, but the wordsmithing outshines every Mitford biography I have read. He does his forebears proud, his craftsmanship a testament to this clever bloodline. His being schooled at Eton and Oxford, one might expect this standard, but others with similar academic foundations have produced less impressive works.

I did not find, as certain readers have implied, any pro-Conservative slant to the narrative (the author was a Conservative Party Parliamentary Candidate). Wary of rightwing undertones, I here found objectivity from start to finish. Graced with impartiality, the content may stop short of censuring history's political right, which is not tantamount to partisanship.

I did sense, in certain of Jonathon Guinness's references to his novelist aunt Nancy Mitford, subtle retributory tones on behalf of his mother Diana who spent most of WWII in prison partly thanks Nancy. That history, well documented by all Mitford biographers, goes like this:

After leaving her first husband for British Union of Fascists leader Sir Oswald Mosley, Diana spent time in Germany with Hitler and his inner-circle in the prelude to WWII, aiming for a Nazi-approved radio station for the BUF which never eventuated. When Mosely was imprisoned early in the war under 18B as a potentially dangerous person, Diana was initially left to do much of his bidding on the outside. Nancy was summoned by MI5 to comment on how 'dangerous' she thought her younger sister. Putting patriotic duty before blood, Nancy said she thought Diana 'highly dangerous', swaying the government's decision to lock up Diana too. Separated from her babies, Diana was accordingly detained without charge or trial for years, subject to the horrors of Holloway Jail. Diana never learned of this sisterly betrayal until late in life and Mosley never learned of it.

So, one could understand any tinge of injustice felt on his mother's behalf by this author, who as a youngster witnessed her long imprisonment. Yet this is barely evident, if only hinted at (how much of the text his co-author daughter Catherine contributed is unclear).

The telling of Mosley's career itself is presented minus the fascist-bashing righteousness of many, from a rational 'setting-the-record-straight' standpoint. That seems fair considering the author is Mosley's stepson. It carries no hint of the fascist apologist we might anticipate. 

(Prior to this book, after Mosley's death his birth son from his first marriage to Lady Cynthia Mosley, Nicholas Mosley, had written harsh volumes against his fascist father, for which Mosley's widow Diana never forgave her stepson.)

I confess to being least taken by the convoluted earlier histories and lineages of the Mitford sisters' two grandfathers, Algernon Freeman-Mitford ('Barty') and Thomas Gibson-Bowles. Even so these are more impeccably detailed than any other Mitford historian's efforts I've encountered.  

To call this author's archival prowess masterly is a gross understatement. This book, Mitford descendants can keep in stately libraries and others can consult through the mists of time. I wish I had read this particular Mitford history sooner as it surpasses all others. 

With Jonathon Guinness in his mid-nineties as I write this review of a book published forty years ago, there still feels to be some carryover from these remarkable sisters, all now long dead.    

A self-proclaimed Mitford aficionado, I now see this as the definitive biography of this canon.

My review of The Sisters Who Would Be Queen, by Leanda de Lisle

The Sisters Who Would Be Queen

by Leanda de Lisle

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Leanda de Lisle undertook a bold and lofty endeavour penning this. She triumphs gloriously.

Most Tudor readers know about the usurping 'nine days queen' Lady Jane Grey who, after her fleeting, reluctant reign, was beheaded under the rightful Queen ['Bloody'] Mary I. Jane, languishing in the Tower of London, might have lived had the ageing Queen Mary's unsettled marriage negotiations with Philip of Spain not looked diplomatically grimmer the more lenient she was towards poor Jane.

Philip's Catholic envoys wanted Protestant Jane's head off, which left Queen Mary's hands tied. Young Jane has been depicted in varying lights by recent biographers less sympathetic than those before who had handed her down to history as an innocent victim of others' dynastic scheming (primarily, that of her parents). 

Many Tudor aficionados, however, until this book, knew only scant details of Jane's two sisters who suffered so appallingly under Mary I's successor, Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch and irrefutable villainess of this piece.

The childless 'Virgin Queen' Elizabeth's reign became fraught with nervous speculation on her successor. Enter the two 'other' Grey sisters Katherine and Mary, maternal granddaughters of Henry VIII's younger sister Mary, 'the French queen'. (The latter had, on her husband Louis XII of France's death, married Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk and produced four children, one being Francis, mother of these three Grey sisters).

All three Grey sisters were treated abysmally because of their positioning in the meandering line of Tudor succession. They are masterfully drawn as distinctly individualised characters: Jane Grey - headstrong, intelligent, yet martyred - was driven by her faith and principles, while torn by her sense of duty. The beautiful, romantically impetuous Katherine Grey was ruled by her heart, not her head. The plainer, diminutive Mary Grey, the least educated or threatening, just kept her head down aiming only to survive her piteous ride. 

The reader is lulled into empathy. We are left deeply moved, immensely informed and ravenous for more of this superb writer's magic. 

Never wanting to put this book down, I was saddened to reach its last page. And that's what great writing is about. A splendid achievement by a formidable writer and historian.

My review of Elizabeth's Women: Friends, Rivals, and Foes Who Shaped the Virgin Queen, by Tracy Borman

Elizabeth's Women: Friends, Rivals, and Foes Who Shaped the Virgin Queen

by Tracy Borman

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Some armchair critics have overlooked the immense task Tracy Borman undertook and successfully completed in writing and getting this published. In a literary avalanche of popular Tudor history dominated by old masters and current favourites, this comparatively unknown writer braved something extraordinary.

Like others, I turned to this after exhausting dozens of biographies on the key Tudor players and their epoch. We must keep our expectations realistic - as with any such addictive material, there is only a finite euphoric altitude we can maintain before desensitisation to the fix itself sets in. No use hammering away wanting the earth to move page after page so far into any such study (we can perhaps reasonably assume that few absolute beginners would turn to this particular title for introductions to the reign). These things considered, it's also impossible not to draw comparisons.

With voices like Alison Weir (and Antonia Fraser, if not specifically on this subject then characterising the genre itself) to compete with, one has to wonder how others conjure up the confidence to even begin. What makes popular historians popular is not just their detail and accuracy but their voices (some of the most meticulously researched, accurately presented history published is dry, soulless and unreadable).

Borman holds her own voice-wise, here. It may be interesting to compare her progress after twenty, thirty, forty years  (Fraser, for example, already had her distinctively sumptuous, compassionate style down pat by the time of her 1969 Mary, Queen of Scots and, while perhaps growing technically and conceptually since, has preserved what made her successful: it's not so much what she says but the way that she says it! 

Similarly, Alison Weir had her own defining style to begin with - with perhaps more emphasis on impressive citation and indexing that made her stand out from others.

There are countless others. Carolly Erickson, Alison Plowden, David Starkey, David Loades, Eric Ives, the list is as long as it is diverse, all riding high on stylistic hallmarking rather than just breaking even on factualist or conceptualist calibre alone. 

Tracy Borman is yet to demonstrate any such characteristic consistency across any substantial body of published work. She has made a commendable start though and this book deserves its rightful place on any good Elizabethan historian's shelf. 

Though each of Elizabeth's women discussed have been well covered before in greater detail, they are here effectively assembled in a unique and stimulating formation. Context is key, with each woman's positioning seemingly bearing particular relevance on the defining of Gloriana herself.

Great concept. Well written. Will definitely consider reading more of this author's fine work.

My review of Henry VIII: The King and His Court, by Alison Weir

Henry VIII: The King and His Court

by Alison Weir

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I love most of Alison Weir's work and this is no exception.

The research is astonishing. The clothes, décor and meals of England's infamous catalyst-king of the reformation, his court and his six wives are wondrously detailed.

The journey of the golden-haired boy, the meaty young lion and the obese, middle-aged tyrant is sumptuously charted. His gargantuan ego and delicate insecurities are thoroughly fleshed out. The human side of 'God's anointed' is sensitively examined.

The extremes he went to for a legitimate male heir were steered by the notion that his daughters would be unable to sustain his father Henry VII's fragile new dynasty (established not by laws of primogeniture but by triumphing in the Wars of the Roses).

Great Harry's struggles with Rome over his insistence on discarding Queen Catherine to marry Anne Boleyn led to the severance of the Church of England from papal authority and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. As the first ruling Supreme Head of the Church of England, he remained a believer in Catholic teachings even after his excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church.

Though Henry VIII has often been depicted as a lustful, insecure tyrant, this is probably not the full picture. His contemporaries considered him in his prime to be attractive, educated and accomplished. Also an author and composer, he has been described as 'one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne'.

He became obese in later years. With a 54-inch waist, he required mobilisation by mechanical inventions. He probably suffered from gout and was famously covered with insufferable, stinking, pus-filled boils. His obesity and other illnesses went back to a jousting accident in 1536, in which he suffered a leg wound. All these ailments hastened his death at 55, in 1547, at Whitehall Palace.

He was succeeded by his son, the boy king Edward VI, who died at 16, making way for Henry's older daughter 'Bloody' Mary I. She lived only five years on the throne. Henry's younger daughter, Elizabeth I, was the last Tudor, whose forty-four-year reign brought England stability, helping forge its sense of national identity.

Alison Weir's superb biography explores Henry VIII's legacy and the reasons his magnificent offspring turned out as they did. Had Henry been a different man, history might have unfolded differently and today's English-speaking world would probably not be as we know it.

This masterpiece is to be slowly and thoroughly pondered in brief, leisurely sessions, sleepy weekends or long, late nights. It's as thick as a brick and worth a hundred times its retail value.

My review of The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory

The Other Boleyn Girl

by Philippa Gregory

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The 2008 movie, starring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson, made this title familiar to many who would not otherwise have read the book. That mass publicity was a double-edged sword, with the movie receiving mixed reviews and criticism for historical inaccuracy. Indeed, the novel too suffered some disputed historical accuracy but has far greater subtlety and creative licence.

While Philippa Gregoory's novel makes requisite use of fictional elements, the film took it to extremes, discrediting the book it promoted. Though Gregory need perhaps not concern herself now, with the global success of her subsequent novels, the debacle must then have been tough for this talented, hardworking author. Certain historical details of this tale are black and white, others grey: 

Earlier historians claimed Elizabeth I's maternal aunt, Mary Boleyn, was Queen Anne's younger sister, but her children believed she was the elder, as does a growing consensus of today's historians. Regardless, legend strongly suggests Mary was thought the more beautiful of the two Boleyn sisters, going by aesthetic ideals of the day. With no less scandalous a public record than her beheaded sister Anne, poor Mary has undoubtedly been as much a victim of malicious press as Anne has been a victim of political propaganda.

A rumoured mistress of King Francis I of France, some historians believe tales of Mary's promiscuity exaggerated, while others deem them plainly apocryphal. King Francis's harsh reference to her as 'The English Mare', 'my hackney' and 'una grandissima ribalda, infame sopra tutte' ('a great slag, infamous above all), may have been merely sour grapes after a more innocently romantic public liaison: she did, after all, leave Francis and his court, and his hearing of her subsequent high profile amours could have simply bruised his royal pride.

When Mary returned to England in 1519, she was appointed a maid-of-honour to Catherine of Aragon, queen consort of Henry VIII. She then became Henry VIII's mistress from around 1521 to 1526. After later marrying wealthy and influential courtier William Carey, she was left widowed then secretly remarried for love to William Stafford, a lowly soldier considered beneath her aristocratic rank. This latter choice resulted in her banishment from court, and she spent the rest of her life in obscurity, dying in her early forties in 1543, seven years after Anne Boleyn's execution.

Many preferred this earlier Philippa Gregory book over her later one, The White Queen. This subject certainly holds more popular appeal, but to me that does not equal a better book.

Gregory's greater challenge was surely always going to be The White Queen, as readers are less familiar with that (infinitely more complex) history than with this story and its principal characters. Therefore, Gregory's greater achievement of those two is, in my opinion, the one which presented the harder challenge, The White Queen.

I nonetheless equally liked this, which makes for the more gripping read, its character list tighter and more focused than The White Queen's convoluted ensemble (that, I believe, is why some rubbished the latter, because they found it harder to follow due to their own lack of knowledge).

The Other Boleyn Girl is a good read by a classy, accomplished writer. Its sequel novel, The Boleyn Inheritance, tells the story of Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Jane (Parker) Boleyn.

I like everything of Philippa Gregory's I have so far read.

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 Bloody Mary: The Life of Mary Tudor, by Carolly Erickson

Bloody Mary: The Life of Mary Tudor

by Carolly Erickson

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

A terrific biography of a much maligned and grossly misunderstood historical figure, a scapegoat for generations of vicious religious and political propagandists.

Though she burned and persecuted 'heretics', so did most European monarchs of her era, Catholic and Protestant.

After a splendid start in life, Henry VIII's half-Spanish, half-English heir to the English throne was treated cruelly and heartlessly throughout her youth because of her genes, her gender and her parents' reformation-triggering marriage annulment.

Her mother Catherine of Aragon was her only close ally, but King Henry eventually forbade mother and daughter contact. Her younger cousin-husband Prince Phillip of Spain, who she adored, would treat her little better than her father had. 

Her maltreatment, heartache over her parents' unprecedented marriage annulment, her humiliation of being for a time displaced from the succession for her 'bastard' stepsister, Elizabeth, plus Mary's archly devout piousness in a changing religious milieu explains much about this tortured soul.

This granddaughter of Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon become a marvellously tragic, at times right royal neurotic.

Despite this, and seemingly possessing the mother of all death stares (she was actually vision impaired), the chronically misrepresented Mary Tudor had the heart and makings of a great anointed queen. History might have treated her more favourably had she had more time to establish herself rather than dying so prematurely - some said of a broken heart - just a few years after ascending the throne.

Her poignant tale is told with compassion and aplomb. Erudite and humane, Carolly Erickson pumps blood into Mary's veins like no other biographer, without apology for the monarch's infamous personal shortcomings.

An enlightening tragedy that peels away the cobwebs of centuries, leaving the reader relieved to live in today's world and historically informed.

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 Henry: Virtuous Prince, by David Starkey

Henry: Virtuous Prince

by David Starkey

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Being one of the more recent Henry VIII biographies, and being specifically about Henry's youth, this was a popular choice when widespread interest became fuelled by 'that' TV series with Jonathan Rhys Meyers. I checked it for comparison with the 5 others I've read on Henry.

I rate it on par with the good ones for dynastic background and incidental (impersonal) detail, but not for character study. If more drily and stuffily presented than personally accessible, this is academically fine and faultless in its fine detail.

Not the first Starkey biography I've read, this is his pet dynasty. He specialised in Tudor history at Cambridge, writing a thesis on Henry VIII's household. His knowledge, as would be expected, is impressive, while his reader-connection is standoffish. This makes for a drier, less authentic result than I seek in any biography.

Focusing on young Henry rather than his life, this might have been a more personal look at the 'spare' heir whose apparent destiny changed course for the better with the death of his older brother Arthur. No matter how meticulously researched and presented, personal supply inventories and monetary accounts do not suffice, in my mind, as 'personalisation'. Rather, a more intimate style of penmanship than Starkey's is the key.

While, admittedly, generalisations can be invalid, the notary female historical biographers I've read (mostly, not all) have achieved more evocative results than their male contemporaries. Such women have been criticised for being overly emotive in approach and Starkey seems to be making a point around this in his own more remote, albeit supremely erudite, style. If, like me, you like blood pumped into a study's cheeks, tones given to their voice, rationale explained around their more private decisions, then Starkey disappoints. 

Only fair to consider that the 'heart and soul' we might be prospecting for in this has been reaped over and over from Starkey's most formidable biographical predecessors - there was no point in his aiming to replicate, but rather to find an original take on this weightily covered topic. In this unenviable task he succeeds, leaving his own hallmark on the vastly sprawling genre of Tudor biography.

This slightly prickly addition to any Tudor reading shelf will contribute balance and sophistication.

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 The White Queen, by Philippa Gregory

The White Queen

by Philippa Gregory 

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I read this novel having exhausted much of the definitive fictional and non-fictional work on my favourite periods. Not my all-time favourite epoch, the more I read on the Wars of the Roses the more interested I become.

The White Queen is the first in Philippa Gregory's series The Cousins' War about the female figures of those 'wars' fought between 1455 and 1487 (with related fighting before and after).

This novel's title refers to Elizabeth Woodville who, as Sir John Grey's widow, was thought to have used occult powers to seduce King Edward IV, becoming his queen and widow. The legendary mystery of her little sons, the Princes in the Tower, is examined, and whether King Richard III had them killed.

Heavily featured is Anne Neville, Warwick the Kingmaker's daughter who will marry Richard III, briefly becoming Queen of England.

We also follow Margaret Beaufort, whose son Henry Tudor will marry Elizabeth Woodville's daughter, founding his famous royal dynasty. 

Whilst this makes no pretence of targeting the intelligentsia, it never stoops as low as hardline history pedants may presuppose. Gregory is first an historian and secondly a novelist. Accuracy to fine detail and meticulous research is evidently paramount, though without compromising literary calibre. That more than suffices for some reading purposes. Non-fiction histories of our less favourite periods can err on the dry side.

If I want to read a great novelist I will. Likewise with a great academic historian. But for deepening my familiarity with such a convoluted and not especially gripping episode, I prefer an accomplished historian who can fictionalise engagingly - not simply either a dashing literary wordsmith or a formidable date-spouting egghead.

If we had Proust, Dostoyevsky, Hugo or Virginia Wolf writing on this topic they would lack the specialised knowledge required of it. To make such a book work it must be done by an historian rather than a novelist. Imagine Barbara Cartland, the most read romance novelist, attempting this? Then again, would we really sit pigheadedly yawning through some dry, dusty old textbook purely for bare factuality's sake?

This genre therefore sits legitimately on the educational spectrum, veiled in a tissue of that popular sweetener: romantic spin. That was what I sought on this occasion and was what I found. I usually keep my literary fiction in one box and my historical fiction and non-fiction in two others. Expecting both combined can be unrealistic.

This is an impressively substantial, satisfying read by a woman who knows her material and was clearly aiming also for a popular TV spin-off. That eventuating ten-part 2013 BBC adaptation was said to have had, like so many of its genre, a cheapening effect, receiving mixed to negative reviews. Ms. Gregory would have nonetheless laughed all the way to the bank.

Although I tend to read more non-fiction history, skipping straight to the facts, this fictional piece marked a well-earned break from my borderline stuffy convention. Good for Philippa Gregory and may she reap all riches she's worked so hard for.

My review of The Life of Elizabeth I, by Alison Weir

The Life of Elizabeth I 

by Alison Weir

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Published outside America as Elizabeth the Queen, this is my favourite biography of my favourite historical figure - and I've read almost every one published - by the UK's highest-selling female historian.

Alison Weir's detail and quality closely rivals the great Antonia Fraser who, before Weir in an earlier decade, wrote the now definitive work on Elizabeth's great adversary, Mary Queen of Scots, my next favourite historical figure.

With her mother, Anne Boleyn, executed when Elizabeth was two, and her parents' marriage annulled, she was declared illegitimate. At twenty-five this dogged survivor succeeded her half-sister 'Bloody Mary', who had imprisoned Elizabeth for almost a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.

Tagged the 'Virgin Queen', Elizabeth considered herself married to England, never settling on a groom when any choice of foreign prince could have worked politically against her favour. Her true great love, Robert Dudley 'the Gypsy', was beneath her in rank, of famously treasonous stock and of dubious public renown after the mysterious death of his wife Amy.

More moderate a ruler than her father and half-siblings, one of her mottoes was 'video et taceo' ('I see, and say nothing'). Her Religious Settlement evolved into today's Church of England. Her eponymous age saw English drama flourish, led by Shakespeare and Marlowe, with seamen like Francis Drake knighted as heroes.

Her forty-four-year reign, for many years politically shaky after she was branded a heretic by the pope, eventually brought England stability, helping forge its sense of national identity.

Renowned by detractors as short-tempered and indecisive, Elizabeth was also famously charming and no flibbertigibbet. On the contrary, she was a wily mistress of prevarication. Blessed with the 'common touch' she was hugely popular with her subjects, nicknamed 'Good Queen Bess' and 'Gloriana'.

The Spanish Armada's failure associated her with one of English history's greatest military victories. Her Tilbury speech to the troops, delivered wearing a silver breastplate over a white velvet dress, is legendary.

Whilst Weir's writing has been derided as 'popular history', the jealousy underlying such professional jibing is plainly evident. The Guardian's Kathryn Hughes wrote in 2005: 'To describe her as a popular historian would be to state a literal truth – her chunky explorations of Britain's early modern past sell in the kind of multiples that others can only dream of.'

In her website's Author Biography, Weir graciously shuns the derogatory connotation behind 'popular historian', remarking eloquently:

'History is not the sole preserve of academics. Although I have the utmost respect for those historians who undertake new research and contribute something new to our knowledge. History belongs to us all, and it can be accessed by us all. And if writing it in a way that is accessible and entertaining, as well as conscientiously researched, can be described as popular, then, yes, I am a popular historian, and am proud and happy to be one.'

This book is as thick as a brick, supremely informative and worth infinitely more than its considerable retail value. Kept me up burning the midnight oil for weeks. I reread it two years later, loving it just as much. Well worth the lost sleep. Can't praise it highly enough.

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.