A dramatized tale on the life of Catherine Parr and her witnessing (plus experiencing) the tumultuous and dangerous court life of the Tudor era. I enjoyed it. However, if you ever had sympathies towards Anne Boleyn and Kathryn Howard, you may feel a little irritated at how they’re depicted. In early appearances, the two came off as haughty, overconfident, and stuck up. Boleyn treated Parr badly and lived a high maintenance life. Howard thought nothing bad would ever happen to her while enjoying King Henry’s attentions and insulting Anne of Cleves to her face. It makes you wonder if these traits ran in the Howard/Boleyn family.
By the way, Anne of Cleves? Comes off as the intelligent one who escaped the court with both life and dignity intact. And Henry VIII? Disgusting.
Of course, I must comment on the art history found in the novel.
Descriptions of miniature portraits, abbeys, tapestries, and other mediums courtesy of foreign artists felt very bland after the high I felt from listening to the audiobook version of Stacy Schiff’s biography on Cleopatra.
On tapestries, the author writes of Parr owning a few during her lifetime, such as the “Judgement of Paris”. During my search for a tapestry that matched the timeline of Parr’s life, I came across this Flemish tapestry now owned by Christie’s. During her marriage to Thomas Seymour, she owned a series of tapestries that acted as a very fancy calendar while living in Sudeley Castle. I did some investigating, and I found the “Months of Lucas” series, but the link dates the tapestries to the 1700s. Others claim an earlier date. Doing more searching, I came across another series of tapestries dating back before the Tudor era.
What do you think?
Art History Ramblings 