The Six Wives of Henry VIII. (aláírt példány) [antikvár]

PROLOGUE ?"pvivorced, beheaded, died divorced, beheaded, survived ': you J_-/can hear this rhyme, recalling the order of Henry VIII's wives, like an endless respectfiil susurration on the hps of visitors to the historic places associated with them. So the six women have become defined in a popular sense not so much by their hves as by the way these lives ended. In the same way their characters are popularly portrayed as female stereotypes: the Betrayed Wife, the Temptress, the Good Woman, the Ugly Sister, the Bad Girl and, finally, the Mother Figure. The perils of such stereotyping were once forcibly illustrated to me on a visit to Hever Castie when I listened to a knowledgeable schoolchild pronounce on a presumed portrait of Anna of Cleves: 'That's her, the ugly one.' To which his companion agreed: 'That's right, she's dead ugly' - except that they were both actually looking at a picture of the 'Temptress' Anne Boleyn. A more sophisticated example is provided by the treatment of the six women in religious terms, given that this was a period when rehgion and the question of religious reform was the dominant issue in Europe. Catherine of Aragon is crudely assumed to have been a bigoted Cathohc, as we should now understand the word (although in her prime distinguished for her patronage of Erasmian humanism - 'the New Learning'); Anne Boleyn displayed strong Protestant tendencies, once again in modern terms, long before the action of Rome in blocking her marriage to the King made her the natural ally of the reformers; Jane Seymour, who has gone down in history as the Protestant Queen, adhered in fact to the old ways in religion; Anna of Cleves, married for her 'Lutheran' connection, was a natural Catholic; Catherine Parr was the true Protestant Queen. The truth - as so often where the female in history is concerned - is both more complicated and more interesting than the legend. My first aim in writing this book has therefore been to look at the women behind the stereotypes - how far if at all did they deserve such labels? - as well as relating six Ufe stories which are fascinating in themselves, quite apart fi-om tiie manner in which they ended. With this in mind, I have tried wherever possible, without straining too much, to -1-