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Rating: 
Summary: six wives
Review: A wonderful book dedicated to the lives of the six Queens of Henry VIII. The majority of the book focuses on the first two wives, Catherine of Aragon, and Anne Boleyn. The reader will really connect with each of the Queens and the ups and downs they went through in royal life. David Starkey is incredibly knowledgable on this subject, and puts it all in this book for anyone who is interested to read.
Rating: 
Summary: drama, intrigue, betrayal, love, politics -- it's all here!
Review: 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. 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. 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!!!
Rating:
Summary: drama, intrigue, betrayal, love, politics -- it's all here!
Review: 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!!!
Rating: 
Summary: God's gift to English history
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Tudor history
Review: 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.
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