A Review of Alison Weir's Henry VIII: The King and His Court
Partly
as a public service (!), partly in support of her new (and second) novel
The Lady Elizabeth, on April 8
Ballantine Books reissued
four of Alison Weir's
remarkable histories:
Eleanor of Aquitaine,
The Children of Henry VIII,
The Life of Elizabeth I and
Henry VIII: The King and His Court, with new, attractive covers in
trade paperback format. I have reread
Henry VIII, and found it as good this time as the first read
through. Apart from Lady Antonia Fraser Weir is the pre-eminent English
popular historian writing today. She has staked out her own territory
ranging from the middle ages through the Elizabethan age, and none
approaches her in excellence and as far as popular history goes. Her works
are thoroughly researched, detailed, valuable as reference books as well as
compelling history and, most importantly, are set apart from specialist
historical writing in that they are eminently readable.
Weir's Henry VIII is presented in a chronological fashion, with 'chronological bulges,' as it were, when topics are being discussed that range into the future. Rather than break the thread of the immediate narrative, strict chronology is at times abandoned. It begins, rather unfortunately, spending little time on Henry's childhood and formative influences, in April 1509 when Henry was proclaimed King. Part of Weir's mission in writing this book is to displace the common misrepresentation of Henry as a blood-soaked tyrant and bluebeard played up in the early cinema, especially Laughton's The Private Life of Henry VIII. Far from being characterized by Laughton's heavy handed parody, Henry's "table manners were highly refined...He was, in fact, a most fastidious man..." Where sex was concerned, he "...was also far more discreet and prudish than we have been led to believe." And so it goes throughout as Weir shines the light of scholarship on the dark mistakings of legend and sensationalism.
Since Weir's book is meant to be used as a sourcebook as well as a history, it contains engagingly detailed descriptions of Henry's palaces, houses and building projects (for which he was covetous beyond bounds), his dress and the dress of the court, courtiers' jewelry and fashion, players and court entertainments, gardens, herbalism and plant lore, medicines and medicinal practices (for which Henry had a special interest), and above all, doctrinal belief and religious practice. Long sections are also devoted to painting and painters (especially to Holbein), music and musicians, books and bookcraft, scholars and scholarship, food and culinary arts, and so on. A very full picture of the sparkling surface of the court and its social and cultural milieu are developed in a skillful and entertaining manner.
Of course the real drama arises from the significant people who revolve around Henry: Wolsey, Cromwell, Cranmer, More, his six wives (Weir is also author of The Six Wives of Henry VIII) with the influence of their successive families (except, of course, for the family of Anne of Cleves who were not English and had no formal influence at court): Boleyns, Seymors, Howards and Parrs. The treatment of Henry's bastard son Richmond is especially deft, leaving the reader to appreciate the depth of feeling Henry experienced for him and the tragedy of his death from tuberculosis (most likely). Weir has an especial affinity for the two great poets of Henry's reign, Thomas Wyatt and the fickle and ultimately tragic Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. Since the new learning played such a role in Henry's devolution from Catholicism, she thoroughly covers its influence via Erasmus and his circle: More, Linacre, Grocyn Colet, and Pace among others.
Surprising among the revelations of this history are Henry's love of disguise and level of participation in court masques (as they were at the time) and entertainments. Also emphasized is his irrational fear and flight from disease, being driven from palace to palace by rumours of plagues and infections. Weir's exposition on "the sweating sickness" is especially apt. The sweating sickness could kill even faster than the black death. With this fearful malady, "a man could be 'merry at dinner and dead at supper,' and Henry was "inordinately fearful" of it, and indeed all mortal diseases. Also illuminating is the case made for Henry's masterful grasp over the administrative details of his Kingdom, and his encyclopaedic knowledge of and attention to technical detail. And personally, I find it amazing the amount of time Henry dedicated to hunting. It apparently never grew tedious for him until he himself grew to old and infirm to pursue its pleasures.
Of course the story of Henry's great matter, his divorce from Katherine of Aragon, is presented, with its concomitant impact upon world religion, his infatuation with Anne Boleyn and her meteoric rise and fall, Henry's staged impotence with Anne of Cleves, and his unstaged and untrammeled pursuit of Katherine Howard, and finally his deeply satisfying and satisfied love for the level-headed (though reformist-minded) Katherine Parr (on Katherine's book Prayers or Meditations, Weir says "It was very rare in early Tudor England for a woman to publish a book: only seven other women did so during the reigns of the first two Tudors").
Very little attention is given to the political role of parliament, but that is because Henry was so absolutely and undeniably supreme. The History of the Act of Restraint of Appeals is given, the Convocation and events related to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the enshrinement of the Book of Common Prayer, and the Act of Succession, but these were all instigated and dictated by Henry. He was like never before or after among the Kings and Queens of England, "The Image of God Upon Earth."
It is often forgotten, says Weir (and provides his armour waist measurements to prove it) that Henry was not grossly overweight until the last decade of his life, and the cause is more to be laid to his infirm legs, enforcing inactivity on an active man, in addition to his addiction to rich foods. His sufferings with his legs and the effects of corpulence, however, were terrible.
While Weir does not attempt to cover up Henry's many gross faults, she
also does not lose site of the magnificent Renaissance prince either. As a
conclusion to her life, she quotes Henry's first biographer, William Thomas:
the King "was undoubtedly the rarest man that lived in his time. I say not
this to make him a god, nor in all his doings I will not say he has been a
saint. He did many evil things, but not as a cruel tyrant or as a
hypocrite. I wot not where in all the histories I have read to find one
king equal to him." After reading Weir's excellent biography, I think most
readers will agree.
[Alison Weir is also the author of The Princes in the Tower, The Wars of the Roses, Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, and Queen Isabell.]
