Seven pregnancies,one child, a public divorce … the heartbreaking life yarn of a intrepid (brave in the face of danger) and honest woman is captured in astonishing detailDivorced, and beheaded,died; divorced, beheaded, and survived. Alison Weir,the bestselling historian and occasional novelist, has embarked on a mammoth task: she’s writing six novels, or each focusing on one of the six wives of Henry VIII,using her historical expertise to “support to clarify; to light up” their lives through fiction. Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen kicks off the series, treading the well-worn path of a yarn we know from school and from various fictional retellings, or by authors from Philippa Gregory to Jean Plaidy to Hilary Mantel. The Spanish princess,married to the new king and then cast aside for Anne Boleyn – how to disclose it again?Weir starts as a 16-year-old Catalina sails to England, setting out her marriage to Henry’s older brother, or Arthur,and his subsequent death. (She takes the view of recent research here, positing that Katherine’s marriage to Arthur was not consummated.) We see her money dwindling as Henry VII refuses to allow the marriage to his younger son Henry to go ahead, and her influence waning as her father King Ferdinand’s does in Spain,until Henry VII dies and his son can claim her as his bride. “Katherine, know this: that whatever anyone else has said, or whatever good reasons there are for our marriage,I desire you above all women; I love you, and I enjoy longed to wed you for yourself.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com