A review by sawood
The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser

4.0

I’ve been fully back in my Tudor era since seeing Six in March and this book just added even more context. I appreciate that Fraser tried to give each woman the individual attention she deserves. Catherine of Aragon did get a disproportionately long section but I imagine more is known about her and her marriage was significantly longer than the others. I thought her treatment of Anne Boleyn was more fair than other historians have been. I was fascinated by Anne of Cleves and Catherine Parr. I had no idea what happened to those women post-Henry and they both had interesting lives outside of him. My heart breaks for Katherine Howard always and I do think Fraser could have extended her more sympathy. This was a nice companion piece to the final book in Hilary Mantel’s trilogy as well so I’m glad my reading of them overlapped.