Customer Reviews

Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The story of Henry VIII, his six wives, and his endless and strangely poignant pursuit of a male heir, is so well-known that yet another book on the subject automatically runs the risk of being superfluous. It seems as if author David Starkey is well aware of this fact, and in a pompous introduction to the book he quickly trashes the previous "Six Wives" books (there are three, I think) and then proclaims himself a "child of the sixties" and thus lacking the prudishness of many a historian. Um, ok.
Once I got into the actual book, however, I found the history fascinating. Starkey focuses a bit less on the personal lives of the 6 queens and more on the ruthless, scheming political climate at the Royal Court. He shows how Catherine of Aragon, often considered to be merely pious and stubborn, was in fact a clever political machinator in her own right. She had powerful allies all over Europe, and did not hesitate to use them in the most sensational Divorce case of all time. Anne Boleyn's mistreatment of Henry and Catherine's daughter Mary thus comes across less as a traditional evil stepmother and more as a political power play. Anne, who also had trouble producting male heirs, had to promote her own daughter (Elizabeth I).
Starkey devotes most of his time to Catherine, the woman Henry was married to for 28 years, and Anne Boleyn, the mother of Elizabeth I. The other 4 wives merit considerably less time and attention. Like most historians, Starkey has a bit of a "leading question" personality: he likes to make the facts fit his own personal theories. Some theories are more convincing than others. He argues effectively, I think, that Catherine of Aragon's first marriage to Henry's brother Arthur WAS consummated, and thus Henry had more legal standing for the annullment than is commonly thought. However, Starkey's insistence that Catherine Howard's affair with Thomas Culpepper was "platonic" is less convincing. He's sympathetic to Catherine Howard, who was merely a teenager when she was beheaded. But her story is sympathetic, even if she did commit adultery. It could not have been easy being married to an overweight, 50-year-old, increasingly paranoid king. Starkey's insistence on her "innocence" smacks of revisionist history.
Another weakness of the book is that Starkey is fond of chronicling journeys and processions and ceremonies, and I must admit the endless accounts of Catherine of Aragon, clothed in a red velvet cape, travelling from Wales to London, with an entourage of this servant or that counsellor, got tiring.
Despite these caveats, I dont want you to think this book is not worth reading. The six wives of Henry VIII come across as remarkable women, all sympathetic in their own way. Their actions are more understandable once you realize how discardable the queens really were. Henry's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, became his "sister" after Henry could not become sufficiently aroused to consummate the marriage. The "consummated" marriages were hardly luckier -- Catherine of Aragon's 28-year-old marriage is a depressing series of miscarriages, stillbirths, and more miscarriages. Starkey also recreates a political climate that was so ruthless and brutal even Henry VIII in the end can be seen as a mere pawn. In modern times, Princess Diana was famously unhappy with the demands of royal life. She should have been grateful she was not born about four hundred years earlier.

Or so David Starkey would have you believe. He sets the tone when, in the introduction to this book, he comes right out and says that previous books on Henry's six wives (by Alison Weir and Antonia Fraser) aren't nearly as good as his. The quote: "Inevitably, the 20th century versions of the Six Wives have stood in Strickland's [a 19th century biographer] shadow. Both...Weir and Fraser...have reverted to Strickland's tried-and-tested formula." Strickland caused scholars to "see things" and by balancing their books among the Six Wives (instead of doing as Starkey does, devoting the lion's share of his book to Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn), the other authors are "distorting the record."

And that's just the beginning. Through out the book, Starkey will interrupt his own historical narrative with the "I" point of view, citing facts or anecdotes that *he* has found that other historians have "overlooked" or "ignored" or "misinterpreted." Examples: p. 447, "In fact, though much has been made of St. German by some modern historians, his ideas fell at the first fence." From p. 435, "Here it is important to be clear about Henry's developing strategy. From the moment of the failure of the Blackfriar's trial, it had been taken for granted that an English verdict on the Divorce would somehow have to be sanctioned by Parliament. There is no mystery about this, as some modern historians like to claim." These are only two of many, many instances where Starkey pats himself on the back about how brilliant he is, and how everyone else has gotten it so, so wrong. He claims to be the only one to have properly identified Catherine Howard's and one of Catherine Parr's portraits. He also claims to be revealing much information "for the first time ever." Apparently no one else does their research but him.

Another complaint I had was with the structure of the book; as previously mentioned, Starkey devotes about 75% of the book to the first two wives, Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. He goes on for far too long about Henry's divorce from Catherine, to the point where the detail becomes mind-numbing, and it's difficult to keep track of who's doing what. In addition, the sections on Catherine and Anne are kept completely separate, despite the fact that their histories with Henry overlap by a number of years. As a result, Starkey ends up repeating much of his story twice over, once in the "Divorcing Catherine" section (where Anne's name is never mentioned) and once again in the "Anne Boleyn" section (from which Catherine is completely absent for about the first half). This makes the flow of the story very choppy.

Henry's last four wives get short changed to a great extent; apparently since none were married to Henry nearly as long as either Catherine of Aragon or Anne Boleyn, they don't count for as much. And the book ends abruptly when Henry dies, finishing up the tale of Catherine Parr in only one paragraph. If Starkey was set on the idea of ending the book right after Henry's death (which, by the way, is related in one off-hand sentence!), I think at least an epilogue detailing Catherine Parr's eventual fate would have been more appropriate; as written, the ending to her story is far too hastily done and neglects important events in her life as well as the advancement of the Protestant faith in England.

On a related note, Starkey's favorite is obviously Anne Boleyn, with the other wives suffering a bit by his comparisons; if you believe Starkey, Catherine of Aragon was a hysteric who lied about consummating her first marriage to Henry's brother Arthur, Jane Seymour was an "accessory after the fact" to Anne Boleyn's murder, and Anne of Cleves spent most of her life after her divorce either scheming to get Henry back, or whining about the raw deal she got. Starkey does have some sympathy for Catherine Howard, but it seems misguided at times; he claims she couldn't possibly have actually slept with Thomas Culpepper, they were just platonic friends from way back, an assertion that seems based on nothing more than Starkey's own personal beliefs on the subject.

Having now read all three of the major, modern biographies of Henry's Six Wives, I would recommend Antonia Fraser's book over this one. One review printed on the back of this book says that with "Starkey's wit and style, it doesn't seem a page too long." Oh, I quite definitely disagree.

I bought this book on a whim, without benefit of these reviews. I should have done my homework. The other reviews on this website are excellent and I won't repeat them here except to underscore two points.

First, as an academic myself I was stunned by the extent to which Starkey's scholarship is biased, subjective and speculative. He blithely makes racist comments about other cultures (the Spanish are "instutionalized sadists," for example). Evidence that is accepted by other writers he dismisses out of hand, while other, more dubious sources that are not normally consulted he accepts without question. Ideas that start out as speculation are facts a few chapters later. Starkey may be a respected historian, but this is not a good piece of scholarship.

Most significantly, he seems unable to put these women into an historic context. He doesn't appear to appreciate what it was like to be a woman, without legal powers, who attracted the attention of a ruthless and brutal king. For instance, he characterizes Ann Boleyn as manipulative. Maybe she was intelligent enough to realize that if she refused the King, she and her family would suffer the loss of their wealth and possibly their lives. The best she could do was to hold out for marriage which at least gave her some legitimacy. Starkey's failure to appreciate the brutal reality of women's lives at this point in history is a huge handicap in writing their biographies.

To be succinct, which our Mr. Starkey indeed is not, this book was good bed-time reading if you suffer from insomnia. It was a ponderous, endless tome, replete with entirely too much detail. I am a student of the Tudor Dynasty, a fascinating, pivotal and dramatic period in English history - not so refected with its author...the ponderous minutia put me into a state of inertia e.g., the divorce proceedings from Catherine of Aragon droned on in what seemed to be real time with the disproportionate weight he gave wife #1.

What probably rankled above and beyond the boringness of the book and the time lost reading it - hoping in vain to find at least one chapter to spur me on enticingly to the next chapter - was Starkey's introduction. It seems he has not encountered the whole truth and nothing but the truth in previous research on the subject of Henry VIII's wives, and he made no bones about pooh-poohing (or is it poo-pooing) previous authors' research and, by God, giving us the Gospel on same. Left a really bad taste in my mouth. Smugness always does.

Mr. Starkey, please get over yourself, really.

Readers, you be the judges. Better yet, get a hot cup of milk, climb into bed with this book and start your engines....works better than Sominex.

Now that David Starkey is famous, does this mean that neither he nor anyone else has to proof-read his work? All of the "history" in this book could easily be learned in a children's picture book on the subject, and the writing was just abominable. Mixed metaphors, poor grammar, wrong verb tenses, and not a complex sentence to be seen.

The research was poor and seems like it was done entierly by reading Antonia Frasier books (whose research he then disses in the first pages of the book... NOT cool, dude) and taking a class in pop psychology. He openly admits to making things up and is constantly putting words in his subjects' mouths: "That day in the spring of 1489 at Medina del Campo-- was it, perhaps, Catherine's earliest memory?" Who cares? Does it matter? Why completely invent an "earliest memory" for a historical figure that you are purporting to write a biography of?

I am shocked at the number of positive reviews that this book has recieved. Who is writing them, anyway? I know that ballot-stuffing is a problem on Amazon, but how can anyone get though an 800 page book that reads like a second grade primer? Every third sentence begins with "And," "But," or "Actually," he makes up or mis-uses words on every page, the punctuation is abysmal, and the number of three word sentences is truly apalling. This is an actual example of his writing, chosen from a page at random as I wrote this review:

"In the middle of the celebrations, howerver, came terrible news. The Infante Juan was seriously ill. Ferdinand rode furiously back to Valladolid. But Juan died."

If you are interested in this subject at all, go straight to the source and check out the Frasier book on the subject. For a slightly easier read, without dumbed-down content, try the Alison Weir. But do not, under any circumstances, buy this book for someone unless you want to purposely insult their intelligence. It is completely unreadable and offers EXTREMELY dubious history.

I could not agree more with jenbird's assessment of David Starkey's "Six Wives." I read all three major modern treatments of the wives of Henry VIII (Weir's, Fraser's & Starkey's) back-to-back in that order, and was ultimately disappointed by Starkey's. He has some great ideas to offer, but shoots himself in the foot with his style.

Starkey raises some very interesting points regarding Henry VIII, his wives and his times. For example, he points out how singular Henry's quest for love within marriage really was, and how at-home he would feel in our own times when the quest for The One can seem all-consuming. And it's nice to see Catherine of Aragon given a more thorough examination, shown as a human being rather than, as Starkey calls her, the "plaster saint" of tradition. It makes for a more dynamic and interesting portrait of a woman who is all too easy to pigeonhole.

And likewise, his unequal treatment of the wives was innovative, and illustrates (in a way that mere dates cannot) just how much of Henry's life was spent in the easy, affectionate marriage to his first wife, and then in the all-consuming, passionate pursuit of his second. Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn together take up over half of the book, and it's a very visual reminder of the easy-to-overlook fact that Henry only survived Anne by just over a decade. (On the other hand, the Catherine of Aragon section definitely starts to drag--there's only so much one can write about a placid royal marriage.)

But his innovations and insights are overshadowed, in my opinion, by the smug and self-congratulatory tone that pervades throughout, and by some very poor stylistic choices.

Starkey frequently interrupts his narrative with the jarring "I"; he lays claim to the identification of portraits that I was fairly certain I had read in Weir's account; and he frequently cites instances where "most historians" have completely misinterpreted a letter, an action, or a motivation, while providing little proof to back up his assertions beyond a "common sense" explanation that, one could argue, is often revisionist.

But it is, perhaps, the overall style of the book that ultimately does it in. The abrupt ending to the narrative upon Henry's death is a disservice to both his readers and his subjects--and perhaps a bit sexist. The book is not a biography of Henry; it is (ostensibly) a treatment of the lives of his six wives. Catherine Parr and Anne of Cleves both outlived Henry, and led full and (especially in the case of Parr) interesting lives after his death. Starkey short-changes them, and us, by ending his tale at the death of the king. It's as though he assumes that the reader knows all the shocking details of Catherine Parr's marriage to Thomas Seymour, Seymour's betrayal of her trust with Elizabeth, and Catherine's death and the tragic, unknown fate of their daugther.

Indeed, Starkey assumes too often that the reader knows much more than he relates in his own book. Having read Weir's and Fraser's books immediately before reading Starkey's, I knew who was who and what was what. But Starkey's style makes his narrative feel fuzzy around the edges. Between his infrequent use of years (This happened in late April, you say? Are we in 1519 or 1520 now?), his assumption that the reader knows all of the intricate family histories of the Lancasters, Yorks, and assorted sub-families (this book features the most paltry of family trees at the beginning--only one, and again no dates!), and his assumption that the reader knows exactly how and when famous men like Wolsey, More and Cromwell died (the book would have benefitted enormously from a timeline), the reader is often left wondering where he is in the story. At one point I realized I didn't know if Cromwell had already been executed or not, and I couldn't find a firm date featuring a year anywhere within three pages.

In his efforts to make his book different from previous studies of Henry's wives (and, perhaps, to justify its existence), Starkey ignores much of the detail on the traditional high points of the story--Catherine's relationship with the Empire; Wolsey's rise and fall, Anne Boleyn's relationships with Wolsey, Cromwell and Cranmer; Cromwell's rise and fall; the sad death of Jane Seymour; Henry's obsession with Edward's health and safety and his tense relationships with his daughters; the rise of Protestantism and the burning of heretics, etc.--and concentrates instead on excessive details about the Empire, which ambassadors knew less (or more) than they claimed, and how long it took one person to ride post from Paris to Rome.

Starkey assumes you've read all the other books out there about Tudor England, so rather than writing a book about the wives of Henry VIII and their times, he has in effect written a book about the other books, and all the ways they got things wrong.

I would recommend this book as a foil to Weir and Fraser; it raises some interesting points and has an innovative structure. But if you're going to read only one biography on the wives of Henry VIII, don't make it this one. Unless you have a thorough grounding in Tudor history, you will be lost and confused by the lack of dates and the drive-by approach to the "secondary" characters of the story.

I first encountered author David Starkey through his "Six Wives of Henry VIII" documentary on PBS (based on this book). The documentary is informative and very entertaining -- Starkey has a gift of bringing history to life and making it fun, with his interesting anecdotes about the characters and humanizing these events. That gift is also evident in this book.

This book, upon which the documentary is based, goes into much more detail than the documentary, of course. At first, I only read the first two chapters (which make up 80% of the book): the chapters on Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Henry's other four wives are, of course, interesting in their own right but let's face it -- Catherine and Anne are where the real drama unfolded. Upon going back and reading the remaining chapters on wives 3-6, the stories/background of how/why Henry married these women and the result of these marriages is nearly as interesting as the drama surrounding Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn.

I also commend Mr. Starkey for his lack of demonstrating any bias. It is impossible to tell from his writings whether he sympathizes more with one character than another.

I particularly recommend this book if you're interested in learning how the Reformation came about (I also recommend Hillaire Belloc's "How the Reformation Happened.") Sadly, the reader realizes that, rather than being borne out of a sincere, pious desire to reform the Church, the Reformation seems to have been born out of political power struggles and desire for financial gain, instead. The book is not really just a study for six women but rather a love triangle (or "power" triangle) which altered the course of history.

A fascinating read -- a highly recommend it!!!

Others have already said it better than I can, so I'll be brief. There's far too much "Starkey" in this book and far too little history. His unprofessional habit of attacking other historians undermined his credibility and too many of his conclusions are unsupported. I could have passed on this weak presentation of an already well-covered subject.

Much as I deplore gender stereotypes it must be admitted that Dr. Starkey's book with its man's eye view of the wives serves as a valuable corrector for the woman's or even Feminist view in the best known books on this subject by Antonia Fraser and Alison Weir.

He is less than reverent towards Catherine of Aragon and perhaps exaggerates the influence of Anne Boleyn but he successfully makes the point that women had their own kind of power and if so inclined could make even so absolute a patriarch as Henry VIII miserable and frustrated.

There have been numerous books written on the lives of Henry VIII's wives both as a complete history and on an individual basis. Starkey's book is an interesting read if you want to have a very in-depth understanding of just how incredibly political each of his marriages were. There are complaints that most of the book is spent on Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn but in looking at the history of these two women, they were the beginning of the making of Henry as well as England's history to come. Catherine of Aragon has been painted in some books as being a complete victim to be sympathized with for the harsh cruelty of Henry while he pursued Anne Boleyn. Starkey is not the first to intimate that she was actually a political machinist in her own right but he likes to present himself as being the first. Catherine's situation is no different than any other woman's reaction to "the other woman" so to imply that Catherine was not so obedient and submissive as she appeared is merely to say that perhaps she was at one point but came into her own as she progressed as Queen of England. That's psychology 101. Regarding Anne Boleyn, there's really nothing new painted about her specifically but there's a great deal of information presented about the true complexity of the divorce proceedings. This is truly the first book I've read that goes into just how many people were involved, what they actually did and how the hand-offs took place from person to person. In other works, only the most prominent figures in the picture are brought to light. The other wives did figure prominently in Henry's marriages from a very political standpoint. However, many authors outside of Starkey have indicated that there is little recorded information on each the successive wives especially in regards to Anne of Cleves. The one extreme criticism I have for Starkey and all the other authors regarding Catherine and the "consummation" of her marriage is the supposed evidence. Starkey follows the same path as all the others. I was hoping to see something more plausible. Every author states that the marriage must've been consummated based on two points of evidence. Arthur's boasting the following day of marriage being thirsty work and that he'd been amongst Spain and Catherine's silence on the subject. Why is it that every author does not take into consideration that Arthur was a 15 year old boy who carried the weight of an empire and was expected to perform his marital duties and therefore may have bragged because he couldn't state the other possibility....that he didn't perform? Regarding Catherine's silence on the subject and the question of "why didn't she complain?", she was a born princess. What princess/Queen who was 17 years old, in a foreign land and married to a King would complain that the marriage had not been consummated? To do so would be the equivalent of denigrating and humiliating her husband and a nation. The question is always left that only God knows whether the marriage was consummated or not. I beg to differ. There is one other person who would know if Catherine was a virgin and that would've been Henry. He was not sexually ignorant when he made Catherine his wife and where were his boasts? I recommend this book more for the political information surrounding the wives and what raised them and who truly took them down. Henry may have had final say but his court was very powerful in manipulating him. This book points this out more than any other out there.