favourite wife

I disagree with Starkey’s view of Anne's relationship with the princess Mary (I think this is slightly one-sided and doesn’t take into account Henry's actions or even Mary's). He argues that Anne developed a fierce protective love for Elizabeth which apparently caused her to act maliciously against Mary. I don't really buy that and I feel Starkey relies too much upon Chapuys’ accounts for this period which of course are quite biased.

I like how he focuses on Anne's knowledge of the divorce procedure; I certainly think Anne did her homework on that. I also tend to agree with Starkey's theory that Anne and Henry underwent some form of marriage service twice in Nov 1532 (the first being on the 14th at Dover) before she agreed to sleep with him. I find it hard to understand why Anne, who refused to sleep with Henry for several years, would choose to sleep with him without entering some kind of binding ceremony. Of course this made Henry a bigamist (although in his mind he had never married Katherine in the first place), but it meant some security for Anne's position.

I like Starkey; I think his history documentaries are great and his work on the wives is far better than most other books on the same subject.


We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs - Syrus