Book Review: "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" by David Starkey

David Starkey has been one of my historical heroes for a long time. I think he is such a smart guy and he can articulate the information well enough so that anyone can understand it. He has written some great stuff in his time and has been able to communicate some of the most turbulent and difficult times of English History to audiences from everywhere. The most recent book I have read by him is called “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” and rightly so as it concentrates less on the King of England and more on his wives, what they were like, the politics surrounding them and from the moment that he had married his brother’s widow - I knew that things were not going to turn out well for all of these women. An absolutely engrossing book, it really does take you into the court of King Henry VIII as there are details from everything, such as: Henry VIII’s philosophies and theologies, what went on in the courtroom when he was divorcing his wives, the fall of Anne Boleyn and what really caused it and finally, upon Henry’s death - what happened to Catherine Parr. It is a wonderful book and even though it is over eight hundred pages long, I would not be put off at all. Just be prepared to step into a whole world that you thought you knew, but in reality you only knew a small slither of the story.

My favourite thing about this book is that it went into detail about all of the grievances of the wives of Henry VIII, they were not all happy to marry the king and had their own problems going on behind closed doors which were made worse when he wanted to divorce or behead one of them. For example: early on in the book, Catherine of Aragon’s mother dies and it leaves poor Catherine out in the cold a little as she has only just written a letter to her mother and father explaining how happy she is that they are alright. This is a blow that hits Catherine hard and leaves her very deflated and depressed. I adore the way David Starkey writes about her sorrows and even when she is divorcing the King of England, she tries her best to keep her wits and her dignity even though she is basically being hit from every angle. It is something that we will see repeated in the book. Each woman must keep her head up if she is to take blows from the King of England and each woman must go wherever she is going next with dignity - even if it is to the chopping block like Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard.

This book really did intrigue me because everything from the divorce court to the next marriage and even to the fall of Worsley has an impact on the women who are involved in King Henry VIII’s life. I really thought I knew quite a bit about the court of King Henry VIII before I read this book and now I realise that what I knew was probably about 10% of what was actually there. The whole political world was on the brink of collapsing because this man kept divorcing, killing and then remarrying but he didn’t care, the heir was far more important. When Edward VI is born therefore, there is a slightly lighter note until the mother unfortunately perishes - Jane Seymour died and Henry was pretty distraught.

However, I think that the very best thing about this book is that it gives some aspect of voice to the women out of context, they are not just women attached to Henry VIII, they are people and I shudder to think how often we forget that.