booktiamo 's review for:

Lady Mary by Lucy Worsley

4.0

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Set in 16th century England the daughter of Henry VIII, Mary is nine when we join her story. I liked this book a lot it is a different view of what we are taught about in school. We just hear about the king and his wives and not much of his children until they were kings & queens themselves. This story came as a bit of a shock to me as I never realised how badly Mary was treated when her father divorced her mother Catherine. I always thought the children, were protected but unfortunately this was not the case especially as she was a girl. Henry even said he had no children while Mary was sitting right next to him!! Even though through the story you could tell that he did love her in his own way and did come to realise in the end what a great woman she had become. I think through all her trails, it made her a much more formidable queen. As Lucy said Mary is made out to be ‘Bloody Mary’ because of all the deaths of protestants but if your think of all the catholics that her father killed when he introduced the Church of England, is it not one in the same?
I love all things historical to do with the monarchy and this book is a fabulous retelling of Lady Mary’s early life.