Katherine of Aragon by Alison Weir

This is a really good read, even if it’s an unoriginal take on an unoriginal topic.   It’s told from the viewpoint of Katherine (the author uses the K spelling) of Aragon, so it’s very much #TeamKatherine and blames Anne Boleyn for everything under the sun – but, fair enough, that’s doing what it says on the tin.   I think the author sometimes struggles a bit to get across the religious feelings of the time and how horrified Katherine must have felt, annulment (the term “divorce” is used, but “annulment” would be more accurate) aside, about Henry’s decision to break with Rome, but it *is* very hard to get that across in today’s secular world.

It’s a shame that the book didn’t show anything of Katherine’s childhood in Castile, but it does an excellent job of showing her marriage to Arthur, the horrible time she had afterwards, and then the ups and downs of her marriage to Henry, including the tragic loss of so many babies.

Henry very much comes across as a tyrant by the time of Katherine’s death – which is fair enough.   And the book takes the traditional view that the marriage of Katherine and Arthur was never consummated, and that Arthur was in poor health even before they married.   I’m very much inclined to agree about the former.   We just don’t know about the latter – some people think he had TB, others think that he was healthy and was just unlucky enough to catch something like the sweating sickness.

There’s a suggestion that Katherine thinks her first marriage is cursed, because it was brought about in blood.   I did wonder if that was going to be a load of Ricardian drivel (sorry, Ricardians!) blaming Henry for the death of the Princes in the Tower, but it seemed instead to refer to the execution of the Earl of Warwick.   Margaret Pole features prominently in the book, as too does Maud Parr – a reminder of the connection between Katherine of Aragon and Katherine Parr.    Most things are pretty accurate, albeit pretty biased, and the book’s well-written, as Alison Weir’s books always are, and generally a joy to read.  I got her book about Henry VIII on a 99p Kindle download a few months back, but, given that I’ve got eleventy billion books waiting to be read and it’s over 700 pages long, it’s having to wait for now!   I’ve got the Anne Boleyn book, though, and look forward to seeing that tell the story from a very different angle.