The wives of Henry VIII have come down to us through history narrowly
defined by the roles they played in the larger story of the King's life,
and most commonly remembered for the manner in which each did - or did
not - survive marriage to him. Now, in this richly dramatic and
singularly illuminating study, Antonia Fraser uncovers the complex and
fascinating individuals whose true characters have been shrouded for
centuries by stereotype and legend. In a sweeping narrative and with her
own enthralling amalgam of meticulous scholarship and the lively play of
ideas, Fraser makes clear the remarkably high level of strength and
intelligence displayed by these six women at a time when their sex
traditionally possessed little of either. She brings to light, for
example: the tenacious self-possession displayed by Catherine of Aragon
when, toward the end of her twenty-four-year marriage, she met the
King's demands for a divorce with steadfast refusal . . . Anne Boleyn's
'curiously modern' independence of mind - initially dazzling to the King
(and shocking to most everyone else), but ultimately the cause of her
gruesome demise . . . the circumspect wisdom that allowed Jane Seymour
to emerge as an object of universal welcome and lasting admiration in a
year that saw two other queens as well ... the touching dignity of Anna
of Cleves - dubbed 'The Flanders Mare' by an insensitive court - during
her bewilderingly short and demeaning tenure as consort . . . the
naivete of Katherine Howard - not yet twenty when the King turned his
eye toward her - whose indiscretions were more nearly the result of
innocence than deviousness . . . the surprisingly subversive side of the
otherwise submissive CatherineParr, one of only eight women whose
writings were published during the sixty years of the first two Tudor
reigns. The author traces the ascent and decline of each woman - and the
linkages between them - delineating the cultural, familial, and
political roots of the behavior and i
