Book: The Children Of Henry VIII

Pages/Format: 366/Paperback

My Thoughts: I thought this book deserved a re-read, especially since historical fiction is one of my new projects.

I really liked it, and found the relationships between his 3 children (plus Lady Jane Grey) really interesting.  There’s definitely a lot of material I can use.

Since I took notes, there were a lot of things that I noticed- one being how important religion was.  There was a lot of back and forth between the Catholics and the Protestants, which wasn’t a surprise, but still…a lot seemed to go back to religion.

One of the criticisms I have is that anytime medical issues were mentioned, different possibilities about what they were followed.  While I appreciate Weir’s attempt to be thorough, and mention the possibilities of what the different monarchs had, we can’t make assumptions because what we know may not be accurate.  What was recorded most likely isn’t the whole story, and how the doctors described something might not be how doctors today would describe something.  After all, we still have no idea what the sweating sickness was. 

A great example would be the times that Mary thought she was pregnant, and even showed signs she was pregnant, but actually wasn’t pregnant.  Weir goes through the different possibilities about what may have caused Mary’s false pregnancy, talking about how a phantom pregnancy was the most likely cause.

It’s not that I didn’t appreciate it, because I did.  It was interesting to read about the different theories about various illnesses they all had, but at the same time, it was frustrating because we can’t know for sure what they had.  I will give Weir the benefit of the doubt, and assume the different theories were in the sources Weir used when doing research for the book.

Another major issue I had was when she talked about Lady Jane Grey.  I was reading the part about Jane’s execution, and couldn’t figure out why it was so familiar.  And then I realized that the same passage was used in Innocent Traitor, nearly word for word!  She clearly used her own books as research for Innocent Traitor, which I don’t have a problem with, especially since Weir is known for writing about British monarchs.  But to use the exact same passage in a completely different book?  And not only that, but the wording in Innocent Traitor was almost exactly the same, if not entirely the same. 

Despite the couple criticisms I have, it was still a great book, and very informative.  I have several pages of notes, front and back, plus lots of highlighting and underlining, and even notes in the margins.  And I have quite a few questions and things I want to know more about.    

Rating: 4 out of 5.  I’d recommend it to anyone, especially those who like history or want to learn more about the relationships between Prince Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth.