Customer Reviews

Mary Boleyn: The True Story of Henry VIII's Mistress

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was excited at the prospect of a new Tudor era book being

out, and the first nonfiction one about Mary Boleyn. For that

fact, I enjoyed it also because it didn't read like some

literature for a college student to do a thesis on.

However, I did get bogged down in the chapter about whether or

not Mary's two children were Henry VIII's, and she flip-flopped

around on what the answer might be (talk about beating a dead

horse!) & then next thing I know she's talking later in the

book as if it is an established fact that they were in his.

Also, there was much said about her sister Anne, that if

someone picked up the book to read in the mid-part, they might

assume the book was about Anne Boleyn. But I realize that her

sister's destiny was closely woven with Anne's. Despite all

of that, it was an enjoyable book & worth the cost. I am

planning on purchasing the other books by this author.

This is a quick read and presents a good overview of siginificant issues surrounding the Henry VIII/Anne Boleyn/Mary Boleyn triangle. Unfortunately, there is not a great deal of meat in this book. It can be rather conclusory at times; however, it is a good place to start for those interested in beginning to learn about this aspect of Tudor history.

It would seem of late that the more public interest that surrounds the Tudor era, more books, television programs and movies etc are released to 'please' this growing fanbase. Every man and his dog seem to think that they can release the same old stuff in a different cover and call it fresh and new, and sell it for a small fortune to unsuspecting and gullible readers. Well, this reader hasn't been fooled. First off, let me tell you how I came across this book.

Knowing my love for all things medieval, and knowing the latest hype that surrounds the Tudor period, my friend decided that she would 'surprise' me for my birthday and buy me the brand new biography about the little known life of Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne, sometime Queen of England. I knew that this book was coming out, and had done some background research into the author, and saw that she had a PhD and had written (she is currently finishing the second volume) another biography of Richard III. Naturally this was a book that caught my attention, but I wanted to wait and see what other's thought of it before spending a small fortune and getting the book to my end of the world. Funnily enough, I am the one to review it for the rest of you.

As mentioned before this book is about the life of Mary Boleyn; and is, to quote the cover, "The true story of Henry VIII's favourite mistress". It chronicles what is known about Mary's life, from her birth and birthdate/place, to her life at the French court, to her affair with Henry VIII, her life as the sister of the Queen, and finally her life in seclusion and relative poverty as her family fortunes came crashing down around her. As an introductory book to the period, or simply for one who wanted to know more about Mary than the other more famous members of her family, this book achieves it's goal, to a degree. But for those of us who read all that is available about this period, this book falls short. The author provides nothing new about Mary- everything that is known is pretty much detailed in any book about her sister, Anne. For the most part, this book is filled with "Uhm's" and "Arrrrh's"- the author doesn't seem to want to make any conclusions or voice her own opinion, especially when it comes to the more controversial issues surrounding the Boleyn family. Page after page after page is filled with "perhaps" and "possibly" and "maybe". A prime example is her argument surrounding Mary's date of birth and position as eldest or youngest sister of the Boleyn girls. Wilkinson states some 'fact' (for the most part the same statement in more or less words by different people) saying that Mary must be the eldest because of... but in the next statement she reverses what she previously said by saying that Anne is the eldest because of... Not once does the author mention which side she thinks has the strongest argument etc, but rather just presents a small amount of evidence and forces the reader to make their own decision.

Now, for the technical side of this review. The book (or my edition at least) is in hardcover format and the first thing I noticed about it was it's thickness. You could get away with saying it is no more than two centimeters thick, making it only 177 pages, not including the Notes and Appendix. To some this might not be a problem, after all, one couldn't possibly write a great tomb about the life of a subject hardly remembered by history, without writing a book more about the era and less about the subject. One of my problems with the book though was not so much it's length as the size of the font. HUGE. The size of font that you would expect to see in a novel aimed at six year olds. I finished this book in three hours. Not an issue for some, but I personally feel that this was a waste of time for me because not only did I have to go back through my vast library and find another book to read, I also didn't learn anything new. For those that are interested, it has eight full page colour photo's in the centre of the book.

All in all, this book is a three star book for me. For people who want a nice and easy introduction into the Boleyn family, or for those with a preference to Mary, then you may enjoy this book. For those who have read and loved (example) Ive's history of Anne Boleyn, then you will most likely be dissapointed. I was. This book reads more like a highschool essay than a work of scholarly investigation, with no 'new' conclusions and little evidence to support the few conclusions made. I will say one thing for this book though- it was a good refresher course in the period, otherwise, wait for it to go on sale if you must have it. I don't pretend or claim to be an historian (not yet anyway), but I am a huge fan of Anne Boleyn, and have read just about every book available on her- and consequently have learnt a fair bit about Mary along the way, so if you are looking for a great book about the Boleyn's, go check out Eric Ive's brilliant masterpiece on Anne Boleyn. That particular purchase I can assure you you won't regret.

3 stars. Same information in a new cover.

I just completed this book the other day and was sad that it was over. The good news was that it was a pleasurable read. It really helped to give more information on Mary to make her less of a mystery and more well rounded as a person than a lot of the other non-fictions I've previously read allow. I liked how she gave all the pros and cons regarding the paternity of her children and the different schools of thought on that subject. All in all I am glad I've added this book to my collection.

Can't anyone these days write a work of popular history that isn't littered with factual errors?

Wilkinson writes that when Henry VIII's sister Mary was ten, "a chance visit to the court by Philip the Handsome, the King of Castile, opened the way for her betrothal to his grandson, Charles of Ghent, the future Emperor Charles V". Philip the Handsome was the FATHER of Charles V. She then says the Emperor Maximilian "was also searching for a new bride for his son, Charles". Maximilian was Philip's father, and thus Charles's grandfather.

She tells us that Mary Tudor's governess "acted as unofficial surrogate mother to the princess following the death of her mother, Elizabeth of York, when the princess was only fourteen years old". The usual birth date given for Mary is March 1496, in which case she was not yet seven when her mother died in Feb 1503. Wilkinson makes another odd statement: that Francis I's mother, Louise of Savoy, was a first cousin to Louis XII. Louise's father was Duke of Savoy. Her mother was Marguerite de Bourbon, a member of the French Bourbon dynasty, but Marguerite was not a sister of Louis XII's father, Charles of Orleans, or of his mother, Mary of Cleves. So how were they first cousins? They were not. Francis's FATHER was a first cousin of Louis XII.

Next, she says Mary Tudor's next husband, Charles Brandon, had been "married to three women at the same time". He had only been married to two women at the same time, since he didn't arrange to marry one of his wards until his first wife died (his second marriage was bigamous and invalid). This ward was eight, so that the "marriage" was not legally binding, and could easily be broken - which it was a few years later.

The mistakes continue: she says Mary Tudor was widowed when Louis XII "died after only a few weeks of marriage", when they were married three months. She writes of Katherine of Aragon, "her grandmother, after whom she was named, was Catalina, or Katherine, of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt and his second wife, Costanza". Catalina was Katherine's great-grandmother - her mother Isabel of Castile's paternal grandmother. A simple checking of a family tree would have shown this. She says that in 1525, when Mary Boleyn's father was created Viscount Rochford, Mary "acquired the title of Lady Rochford". Funnily enough, Mary didn't become "Lady Rochford", since she wasn't her father's wife!

The chronology can also be inadequate: discussing Henry's attempts to marry Anne, Wilkinson writes that they had expected in 1527 to marry within a few months, but that "four years later, Anne and Henry were still striving to make their hopes a reality". Then on the next page, she jumps back and discusses the 1529 trial of Henry's marriage. I thought structural editors were invented to fix these things. The flights of fancy in chapter ten, in which we are told what Mary was thinking ("She thought about a time eighteen years previously when she stood on this very spot awaiting the change in the weather ...") should also have gone - this isn't historical fiction.

The book could have done with a good editor or proofreader - the writing is often awkward, and there is a reference to "Henry VIII's martial affairs". Yes: m-a-r-t-i-a-l. There are also three serious typos in the last few pages, in which words are joined without spacing.

Re the awkward language, Wilkinson feels the need to point out the obvious, e.g. that when Henry decided to annul his marriage "it was not in order to marry Mary but her sister, Anne". Soon we have it again: "As has been established, King Henry had, by this time, transferred his interest from Mary to her sister, Anne." Why does she need to keep pointing out that Mary's sister was named Anne? We know this. This stating of the obvious came across as patronising and insulting to the reader's intellect. I felt I might as well have been reading a children's history book. There are other examples, e.g. she explains that Mary Boleyn's children were not acknowledged by Henry, as had been his son by Elizabeth Blount: "The fact that Elizabeth's boy was given the name of Fitzroy, literally the `son of the King' is testament to Henry's acceptance of him as his son." She then points out the obvious: Mary's children "were given her husband's name, Carey." Three pages later she reiterates: "As it was, Elizabeth gave the King his first son whom he named Henry Fitzroy in acknowledgement of his paternity."

But wait - there's more! The very next page: "Yet, for all his difficulty in fathering a legitimate heir, Henry did manage to product at least one illegitimate son. This was, of course, Henry Fitzroy. Since Henry acknowledged him, there is no need to try to establish his paternity." This is the point at which I knew I couldn't even give the book two stars.

It happens again in chapter seven, where she twice points out that the main argument against Henry's being the father of Henry Carey is that he was born after the relationship ended, but that nonetheless, he was conceived while "the relationship was still ongoing". A few pages later, in a paragraph that is almost the same, she reiterates that "although the relationship had undoubtedly come to an end at the time of his birth, it was still ongoing at the time of his conception, thus allowing for the possibility that Henry was the father".

The weirdest bit comes in the acknowledgements: "Lastly I would like to thank Jonathan Reeve for showing me that writing about women's lives could be every bit as interesting and challenging as writing about men." This from a woman? What the ...

Sorry to insult anyone's intellect if this is also pointing out the blatently obvious, but I don't feel any compulsion to seek out other works by the author.

I ordered this book thinking it would be an accurate account of Mary Boleyn.I have to say I was very disappointed. I read it in a couple of hours, the print was huge & not many pages long. The information merely repeated throughout the book.Not worth $20 that's for sure.