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151 of 174 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good story, but remeber, this isn't a work of history, it's a work of fiction, December 24, 2005
Since Katherine of Aragon is vastly underrepresented in fiction about Henry VIII (people tend to focus of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard) it's nice to see a book just from her point of view.
This is the story of Katherine of Aragon, born to parents constantly on crusade against the moors (Muslims, Jews and other none Christians) in Spain, with a comparatively feminist mother for the time period. From the age of three she was betrothed to Henry Tudor's eldest son, Arthur. She was married, after great haggling by the royal parents, to Arthur when she was 16 and he was 15. There was a language gap, she spoke Spanish and French and Latin, and he spoke English, French and Welsh. But they got along. In this book the story of Katherine's first marriage is highly romantic and very sweetly written. This book is her life story, with a major gap between Princess Mary's (Later Queen Bloody Mary) birth and the time of the separation of Katherine from Henry so Anne Boleyn could be queen, told in third person and quite a lot of first person seeming journal entry type sections also from Katherine's view point (those parts can be quite boring.) This is a good book written about a largely ignored time period in the time of one of Henry's greatest queens and truest loves.
That said, I have some major issues with this book.
Philippa Gregory is a good writer, there's no question about that. But she made some very large historical presumptions in writing this book that I have problems with. I could understand if the book was supposed to be purely from a fictional standpoint, or had an author's note saying that pretty much all serious historians believe that Katherine and Arthur Tudor's marriage was never consummated, but this book doesn't ever say that. So, while this book is well written and a great story it's important for people to remember that it is fiction, and the facts in real life were quite different from what was represented in this book. No historian I can think of belives that Katherine and Arthur's marriage was consumated, and I really do know a lot on the subject of Henry VIII.
Henry's portrayal as hugely selfish I found a little offensive, considering that his goal in life of a male heir wasn't strange at all for the time period (he was the king and the last of his direct line) and wasn't brought up a total brat, he was royal yes, but that does not equel spoiled brat. Quite the opposit if you know your history. His parents were very careful royals (royal by right of conquest remember) with great people skills (they had to be charismatic to rule) who loved each other (probably) and loved order. He just wouldn't have been allowed to run wild in his childhood like he is shown to do in this book. Also the way Henry VII lusted after Katherine was odd, since there is absolutely no evidence that he ever cheated on his wife, or had a sexual relationship before he met her or after she died (the man was a prude and that is a fact.) Henry VII probably really did love his wife Elizabeth and while he did offer the princess of Spain his hand, it was mostly because he was a money lover who lusted after her dowry, not her.
Katherine has some very forward thinking tolerance ideas in this book, which are kind of strange and completly inaccurate considering her background and major Catholic belief system. In this book she seeks medical advice from a moor which is something that the real Katherine never EVER would have done. Her early life poisoned her gainst Islamic people and Jews to a total extent. That also makes it extremly unlikely that her people and family took on moorish customs while living in the captured moorish palace in Granada. Katherine was Catholic, and this was Catholic before Matrin Luther. If you were Catholic then even thinking about the moorish way of life with some tolerence was a sin. Also, the way Katherine lied in this book about the consumation of her first marriage would have-to the real Katherine-been a major sin, and thus not even a thing to contemplate.
If you want more, and very well researched info, about Katherine's early life check out The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir, which includes a very long section on Katherine's life before she married Henry and quite a lot about the consummation issue with Arthur. It is an extendedly researched book by THE expert in the feild and concludes that the marriage was never consumated. This conclusion is based partly on the fact that Katherine was pregnant almost all the time she was married to Henry and clearly fertile. So, if the marriage with Arthur was really consumated (and if it was more than once as in this book) she probably would have gotton pregnant. No baby, probably no sex.
Also, just because I'm a hopeless romantic I like to imagine that until he met Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII really did love Katherine of Aragon, and she him. So while this book does have some of that, I would have liked to see that love story further developed. And if you're a romantic like me check out The Autobiography of Henry VIII : With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers by Margaret George, which has a very sweet Henry/Katherine early relationship.
So, while I have some major historical issues with this book, it is another good book by Philippa Gregory. Four stars for the story and the writing, but just remember, she's a novelist, not a historian, and this is not a true work of history, or even an accurate work of historical fiction.
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87 of 100 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Disappointment, December 4, 2005
I'm a big fan of Philippa Gregory's novels, but it seems she's writing them too quickly. This one's subject -- Katherine of Aragon's girlhood and marriages to Prince Arthur and Henry VIII -- is potentially fascinating, as is the underestimated Katherine, or Catalina as she is known here. And without spoiling the novel's secret, it is bold of Gregory to make certain assumptions about Katherine's marriages. However, none of the characters is as well developed as in her better novels, such as Earthly Joys and Virgin Earth. The historical events are also presented superficially, with no real sense of the complexity of court intrigue at this time. Henry VII is sketched as a mere dirty old man lusting after his son's fiancee, and Henry as a spoiled adolescent. This novel also lacks the subtle supernatural touches that enliven Wise Woman, the Wideacre trilogy, and The Queen's Fool.
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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Thin, flat and boring, March 27, 2006
I will admit up front that I am not a Philippa Gregory fan. True fans may wish to skip this review altogether. I do read a lot of history and historical novels about this period, and I was intrigued as I flipped through the pages and read about the confrontation between Katharine and Margaret Beaufort, Henry VIII's very powerful grandmother, who tends to be left out of accounts of this period. I was also glad to see a novel that dealt extensively with Katharine's earlier years.
I disliked The Other Boleyn Girl, but at least I didn't become as bored as I did by this novel. There are a few effective and historical incidents: Henry VII's gift of jewelry to assuage Katharine's homesickness, her refusal to state an opinion on going to Ludlow, her false pregnancy, etc. Gregory shows Katharine as the pretty young girl and shrewd woman she probably was. The beginning, at Granada and Gregory's revisionist view of Katharine and Arthur's marriage are both interesting and intriguing. For the most part, however, the book is entirely too interior, too focussed on the private and Katharine's very repetitive thoughts. Clearly, Gregory is partly trying to explain Katharine's adamant refusal to allow her marriage to be dissolved, but I don't need to be retold the same thing every tenth page. Too much is told and not shown: we are told of Queen Elizabeth's kindness to Katharine, but we don't see it. We are told that the Duke of Buckingham gave Katharine gifts of food when she was in dire straits, but we never see him showing up at her home. Moreover, since the book leaps from 1513 to 1529, the trial at Blackfriars, I hope the reader is familiar with The King's Great Matter, because there is almost no explanation here. I don't mind that the book ends here, there have been so many other books, but there may be some readers who have no idea what is going on. Maybe one could read the first two parts of the book, switch to The Other Boleyn Girl, and then switch back when it gets up to the trial, and then resume reading it after this.
One problem with the book is that except for the longing for a child, there is only ever one thing happening in Katharine's life at a time: from Fall of 1511 until 1513, for example, the only subject of the plot is the looming war with France and Scotland. This is the period when Katharine's dear friend Margaret de la Pole was created Countess of Salisbury, a title held by her Yorkist forebears (perhaps with Katharine's encouragement?). The book establishes Katharine's sad plight after Arthur's death, and then skips forward to Henry VII's death, leaving out such interesting events as the meeting of Henry with Katharine's sister Juana and her brother-in-law Philip. Katharine would later be involved in Henry VII's attempt to marry the widowed Juana (over the vehement objections of Ferdinand). It omits, except by allusion, the marriage of Princess Margaret to James IV of Scotland and the proxy marriage of Henry VIII's sister Mary to Juana's son Charles, as Philip and Henry plot to combine against Ferdinand. So much going on that could have been described, and we have endless repetitions of Katharine's belief that she is fated to be Queen of England! By skipping from 1513 to 1529, we miss Henry's bout with smallpox (very worrisome to the still childless Katharine, wouldn't you think?), the switch to an alliance with France, sealed by the marriage of Henry VIII's sister to Louis XII of France, accompanied by rumors that Henry meant to set aside Katharine and marry a French princess. Mary Tudor was a loyal friend to Katharine, and her dramatic secret marriage to Charles Brandon after being widowed (with Katharine perhaps pleading that they be forgiven?) is completely absent. Katharine nearly caused an international incident by persuading Henry to break his vow not to shave until he met Francis I of France. We miss the birth and rearing of Katharine and Henry's daughter Mary, the birth and ennoblement of his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy, the rumors that he will replace Mary as Henry's heir. How can the life of Katharine of Aragon become so dull?
I am not bothered by the assertion that Katharine and Arthur's marriage was consummated - when her marriage to the future Henry VIII was proposed, the English stated in their petition to the Pope that it was, and the Spanish claimed that it wasn't. (The Pope was not amused.) I'm willing to accept the premise as the basis for the story. It really only mattered because Henry later made the ad hoc claim that the Pope couldn't grant a dispensation in that case. There was some controversy at the time of her marriage to Henry, and apparently there were flaws in the dispensation, but only Henry's desire to leave the marriage made these significant. Manoel of Portugal married Katharine's sister Isabel; when she died leaving him a young son, he married her sister Maria, and that marriage stood.
Yes, I know that Katharine was very pious, but so were Richard III and Margaret Beaufort - politics encourages convenient morals. And Katharine is supposed to have done this partly in order to continue the good works that she and Arthur planned, but we never see her generous support of education, her attempts to introduce new craft industries, etc. We never really understand why the English public supported her, no matter what Henry said about their marriage. In service to the vision of Arthur as Katharine's One True Love, Katharine's famous devotion to Henry VIII is discounted. I found Henry VII's coarse leering at Katharine tiresome and crudely written; I don't think there is any historical basis for it.
Gregory tells us in her notes that she also wants to give a voice to the Moslems of el Andalus. She lays it on with a trowel. Katharine misses the privacy of the harem where woman can really trust one another and don't have to worry about their husbands cavorting with someone else(!?) Andalusia was a veritable paradise of refinement, learning and tolerance, her people pillars of virtue. Well, I've read that, but I've also read that the much vaunted tolerance was something of a myth, invented centuries later in order to shame Christian Europe into imitating it. I think she has seriously overdone it, and that sort of thing often backfires. I can only remember Jane Austen's assertion that pictures of perfection made her sick and wicked. In any case, if Gregory wants to give the Moors of Spain a voice, I suggest that she write a novel about them in all their human complexity, not simply tack them on as a romantic myth. Gregory says that el-Andalus has a lot to say to us as we struggle with tolerance and mutuality, but she never shows us how the Moors are supposed to have managed it.
Katharine's attitude towards the Moors is not so much ambivalent as cognitively dissonent. She alternates between calmly explaining their glorious culture and history to Arthur and becoming nearly hysterical at the thought of Moors. This erratic vacillation undermines one of Gregory's themes, i.e., Katharine learning to think independently of her parents. Katharine tells Arthur that the Spanish royalty are very much Arabs in private, have adopted, rather than adapted, Arab customs. This while they are destroying all the centers of learning and driving out all the uniquely competent doctors as minions of Satan. Even if they did indeed take a great deal from Moorish culture, I doubt that they would consciously see themselves as becoming Arab. One can understand that Katharine is enthusiastic about Englishmen joining a Spanish crusade against North Africa, but Katharine spends a fair amount of time worrying about the threats posed to England by the Moors. I think it would be pretty obvious that England's most pressing foreign concern was not likely to be an armada of the Barbary pirates appearing off the white cliffs of Dover. Ferdinand and Isabella's determination to drive out the Moors didn't cause them to neglect European politics.
I suppose that anyone who is a big fan of Philippa Gregory will want to at least try this. Those who like richly detailed recreations of the past and vivid imaginative constructions of historal people may be disappointed. Gregory's version of Arthur and Katherine's marriage is really the only interesting variation in this very familiar tale.
I recommend two much better novels by Norah Lofts: Crown of Aloes (Isabella of Castile) and The King's Pleasure (Katharine of Aragon). The young adult novel Patience, Princess Catherine: A Young Royals Book (Young Royals) by Carolyn Meyer is a much more vivid picture of her life from just before her departure from Spain to just after her marriage to Henry. The story is bookended by Katharine's defiance of Henry after his marriage to Anne Boleyn many years later, but the historical notes are better.
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