The Six Wives of Henry VIII

by Gladys Malvern

Gladys Malvern uses her celebrated talent for prose to share the stories of Henry VIII’s wives with immense personality and captivating drama.
 
Henry VIII was married to six women during his reign as the King of England. Gladys Malvern characterizes them as The Saint (Catherine of Aragon); The Egotist (Anne Boleyn); The Diplomat (Jane Seymour); The Housewife (Anne of Cleves); The Coquette (Catherine Howard); and The Mother (Catherine Parr). Malvern masterfully tells each of their personal histories and how they intertwined through rivalry, vying for power, political maneuvering, and the hardships of losing favor with the man that seceded the Church of England from Rome for a divorce.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History

Paperback

First published November 1, 1972

About the author

Gladys Malvern wrote almost four dozen books in her prolific career as a writer of historical and biographical Young Adult fiction. She was born in Newark, New Jersey on July 17, 1897. Her family roots were in Virginia and her ancestors include such historic American names as Lee, Rolfe, Randolph, and Custis.

Reviews

[Michelle Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in Middle School and it was my first taste of the Tudor Period. It's fairly simplistic and it has some erroneous information considering when it was published. But it's a good quick overview of the wives that's easily readable.

[danielle de lioncourt · Rating 4 out of 5]

great for newbies on history and kids who are interested! ♡♡

[Ellie Grootegoed]

Overall it was an ok book. I could not finish it because it was sooooooo slow yes, it had entertaining moments and interesting parts but I was so bored that I put down this book multiple times and had the stop reading entirely in the middle of Ann Boleyn’s part of the story ( who by the way is supposed the be the interesting one, but she wasn’t very interesting in my opinion) because it didn’t seem like it was going to go and anywhere.

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A simplistic fictional summary of the 6 wives of Henry VIII. Its dated, due to being from the early 20th century, but would be probably be a fun book for a younger reader just getting interested in the history of the Tudors.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. It made me want to dig into this part of history and read more and more. I couldn’t put this book down at all. So interesting. Well written. Each wives story is 3-4 chapters long.

[Lauren · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am surprised this was published. The writing is that of a child. Very simple vocabulary and an overabundance of exclamation points. This would be a great book to read to a child at bedtime, if you knew of a 5 year old interested in the wives of Henry VIII. I finished it just because I wanted a little history of the 5 that were not Anne Boleyn. In addition, a number of her facts are likely untrue and have been argued by many. Little things, like the glint of the sword about to come down on Anne's neck, have been refuted due to what historians know of the time period. In this case fore instance, swords were apparently always hidden in a pile of hay (if one was so lucky as to be beheaded by sword instead of axe). I gave Lacey Baldwin Smith only 3 stars for his book, "Anne Boleyn -The Queen of Controversy" because I thought it was dry and filled too much with what people DON'T know about Henry and his wives but, now that I've read another author, I'm grateful for having read his actual facts. Thus, I DO recommend his book if you are interested in accuracy. I'm going to try Alison Weir's book on the 6 wives next. Smith ultimately didn't believe her take on the situation but at least I can tell from an excerpt that she can write. Sadly, I cannot recommend this to anyone.

Please keep in mind, if there weren't so many other authors with better information about Henry and his wives, I'd give this a higher rating because it does give you a description of the 6 different personalities. It just pales by comparison to others.

[Li ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lo he leído para un trabajo pero meh

[CLM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely one of the books that influenced me in majoring in 16th century history and literature, although I probably found this because of falling in love with the BBC series.

[Lindsay Leygraff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book witha nice background of medieval political intrigue. Very wordy, but I got through it and managed to learn something.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The biographical nature of the book was artfully constructed, engaging and often poignant. I gained a lot of insight into an often-alluded to period in history.