Customer Reviews

The Sisters Of Henry VIII: The Tumultuous Lives Of Margaret Of Scotland And Mary Of France

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The strength of Maria Perry's joint biography of Mary and Margaret Tudor is that it offers a different perspective on events that are usually seen only through the eyes of their more famous brother. It also conveys a fair amount of information about the early lives of the two sisters, but Perry never seems to be able to view the sisters as individuals or to distance herself from the fact that they were, in fact, the sisters of Henry VIII. For much of the last third of the book, she abandons the sisters entirely to write in great detail about Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Once in awhile, she'll toss in the opinion that Mary didn't approve of the divorce - but she doesn't back up this supposition with any facts to prove her case. Margaret gets a little better treatment - as mother of the king of Scotland, she was still a political player and perhaps more demanding of Perry's wandering attention - but one never feels that there is any real consideration of what motivated her actions. All in all an uneven presentation of a fascinating subject.

As an avid fan of Henrician history, I was so looking forward to reading this work and finding out more about the Tudor king's royal sisters. However, what I found out was a lot of mind-numbing detail about period finances, wardrobe and travel itineraries and very little about the actual personalities of these women.

The only part of this dense little book that comes alive relates to their famous brother's well known escapades, so therefore offers very little new or enlightening information. I'd recommend it for diehard Tudor-philes, only.

--Because this book, for the most part, except when the author decides to basically abandon a person or issue in it, is loaded with details. If you are interested in the life and times of Henry VIII, his relatives, friends and enemies, then you will likely forgive the author's apologist attitudes toward him (and her seemingly hyper-critical eye, in my view, of his sisters). If you are relatively thick-skinned about writers who do that, weaving their own opinions through the story they are telling, while supposedly presenting historical fact, you will find this book very interesting and fairly absorbing. There are a lot of minute details about banquets, clothes and social behavior, which are a lot of fun to read and know about, again, if you're interested in the first place. Which I am, so I liked this book.

I was very interested to read this book about the sisters of Henry VIII having become interested in them when reading Jean Plaidy's stories about them. I was very disappointed. The book really is about Henry VIII and a general history of that period. Mostly the author stresses that one does not know the reactions of either Mary or Margaret to certain events. But things are known about them. For instance, Mary's husband Charles, married right after she died. To whom? The book does not mention this. Also, he was not a faithful husband. Why not mention this? Margaret had small pox and was greatly disfigured but where was this fact in the book??

I didn't know much at all about either of Henry's sisters and I felt that this book provided some interesting details. I suspect that the author was unable to go deeper into her subjects, a criticism made here by others, simply because the historical record doesn't exist. I found the book reasonably satisfying (although I felt it did end somewhat abruptly with little discussion of the sisters' later years -- again, probably a result of the scarcity of historical information).

Regrettably, I have to agree with the other negative reviews here. I had been looking forward to reading this for months, but it was not worth the wait. Arid, lacklustre, lacking in narrative drive, it does not do the subject matter any favours.

There are better biographies out there. For example, you'll get a more sparkling account of Charles Brandon's wooing of Mary Tudor from Carolly Erickson's Great Harry. And you'll also get a more gripping account of court life from Alison Weir's Henry VIII: King and Court.

I was deeply disappointed with this book. The subject is fascinating,but one cannot ignore the fact that there is not much recorded information about those two queens. The author really tried, but her best efforts only managed to produce an account of all the cloth of gold used in state events. This gold doesn't illuminate the true faces of the shadowed queens.

Everyone knows about the six wives of Henry VIII but the two sisters of Henry are relatively unknown to most readers. These women were queens in their own right and the elder sister Margaret was the grandmother of Mary Queen of Scots.This is a side of Henry's family that is not familar to most history readers. The book is well written and does not spend an inordinate amount of time discussing the relationship between Henry and his sisters,Margaret and Mary. The focus of the book is on their lives and the marriages they were arranged for them in Scotland and France.Henry is shown as a brother who is most interested in the influence and power his sisters play in their roles in their adopted lands and in center of royal power. He is never far from advising them on what to do for the benefit of England and as their all powerful brother.It is not brotherly love just brotherly advise that he offers and that he also enforces on them. His knows his sisters are well placed and wants to make sure that his interests and those of England are reflected in his sisters counsel to their spouses who are the kings of Scotland and France.
The book is well written and keeps the stories of the sisters separate and does not try to interweave these lives. I found the story of Margaret more interesting and turbulent as she was Regent of Scotland and had bouts with the Scottish lords which her grandaughter Mary, Queen of Scots which she would encounter later in the century.Also,her influence on history was greater than her sister Mary who lived briefly in France as Queen for less than three months when her aged husband died and she returned to England to live a fairly unevenful life as wife of Charles Brandon.
I recommend the book to those who want to extend their knowledge of this period and also to understand the nature of arranged marriages of royals from different countries as religious changes were occuring.

Perry writes about the lesser known subject of Henry VIII's two sisters, Margaret and Mary who became Queen of Scotland and Queen of France respectively. It's really a review of his whole family, which shows that his sisters, even as political pawns were much more involved in events than wife focused biographies and legends would generally show. There is some early discussion of their parents, Henry VII and his Queen, Elizabeth of York, which shows how they inherited the royal propensity for pagentry and how, Perry's descriptions are sumptuous, the emphasis on sartorial wealth and jewels was really the political rhetoric of the day. More than that, it seems also have been a business, and many conflicts and wars can be explained by the need for the Tudors to pay for all their nice clothes and jewels--even, or especially, they owed money--so that they can keep being royals. Perry is as assiduous about the financial details as she is avid about the fashion details, and even if you aren't quite sure what the numbers mean the story is always readable, imaginative and intriguing, leaving its share of Historical what-ifs. (What if Mary's long-term youthful betrothal to Charles V of Spain had been honored, for example?) As one might expect Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn get their fair share of mention, but the context of their tribulations seems at once more mundane and more majestic.

This book, to put it bluntly, was utterly disappointing. Though the book sports a title that leaves little doubt as to whom the subjects are, it would be more accurate to read "Henry VIII's Interactions with his Sisters and Their Families". Little of the text relates to the personal lives and feelings of the women; most is dedicated to political happenings and of Henry VIII's life. The writing style of Perry is pathetic, as she often changes topics in the middle of a paragraph or goes on about some event that didn't have much or nothing to do with the sisters in the first place. Perry managed to write only a few sentences about the death of Margaret's early children (and none at all about how she felt about it) while writing pages on how many yards of cloth of gold were used for one of Cardinal Wolsey's parties. At times I had to put the book down, I was so annoyed. Sometimes, I found the wording was so confusing that I had to look up the events in another book or read over the text a few good times to perceive just what was going on. At the end, the book transforms into a wandering account of Henry VIII's divorce from Katherine and marriage to Anne. Of course, when Anne is executed, Perry gives us only a quick mention of it, commenting that the happenings are "not important to our story"; what a contradiction. The two stars that I gave the book are because of the few interesting facts about Mary, Margaret and Henry's childhood, as well as Henry Fritzroy's. I am aware that little historic fact can be found about these too ladies, but Perry doesn't present the information she has well or into a flowing, easy to read joint biography. I'm sorry that I bought this book, which is the only reason I finished it. I recommend Alison Weir instead.