Katheryn Howard, the Scandalous Queen

By: Alison Weir

Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor

Best-selling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir tells the tragic story of Henry VIII’s fifth wife, a 19-year-old beauty with a hidden past, in this fifth novel in the sweeping Six Tudor Queens series.

In the spring of 1540, Henry VIII is desperate to be rid of his unappealing German queen, Anna of Kleve. A prematurely aged and ailing 49, with an ever-growing waistline, he casts an amorous eye on a pretty 19-year-old brunette, Katheryn Howard. Like her cousin Anne Boleyn, Katheryn is a niece of the Duke of Norfolk, England’s premier Catholic peer, who is scheming to replace Anna of Kleve with a good Catholic queen. A fun-loving, eager participant in the life of the royal court, Katheryn readily succumbs to the king’s attentions when she is intentionally pushed into his path by her ambitious family.

Henry quickly becomes besotted and is soon laying siege to Katheryn’s virtue. But as instructed by her relations, she holds out for marriage and the wedding takes place a mere fortnight after the king’s union to Anna is annulled. Henry tells the world his new bride is a rose without a thorn, and extols her beauty and her virtue, while Katheryn delights in the pleasures of being queen and the rich gifts her adoring husband showers upon her: The gorgeous gowns, the exquisite jewels, and the darling lap-dogs. She comes to love the ailing, obese king, enduring his nightly embraces with fortitude and kindness. If she can bear him a son, her triumph will be complete. But Katheryn has a past of which Henry knows nothing, and which comes back increasingly to haunt her - even as she courts danger yet again. What happens next to this naïve and much-wronged girl is one of the saddest chapters in English history.

©2020 Alison Weir (P)2020 Recorded Books

Another excellent Henry VIII’s wife book!

Elegant narration, intriguing plot, easy to follow storyline. I listen to everything I can by Weir and Landor.

The scandalous queen

I liked this book. It was interesting and I like to have historical figures brought to life.

Excellent Book and Narrator

I loved this Audible book. The narrator was excellent, successfully using different voices for each of the characters. I enjoy anything I can get my hands on regarding Tudor England, and Alison Weir never disappoints.

Oh No!! Not Again!!!

Feel sorry for this poor girl, I guess. She was so young to be wed to an older man with a smelly leg. On the other hand, he was the King! That is very beneficial for her and all of her relatives. What's a girl to do? Lose her head?

Great Read

beautifully written, great attention to detail, good narration. Plot was smooth and interesting. Loved the everything about the book .

If you like Danielle Steele...

You will love this story. Katherine Howard was certainly scandalous! Story fits in with rest of series but reminds me of a Harlaquin romance novel!

Excellent Series

If you like historical fiction the Six Wives is the series for you! All six of Henry’s wives led interesting lives of their own. Several were related and many parts of their stories overlap.

Such a young and tragic queen

Imagine been a young lady in those times and have to do what others demanded of you and at the end have your life cut short for doing what was expected from you and being left to fend for yourself. An amazing story writen by the author keep them coming

Through and through

I listened to every second on the edge of my seat this is quite a wonderful listen. Couldn’t actually stop.

Poor Katheryn...

4-
This novel of Katheryn Howard is the fifth in Alison Weir's historical fiction narratives of "Six Tudor Queens." I respect this author as a careful historian who interprets this period authentically and engagingly, and I have enjoyed all of the books in this series with only one yet remaining.

Katheryn Howard is more difficult to pin down than Henry's other wives because she lived in relative obscurity during her childhood and adolescence, coming to the Tudor court at approximately 18 or 19. She was executed in her 21st year, giving historians relatively little concrete information to work with. It is generally accepted that she was stunningly beautiful and had great charm which attracted men very early in her life and during her short time in the limelight. Also most accounts verify that she was taken advantage of at an early age and compromised by older men in the household of her guardian, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. In spite of these youthful sexual encounters, Katheryn appeared fresh and innocent when she served in Court as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Anna of Cleves, totally fascinating the aging, ill, and obese King Henry.

Henry annulled his unsatisfactory marriage with Queen Anna and soon made young Katheryn his fifth consort. The king and Katheryn herself were manipulated by her powerful uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, who sought to advance his own fortune as well as the Howard family through this influential marriage. By all accounts, Henry was besotted with his young wife who reveled in the wealth and splendor of her powerful position. But unfortunately she was attracted strongly to Thomas Culpepper, a gentleman of Henry's court and a trusted confidant of the king. An inappropriate and fatal liaison between these two young people developed--one which could not end well. It did not, and soon they were charged with treason and both were executed. This much is documented by history, but a fiction writer must provide more in order to bring these characters to life for the reader.

In the case of Katheryn, Alison Weir appears to have allowed herself more license than usual. The reader is witness to more detailed sexual activity than in her past books of this series. She fails to draw any curtain of privacy over these scenes but instead describes Katheryn's intimate trysts vividly. Sections of this novel read more like a bodice-ripping romance than a serious fictionalized history of this unlucky young woman. Very little is left to the reader's imagination, although none of the salacious descriptions can be verified with documentation. In books with fictional characters, this is more appropriate, but for historical characters, I prefer a bit less license with what is actually known. The resulting more literally accurate novel would have been much shorter, however, and readers expect more density from this author. Weir worked with what she had, but perhaps went too far afield into the fanciful.

This author does her research; she is an expert on the Tudor period and its extraordinary characters. I can believe she portrayed Katheryn Howard's essence accurately, showing an unfortunate young woman who desperately needed male affirmation and acted impulsively and unwisely to gain it. She was often kind and considerate to her family and those who served her. She was young, inexperienced, and totally out of her depth at the Tudor Court. Her end was tragic.

Alison Weir provides clarifying information and explanations in the Author's Note at the end of this novel. I appreciate this. She discusses her sources and the choices she made in relating this fictional account of Henry's "scandalous queen." As with all of the books I have read by this author, I found the experience enjoyable and finished with a better understanding of this time and period.

Poor Katheryn. The men in her brief life so seldom acted in her interest.