A Reader’s Life: A Tudor Nerd is Moved to Stay up Past her Bedtime

I don’t know where it begin, or where it will end, but I am obsessed with English history, especially the Tudors and Stuarts.

Okay, okay. It likely started in full after I watched a couple episodes of the Tudors (Showtime).

Ah, if only it had ended there. But alas, it did not.

I would many years later find out that I am a descendent of King Edward III, which just fueled the obsession even more. (I should also mention here that I’m quite a fan of genealogy and have spent countless hours and dollars tracing my lines back as far as I have been able)

Though much has changed since this fever began - my loyalties to a particular Queen, my adoration and/or frustration for the York’s’, my utter devotion to Mary Queen of Scots (who was executed on my birthday, though many centuries earlier) - I still find myself reading and watching anything I run across on the War of the Roses, the Tudors and the Stuarts. The White Queen, The White Princess, The Spanish Princess. Wolf Hall. Countless documentaries from the BBC. So many You-Tube videos, my head spins trying to recall more than ten.

Awhile back, the book Fatal Throne (cover below) came up as a recommendation for me on Amazon, and I bought the e-book without giving it a second thought. I’ve read a considerable amount of fiction from the Plantagenet and Tudor eras - authors such as Phillipa Gregory, Alison Weir, Hilary Mantel to name a few. And I’ve read much non fiction as well - Susan Bordo, Eric Ives, Claire Ridgeway, Leandra de Lisle amongst others.

But I’ve never read anything quite like this book. Not in fantasy. Not in historical fiction. Not in literary fiction.

This is not marked as a book review, because it isn’t one. No, this is something different.

This book is unique. We hear from all six of Henry VIII’s queens, and Henry himself, in between the wives’ stories. We hear their fictional thoughts and feelings at a particularly important moment in their lives. Each wife’s tale is told by a different author, and Henry is authored by yet another writer, so each voice stands out.

There is an intimacy about this book. A celebration of the strengths and weaknesses of each woman (and the man).

It almost makes the tens of thousands of pages I’ve read previously pale in comparison.

There is a benefit to having read both fiction and non-fiction of an era. A reader learns what is believable and what is strictly made up by an author to add meat and potatoes to a story. There are parts of this book that did not ring true, but truth be told, most of them were from the King himself and I believe perhaps that was on purpose. For the majority of the book, I found myself drawn in to each Queen’s perspective and felt sympathies for them.

Life for a woman in Tudor England was rough, and while we can armchair quarterback these Queens from 500 years in the future, we must also remember that the smallest error could land them destitute or dead. It gives me a certain appreciation for the time in which I find myself living.

When I find writing that moves me to the point of staying up well past my bed time, it deserves praise. This post is that praise.

It is not, however, the end of my Tudor obsession. After all, Starz announced the development of a series about the young Queen Elizabeth and Alison Weir has an upcoming release The Last White Rose about Elizabeth of York.

Authors will keep writing.

And I will keep reading.