The Six Wives of Henry VIII - Alison Weir

I've recently been reading the Shardlake novels by C.J. Sansom, set in Henry VIII's England. I've thoroughly enjoyed them, and found myself wanting to know more about this famous monarch and all his wives. You may be surprised when I say I knew nothing about him until I started reading those novels - except I could recognise his portrait and I knew he had six wives. At a push I might have managed to say that one was Anne Boleyn, but that was it. Henry VIII is English history, not British, and certainly by the time I was studying history at school, we learnt Scottish and British history - not English pre-union (although it was different when my mum was at school, as she ...  Read the complete review

Browsing in Waterstones at Gatwick airport recently looking for something to read, I came across Alison Weir’s six wives of Henry V111. I have always been interested in history and the Tudor period is my favourite so this book really appealed to me. The reviews on the back cover claimed that the book was an entertaining account of Henry V11’s complicated domestic history, full of interesting detail. It was the promise of interesting detail taken from reliable sources, which persuaded me to buy this book as opposed to other accounts on offer. So heres a brief taster of what this book has to offer, I certainly don’t intend to give you a history lesson! The ...  Read the complete review

I hated history in school. There's nothing exciting about memorising names and dates of the world wars and the jacobites. What every school child really wants are the gruesome details of birth, life and death, kings, queens and paupers, the affairs, the murders, the plotting and treason. It really is a shame that history texts aren't written by Alison Weir, I'm certain if they were them more pupils would be interested in history and they'd get brilliant grades. I won't write a long re-count of the history of Henry VIII and his six wives, that's what you should read the book for. I'll simply write an analysis of the book itself. The book is an ...  Read the complete review

I think it's fair to say, and it has been said, that I have a bit of an obssession with Henry VIII. He was one of the most interesting monarchs ever and his six wives make him stand out from the crowd. I recently read "The Other Boleyn Girl" which is more of a fiction novel and couldn't put it down so in my ever present fixation on Henry VIII I started looking for more to read about him. I came across this on Amazon. I had never read a book by Alison Weir and expected this to be a similar affair to The Other Boleyn Girl but as soon as I started reading I realised this was actually a factual account as we know it from diaries, documents and letters ...  Read the complete review