The Last Wife of Henry VIII
A Novel
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
Author of The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette
Courageous, attractive, romantic, intelligent, Catherine Parr became the sixth wife of Henry VIII. Her story, as Carolly Erickson re-creates it, is page-turning drama: from the splendors of the Field of the Cloth of Gold to the gory last years of the outsize King Henry, when heads rolled and England trembled, Catherine bestrode her destiny and survived to marry her true love.
Catherine Parr attracted the king's lust and, though much in love with the handsome Thomas Seymour, was thrown into the intrigue-filled snake pit of the royal court. While victims of the king's wrath suffered torture and execution, Catherine persevered—until, at last, she came within the orbit of the royal fury. King Henry toyed with her, first ordering her arrested, then granting her clemency. She managed to evade execution, but she knew that the king had his wandering eye fixed on wife number seven.
She was spared by his death and married the attractive but dangerously unbalanced Seymour. Her triumph was shadowed by rivalry with the young Princess Elizabeth, whose lands and influence the lecherous Seymour coveted. Catherine won the contest, but at great cost.
In The Last Wife of Henry VIII, critically acclaimed author Carolly Erickson brings this dramatic story of survival and redemption to life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Erickson, known best for her lively and popular histories (nearly 20 of them, including The Girl from Botany Bay and Bonnie Prince Charlie) engages with this fictionalized, first-person life of Catherine Parr, who actually survived marriage to the dangerous and mercurial Henry Tudor (famously, of the six wives), and who is arguably his most interesting bride (not least because she had four husbands). Cultured, well-educated and beautiful, "Cat" catches Henry's eye as a young girl and variously benefits and suffers from his favor all her life. Often married to others when Henry is single, she is both attracted to and repelled by him, but understands him, she feels, better than most. The factional court tightrope Catherine walks is familiar, as is the religious one; her observations cast Princess Elizabeth (soon to be Elizabeth I) and Baron Thomas Seymour (a husband of Catherine's who wanted to marry Elizabeth) in a less-than-positive light, and the Church of England priests come off as corrupt as the Catholics they replaced. Catherine surprises and delights as her own woman, one who, in the end, gets everything she wants.
