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A review by suzemo
Anna of Kleve: The Princess in the Portrait by Alison Weir
3.0
Anne of Cleves (or Anna of Kleve) has always been my favorite Henry VIII queen.
I mean, he shows up, makes some excuse not to want to marry her (I know there are is a lot of speculation on why - whether it's because she wasn't a virgin, smelled bad, whether she rebuffed him because he was an ass at their first meeting, or she wasn't nice enough to him because he was a smelly, obese, sociopath - I vote it's because she's the only wife he didn't 'choose' from personal acquaintance) and she comes out of the whole thing rich and independent.
In a time when she was the property of her strict and authoritarian brother, she is transferred to a murdering tyrant, and all she had to do was say "sure, divorce - fine with me!" and she gets property, money, independence, and freedom. She outlived all of the other wives, and while she had some bumps in her proverbial road (like Mary suspecting her to be part of Wyatt's Rebellion), I admire it.
This book is a historical fiction, though the author takes pains at the end of the book with notes on why she chose the path she did. Why she thought that Anne might not have been a virgin, why she thinks Henry didn't 'like' her, and why/how she chose the path she did. I thought it was an interesting and entertaining take on Anne.
I look forwad
I mean, he shows up, makes some excuse not to want to marry her (I know there are is a lot of speculation on why - whether it's because she wasn't a virgin, smelled bad, whether she rebuffed him because he was an ass at their first meeting, or she wasn't nice enough to him because he was a smelly, obese, sociopath - I vote it's because she's the only wife he didn't 'choose' from personal acquaintance) and she comes out of the whole thing rich and independent.
In a time when she was the property of her strict and authoritarian brother, she is transferred to a murdering tyrant, and all she had to do was say "sure, divorce - fine with me!" and she gets property, money, independence, and freedom. She outlived all of the other wives, and while she had some bumps in her proverbial road (like Mary suspecting her to be part of Wyatt's Rebellion), I admire it.
This book is a historical fiction, though the author takes pains at the end of the book with notes on why she chose the path she did. Why she thought that Anne might not have been a virgin, why she thinks Henry didn't 'like' her, and why/how she chose the path she did. I thought it was an interesting and entertaining take on Anne.
I look forwad