“I’m Henry VIII, I am, I’m Henry VIII I am, I am!”
Wow! There’s never a dull moment with old Henry. Teenage King, always warring with France, cuts ties with Rome and changes the course of history just so he can get a divorce, six wives – two have their heads lopped off, one dies in childbirth, one is too ugly, one won’t provide him with a son (tsk! what was she thinking?) and the other gets to mop up his gangrenous leg until he dies. Phew!!!
This is a fabulous book: long, but so worth it. Written from Henry’s point of view so we get to see his life as he sees it. We all know what a bad-tempered tyrant he was supposed to have been, but in this book we get a glimpse at what may have made Henry make the decisions he made. He was born into royalty, taught to believe that he is above others (and boy, does he!) but we also see another side to him. There are times when I actually felt sorry for him; to be surrounded all your life by “yes-men” and never really knowing who you can trust must have been pretty tough even if you are surrounded by jewels and banquets all day long.
Not surprisingly, his poor wives come in for a pretty raw deal; but again it is written from Henry’s point of view. Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard never stood a chance and Katherine of Aragon was treated appallingly in later life when the King decided that he wanted to move on to a younger model. No wonder when it came to searching for a new wife 4th time around, all the eligable young European princesses were hiding in the shadows.
This is a real tome of a book and one I enjoyed immensley. The fact that it took the author 15 years to research, I knew I was in safe hands with getting a wonderful peice of fiction based entirely on fact. I would highly recommend this to history fans. Big thumbs up for this one. I now want to check out more of George’s historical books:
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