The Last Wife of Henry VIII: A Novel [Hardcover]

Carolly Erickson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 2006

Author of The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette

 

Courageous, attractive, romantic, intelligent, Catherine Parr became the sixth wife of Henry VIII. Her story, as Carolly Erickson re-creates it, is page-turning drama: from the splendors of the Field of the Cloth of Gold to the gory last years of the outsize King Henry, when heads rolled and England trembled, Catherine bestrode her destiny and survived to marry her true love.

Catherine Parr attracted the king’s lust and, though much in love with the handsome Thomas Seymour, was thrown into the intrigue-filled snake pit of the royal court. While victims of the king’s wrath suffered torture and execution, Catherine persevered—until, at last, she came within the orbit of the royal fury. King Henry toyed with her, first ordering her arrested, then granting her clemency. She managed to evade execution, but she knew that the king had his wandering eye fixed on wife number seven.

She was spared by his death and married the attractive but dangerously unbalanced Seymour. Her triumph was shadowed by rivalry with the young Princess Elizabeth, whose lands and influence the lecherous Seymour coveted. Catherine won the contest, but at great cost.

In The Last Wife of Henry VIII, critically acclaimed author Carolly Erickson brings this dramatic story of survival and redemption to life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Erickson, known best for her lively and popular histories (nearly 20 of them, including The Girl from Botany Bay and Bonnie Prince Charlie) engages with this fictionalized, first-person life of Catherine Parr, who actually survived marriage to the dangerous and mercurial Henry Tudor (famously, of the six wives), and who is arguably his most interesting bride (not least because she had four husbands). Cultured, well-educated and beautiful, "Cat" catches Henry's eye as a young girl and variously benefits and suffers from his favor all her life. Often married to others when Henry is single, she is both attracted to and repelled by him, but understands him, she feels, better than most. The factional court tightrope Catherine walks is familiar, as is the religious one; her observations cast Princess Elizabeth (soon to be Elizabeth I) and Baron Thomas Seymour (a husband of Catherine's who wanted to marry Elizabeth) in a less-than-positive light, and the Church of England priests come off as corrupt as the Catholics they replaced. Catherine surprises and delights as her own woman, one who, in the end, gets everything she wants. (Oct.)
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Review

Praise for The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette

“I read The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette in two days, and when I finished it, I reread the final pages, as hungry for more as a child scraping the last crumbs of chocolate cake off her plate with her fingers. I thrilled to Marie Antoinette’s every incarnation.…A very human and multi-textured portrait of a queen who all too often has been reduced to a historical one-liner.” ---Judith Warner, The New York Times Book Review

 

“[Marie Antoinette] regains her historical reputation in this historical novel. . . . The glittering but corrupt French court, the growing turmoil, the brutal poverty, the intrigues are all illuminated here.” ---Deirdre Donahue, USA Today

 

“Writers of historical fiction must tread a fine line between loving one’s protagonists while telling the truth about them. Carolly Erickson has executed this balancing act with the same scorching wit and great-heartedness that has always illuminated her biographies.” ---Robin Maxwell, author of The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn and To the Tower

“Carolly Erickson turns cold fact to hot fiction in her first historical novel. The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette lets a much-maligned woman speak for herself---in exquisitely precise prose that illuminates her growth from innocent princess to unloved wife to doomed queen. Erickson...reveals the very human truth behind history’s mask.” ---India Edghill, author of Queenmaker and Wisdom’s Daughter

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (October 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312352182
• ISBN-13: 978-0312352189
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,112,476 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Carolly Erickson is the bestselling author of many distinguished works of nonfiction and a series of historical entertainments, blending fact and invention. She lives in Hawaii.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars LAST BUT NOT LEAST..., January 13, 2008

By 

Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: The Last Wife of Henry VIII: A Novel (Hardcover)

Noted historical biographer, Carolly Erickson, turns her hand to fiction with this story of Catherine Parr, the sixth and last wife of King Henry VIII of England. This novel tracks the life of Catherine Parr, who was named for Catherine of Aragon, wife of the man who would one day be her third husband.

Catherine Parr was a cultured and intelligent woman who lived in a time when women were not masters of their fates. The author artfully weaves fact with fiction in this first person narrative of her life. The reader learns of Catherine Parr's youth, her early marriages, as well as that of her marriage to King Henry VIII, whose eye she unfortunately caught just when she thought she would be able to marry the love of her life, the dashing, handsome, and dangerously ambitious Thomas Seymour.

Having narrowly survived in her marriage to Henry VIII, she was finally able to fulfill her hearts desire and marry the man of her dreams, only to find herself rivaled for her fourth husband's affections by a coy and hoydenish teenager, the Princess Elizabeth. Catherine Parr's life is one that seemed to be shadowed by the capriciousness of the Tudor court and the treacherous jockeying for power by its subjects, a life lived in a world where women were mere chattel.

Although the book seems, at times, to be more fiction than fact and has a strong element of romance running through it, those who enjoy light historical fiction, such as that written by Philippa Gregory and Jean Plaidy, will enjoy this book.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Even a queen can be the victim of her own illusions.", December 26, 2006

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Last Wife of Henry VIII: A Novel (Hardcover)

The daughter of Catherine of Aragon's lady-in-waiting, Catherine Parr is familiar with Henry VIII's court, witness to a quest for an heir that drives him from wife to wife, father of two daughters, an illegitimate son and Jane Seymour's fragile boy, who is always in precarious health. Much noticed by the king, Catherine is happy to be free of the dangerous court, deeply in love with her unprepossessing husband, Ned Burgh, his estate made possible by the intercession of the king on Catherine's behalf. However, when Ned dies in a tragic accident barely a year into their marriage, Catherine's lands are claimed by her irascible father-in-law and his powerful contacts in the church. A marriage to John Neville, Lord Latimer, affords Catherine some sanctuary, her much older husband demanding little but her affection.

Through religious turmoil and rebellion against the king, Catherine exercises the intuition and restraint of a lady bred to her position, until she falls hopelessly in love with Tom Seymour, uncle to the unhealthy young prince, heir of Henry. Promising to marry her as soon as the elderly John dies, Seymour retains his façade in court as an available bachelor, one of Henry's trusted inner circle. So it is Tom that first learns of Henry's intention to marry Catherine Parr not long after the beheading of the faithless Catherine Howard. All these years, Catherine has watched Henry put aside his first wife for love of Anne Boleyn, whom he beheads to marry Jane Seymour, who dies in childbirth. Then the unfortunate Ann of Cleves barely escapes the executioner as Henry weds Catherine Howard, the child bride who cares more for the delicious danger of romance than her own safety.

Thinking herself only a trusted confidant of the king, Catherine Parr soon realizes she is in an intractable position with Henry's set on her as his next conquest. When she, too, fails to deliver an heir, plots and rumors of heresy abound, the familiar drumbeat of a queen in disfavor. Parr is thirty-five when Henry Tudor finally succumbs to the excesses of his body, his long reign ended. Freed from the demands of a sovereign become monster, Catherine marries Tom Seymour only to find herself once more deluded, lulled by the tender phrases of a dashing husband who proves painfully false after all. Catherine Parr is defined by her yearning for happiness, early widowhood, nerve-wracking years as the Queen of England and the foolish wife of an overly-ambitious nobleman. Like the others trapped in Henry's web, Catherine is a victim of beauty and history, a treacherous, unpredictable court and a world where women serve as pawns for men's ambition and lust for power. Luan Gaines/2006.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A crashing disappointment for an admirer of the author, March 26, 2007

By 

L. S. Jaszczak "servant of the secret fire" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Wife of Henry VIII: A Novel (Hardcover)

Carolly Erickson has been writing biographies since I was pretty young, and I've always had a lot of respect for her, although I have to admit that the last couple I've read have seemed pretty insubstantial compared to her earlier work, whether due to carelessness or an attempt to appeal to a broader readership by "dumbing down" her writing. I haven't read her previous novel, but this one was a terrible disappointment.

I would like to explain my expectations of historical fiction, and this novel in particular. Obviously, since there is a lot we don't know about people's lives and, after all, it _is_ fiction, I personally will give the novelist a lot of leeway. We don't know that Catherine Parr didn't have an ongoing friendship with Henry, and it's certainly possible. We don't know when she met Thomas Seymour or exactly what her and her second husband's roles in the Pilgrimage of Grace were, so my attitude on those things is, "Go for it! Imagine to your heart's content." However, unless there is good reason for it, a historical novelist shouldn't _contradict_ history or the known character of a real person. Some of the innaccuracies of fact and inconsistencies of character in this book are downright painful for anyone who knows _anything_ at all about the real history, and there are people who will take this for a realistic portrayal of historical figures and events.

The book was well written but as it went further on I was more and more distracted and annoyed by the author's flights of fancy, and I agree with other reviewers that at times it read more like a tacky romance than the story of one of the most truly pious, well-educated and level-headed queens that England ever had.