The Other Tudors: Henry VIII's Mistresses and Bastards

by Philippa Jones

Everybody thinks they know the tale of King Henry VIII's divorced, beheaded died; divorced, beheaded, survived. But behind this familiar story, lies a far more complex truth. This book brings together for the first time the 'other women' of King Henry VIII. When he first came to the throne, Henry VIII's mistresses were dalliances, the playthings of a powerful and handsome man. However, when Anne Boleyn disrupted that pattern, ousting Katherine of Aragon to become Henry's wife, a new status quo was established. Suddenly noble families fought to entangle the king with their sisters and daughters; if wives were to be beheaded or divorced so easily, the mistress of the king was in an enviable position. While Henry VIII has frequently been portrayed as a womanizer, author Philippa Jones reveals a new side to his character. Although he was never faithful, Jones sees him as a serial he spent his life in search of a perfect woman, a search that continued even as he lay dying when he was considering divorcing Catherine Parr thus leaving him free to marry Katherine d'Eresby. Yet he loved each of his wives and mistresses, he was a romantic who loved being in love, but none of these loves ever fully satisfied him; all were ultimately replaced. "The Other Tudors" examines the extraordinary untold tales of the women who Henry loved but never married, the mistresses who became queens and of his many children, both acknowledged and unacknowledged. Philippa Jones takes us deep into the web of secrets and deception at the Tudor Court and explores another, often unmentioned, side to the King's character.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Tudor Period, Biography, Historical, British Literature, Royalty

306 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Jemidar · Rating 3 out of 5]

What made this book three stars for me rather than the two stars it probably deserves, was that it wasn't just about the 'usual Tudor suspects' but mentioned other lesser known but still interesting inhabitants of Tudor society. I really enjoyed reading a Tudor biography that wasn't the same old, same old and that included people I wasn't necessarily familiar with. However, whether or not these people ever had relations with or were related to Henry as the author claims is an entirely different matter.

This is not a scholarly work by any means, but I didn't expect it would be going in so I wasn't disappointed. It had a friendly gossipy tone which suited the subject matter and also the level of the information being passed on. There were several errors in the basic facts about Henry's childhood/life and I also spotted some errors amoung the chapters on people and events that were reasonably well known to me, so it would be naive to assume that the author managed to get everything right with the people who I wasn't familiar with. That said, I still enjoyed reading about them. The author also did that annoying 'might have''could have' stuff that is so rife in current popular historical biography and her suppositions showed how little understanding of Henry's court and it's politics or the religious and social mores of the time she had.

Despite its faults, I did ultimately enjoy this gossipy little book, but would advise anyone reading to take all facts with a grain of salt. It definitely had the feel of something that was thrown together in a hurry to cash in on current Tudor popularity.

[Meaghan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gah. I hated this book. I had problems with virtually every aspect of it. The author makes grand sweeping conclusions that fly in the face of other historians' theories. Which is fine...if you have the evidence to back it up. In this case, Philippa Jones argued that Henry VIII had a lot more mistresses and bastard children than everyone thinks he did. The generally accepted total of bastards is definitely one, perhaps two, no more. Jones presents a total of FIVE people she names as his children.

And as to evidence... nothing but a mishmash of assumptions and speculations, with liberal use of terms like "maybe" and "probably" and "perhaps" and "should have" and so on. I looked at her endnotes and see mostly secondary sources, and she even cites Wikipedia. I mean, I love Wikipedia but it shouldn't be cited in a proper history book; that's just lazy and bad form. And the writing isn't very good, and the chronology skips back and forth so much that it's very confusing. For instance, Jones attempts to cover the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn in a mere 21 pages and WITHOUT mentioning the birth of her daughter Elizabeth. (She talks about Elizabeth's birth in another chapter, but still.)

I most sincerely do NOT recommend this book. Two stars is generous.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A detailed account of the mistresses and the five illegitimate children of Henry VIII. An excellent counterpoint to the lives of the the Tudor monarchs, Jones's book brings the lives of the other Tudors to light with her research and well-chosen excerpts from primary sources. A must-read for anyone interested in Tudor and Elizabethan England.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Henry VIII is one of those historical figures that most everyone has heard of, even those today not interested in history. He’s usually remembered for being the dude with six wives and being a really nasty tyrant. It’s intriguing to see him in a different light, through the different lenses of his different wives, mistresses, and illegitimate children. He’s still a tyrant but one who’s a bit more understandable and relatable.

It was interesting to examine the personage of Henry from the point of view of someone eternally looking for his definition of love. He sounds like a perfectionist that was always looking for an ideal that didn’t exist, not letting anything or anyone stand in the way of that pursuit. That balanced with the demands of his kingdom and ruling gives us one of the biggest names in history.

I love exploring obscure historical figures, and you can’t get more obscure than a royal mistress with no name (as one example of Henry’s many loves). This book goes into detail the lives of the women who shared his heard and bed, however little a time that may be. The children that resulted from those liaisons round out a picture of a man who felt deep, intensely, but briefly.

Despite the subject matter and the exploration of obscure historical figures, this book had a major flaw. The author tended to wordiness, to the point where I got bored to tears at times. She would spend pages after pages after pages on the minutiae of Henry’s children’s lives, up to old age, that I felt like we lost sight of the book’s intentions or goals.

The introduction led me to believe that we were exploring Henry’s loves and children as a reflection of him as a person and that goal was reached for the most of the book. Yet, at times, way too much information was included in the narrative, and I got lost in the shuffle.

A stimulating subject and the depth of knowledge and research behind this book grab the attention of readers. However, this book suffers by an overly-verbose delivery that drags it down. I got lost in a slew of facts and figures that seemed to deviate and meander away from the central topic. While interesting in their own right, I felt like some of the meanders were out of place and boring in this book. Now a bad work on this subject but not the best either.

[Reborn]

Horribly edited, questionably researched ... She spent too much time on wives and legitimate children, I guess to make the book longer. Just no.

[Synful · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a neverending fascination with the War of the Roses and the Tudors in particular and the English monarchy in general. That's why I picked up this book because, generally speaking, I've seen/read/heard most of what there is to know about the Tudors and the crazy succession of wives and the amazing Elizabeth I. I'd never really known about his, shall we say, extended family or really bumped into mentions other than Henry Fitzroy, so I was intrigued to learn more.

Having said that, I only gave this 3 stars because I didn't care for the method of presentation/organization. The book is divided into chapters each focusing on a different woman of interest/mistress and not always chronologically. This made it difficult to keep track of what happened when, especially when there were mentions of other mistresses and/or relations covered in other chapters. All these people being super incestuous and constantly swapping around titles and the women's constant remarrying and therefore changing surnames really didn't help. And so many Marys! And Elizabeths! And Annes! Hell, even too many Janes! Honestly, it's all in my head now as some sort of stew and I don't know if I'm going to really retain much of it.

The conclusion summarized that Henry VIII had 3 daughters and 5 sons despite the issue of succession when he died and when I read that I struggled to remember most of the sons. That's how confused I ended up. There's a lot of useful information here, but just not in a way I'd recommend anyone read if you prefer things chronologically or in more of a story format. If there's another book on the topic written that way, I'd read that to actually fix all this info in my own head.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave up about 40 pages into it. The author was making unsupported claims about what certain historical figures thought and felt. The writing sometimes went way off course. It's still on my bedside table in case I get an irresistible urge for some Tudor trashtalk, but I think I'm ready to throw in the towel on this one.

[Rabbit {Paint me like one of your 19th century gothic heroines!}]

DNF on pg 50. Meh.

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book jumps around a bit. There doesn’t appear to be a lot of evidence to support some of the ideas presented, but it’s fairly interesting and readable.

[Patricia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although there were some interesting parts, I found much of this book dull and convoluted.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I heard about this book, I was quite excited. Everyone knows about the three children Henry VIII had by his first three queens, and most people remember the famous illegitimate son that Henry raised clear up to a dukedom, but it seems that there were indeed more children by "bluff King Hal". Jones is quite thorough in her research, though there are a few typos here and there.

I was quite intrigued by this close examination of Henry's extramarital affairs. He is famous for marrying his mistresses, but clearly those women were only the tip of the iceberg, and his four most famous children only the beginning.

I didn't entirely agree with Jones about her analysis of Mary Boleyn's children, though she did state her case very thoroughly. Still, I've always subscribed to the idea that Catherine Carey was the elder of Mary Boleyn's Carey children, and thus could possibly have been Henry's child.

Very well-researched, and interesting! I learned quite a bit!

[Gretchen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Philippa Jones uses Wikipedia pages as a cited source in this book. Anyone with any education should see the flaw in the use of Wikipedia as a legit source. This book is full of scenarios that would make for great fiction books. The fact that a publisher willingly published this book under the heading of nonfiction is laughable to me. Apparently Henry VIII potentially spent time in rooms with several different women. These women because pregnant and those children must be Henry VIII's. No. The evidence she provides for the paternal parentage of some of these people is stretching circumstantial. This book was a joke. I have seen this woman also wrote a book about the child(ren) of Elizabeth I. Seriously?!? No. I cannot take this woman seriously as an author of historical nonfiction.

[Shari Allred · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh...the book starts out with young Henry VIII’s life, then skips around... a lot. Not told sequentially. Lots of sweeping conclusions made with little or no evidence. Also her conclusion that Henry VIII was a man just searching for love? Flies in the face of so much evidence that perhaps he was a narcissist, paranoid killer....she actually starts out building the perfect foundation for why he became the monster he was at the end of his life....and then just excuses his behavior as a poor guy looking for the perfect woman, his mommy.

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, but more scholarly than I thought at first. LOTS of details, even to the point of discussing latest descendants of Henry VIII now living in England. Some pictures that I have not seen before, and details of events I was not aware of. I liked it, but it would make a great book report for an English class.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this a few years ago at a used books sale and I thought it would be an interesting perspective on a piece of history that many think they know so well.

And interesting it was, mostly. It's a focus on Henry's many mistress, from the more famous (Bessie Blount, Mary Boleyn) to the less well-known (Anne Bassett, Katherine d'Eresby). It mentions them in context of who was his wife at the time, if that wife was pregnant, etc. (Henry was more likely to cheat when he couldn't sleep with his wife, which was the rule during pregnancies in the 1500s.) It also takes an interesting look at why these women were willing to be used by the king and how society viewed them for it. (Spoiler alert: they were treated much better than they would be today.)

What was also interesting was learning about Henry's illegitimate children. I knew about Henry Fitzroy, the only acknowledged illegitimate child. I also knew about Henry Carey, though not as well. But Jones alleges that Henry had 8 children in all--3 legitimately and 5 not.

The only part of this book that really slogged was going into extreme detail about the lives of these illegitimate children. True, it was interesting to know what they'd done (one became a pirate), but a lot of the time it was kind of boring and they were referred to by their titles rather than their names. That's pretty confusing still to this American. I can't mentally flip like that.

Anyway, I'm definitely hanging onto this as a reference novel. It's got a lot of fascinating stories but it can drag from time to time.

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Henry VIII is one of the most popular historical figures that we read about, or that is features in shows and movies. He made a huge impact on the world in many ways, specifically with his religious shenanagins. Obviously, he is very well known for his six wives and their various demises, as well as his daughters. This book takes a deeper look into the various mistresses and offspring produced by those illicit liaisons, and also helps drive home the point that this man was a notorious womanizer. The book attempts to show that he was a monogamist, but that is not a point that I particularly agree with. I do believe that he spent his life searching for the perfect female companion, especially one that would provide him with a son. I also think he was probably terribly romantic at heart, as evidenced by some of his letters and behaviors. The fact remains that he took several mistresses, and acted in ways that are abhorrent.

This book wasn't terribly long, just around 300 pages. I have had this book for a while, and finally worked my way to it. I did like learning more about the various mistresses of Henry VIII and the children that were fathered by him. I have learned so much about his six wives, and less about these women on the side. I do appreciate the level of research that went into this book, and thought that it was written in a very engaging way.

[Paul Lunger · Rating 2 out of 5]

With "The Other Tudors: Henry VIII's Mistresses & Bastards", Phillipa Jones takes we the reader on a disjointed & at times utterly confusing trip through may loves & children of England's King Henry VIII. The book from a premise standpoint is sound & sounds like an interesting read for anyone with an interest in the Tudor dynasty & this particular person in English history; however, Jones loses a lot of the story by having things at times all over the place in history with the tales of these individuals. Granted there is a decent timeline at the beginning of the book which takes us from the ascension of Henry VII to the throne through the death of Elizabeth I, but the story gets lost in the details & bounces around enough between chapters with details that in other places are more necessary than others. As someone who has read other works by Jones dealing with this period in history, this book is a great disappointment to this reader who expected far better.

[Marsha Altman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book to round out other books on Henry VIII's wives if you already know about them. I can't believe a point where I've read enough books to be able to tell this, but the scholarship is pretty good in terms of using source material to raw conclusions, though she does take some Tudor sources at their word when other scholars have questioned them (like the bit about Anne Boleyn having a 6th finger on her hand, or that her final speech was even recorded). I can't seriously fault for that, though. There is a funny coda where she lists the rumored mistresses/bastards which are probably entirely made up, and one of them is a mistress that was invented for the TV show the Tudors but is now showing up on websites as a real person, and she laments that this person will probably eventually get fake birth and death dates assigned to her by some internet scholar.

[Avis Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everybody knows the destiny of Henry VIII’s six wives: divorced, beheaded, survived. But behind this familiar story, lies a far more complex truth: the extraordinary untold tales of the other women Henry loved but never married. There were mistresses who became Queens and of his many illegitimate children, some acknowledged, some not.
Henry was a handsome, lusty and charming man with a strong sexual appetite, who possessed that ultimate aphrodisiac, wealth and power. He was inspired by the chase, by the romantic pursuit of a lady he loved; he could be enormously generous, even humble, to the woman who won his devotion. But with all he had and with all the women at his disposal, he still kept searching for the perfect woman, an image of his mother, and no woman could measure up to this fantasy.
A very interesting read into the tragedies of the Tudor dynasty.

[bexbooklover · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know what it is about Henry V lll but I've always been fascinated by him. So I was really excited when I was given a copy of this book a couple years ago.

This book tells you the story of all of the romances in his life. Not just the six we all know about. As well as his many, many illegitimate children. And it's really fascinating to read about how his children, legitimate and illegitimate, interacted with one another. The multiple occasions upon which their lives were interconnected for more than just who their father was.

It was quite fascinating to read about the romances that aren't as well known. You definitely get to see a different side of Henry V lll. You see the romantic young man that he started life out as as well as the king who demanded a perfect woman.

[Rio Ippoliti · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt as if the author went on too many tangents, often straying from the story of the person she was describing to dive deep into the paternity of her subject’s married husband’s father. Since so many were named Anne, Jane, Mary and Katherine- this made for a very difficult to follow storyline. The author could have kept a better path keeping this on track. There were interesting parts- namely how Henry VIII went about finding his mistresses and why he sought this specific type out. I also enjoyed the speculation of how important Henry Fitzroy was to his father and what could have become of him had he not succumbed to an early death.

Interesting read, poorly written.

[Marisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This seems like a great concept, but there's very little writing or analysis skill involved. It is mostly just a recitation of facts with only limited supporting evidence for the supposition that Henry had so many bastards. I don't doubt all of them, but I do doubt some of them, and there's not much of an explanation why these individuals except for the opportunity for Henry and their various mothers to possibly have slept with the king. Overall, just boring. I got about halfway through before I gave up on it. (It's also amusing this is subtitled as being about Henry's "mistresses and bastards", when there is maybe half a throwaway page about most of the supposed mistresses.)

[Myrna · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. The writing is absolutely atrocious. In an era where there were like, 6 given names total, historical figures are repeatedly referred to by their first names. It might seem clunky by modern standards, but it’s absolutely critical to use titles and surnames for the sake of clarity. It made for very confusing reading.

But the thing that really made me nope out was a cringeworthy spelling error - describing Henry VIII as “seizing the reigns of power.” It’s REINS. As in, taking control of guiding a horse. This is a common error, but it should have been caught by a competent editor, and it’s especially egregious appearing in a biography about horse riding monarchs.

[Giovanna Walker · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of research, and my review is not a reflection of that.

I just read parts that I was interested in (ancestors). There's a lot of information, who begat who etc. However for me the assumption of feelings by various people concerned being 'in love' etc, how can we really know? There are some examples of writing, but not enough to really justify.

It's tone is fine, however at times it's more a laundry list of people, rather than what they did - you have to search for the inner workings of the Royal household ie who got to be close to the king/queen and what jobs they did that gave them access.

A good starter, and I did appreciate the family trees.

[Johnny Tyrrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was good. I can't say that it was outstanding. Some of the chapters seemed to drag on while others were very good.
The chapter about one of Henry VIII sons that turned pirate was really good. I enjoyed that one.
Ann Boylynn chapter was really good as well.
The book gave a lot of information of dates and family lines as well.
Over all it was a good read. I enjoyed it.
I really like this period in history. The Tudor dynasty is very fascinating, from Henry VIII to Elizabeth.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I honestly couldn’t get over the premise that Henry VIII was just looking for love and the perfect woman. Despite the book jacket claiming that this book would show Henry VIII as a romantic rather than a womanizer, which I doubted from the start, I read the whole thing through. It was a bit agonizing. I struggled to get through this book while being an avid reader of the time period and of history in general. As a serious novel, why include completely fictitious characters from a fictional accounting from Netflix, “The Tudors”?

I don’t recommend this book.

[Michell Karnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book detailing the many women and children both legitimate and illegitimate of Henry VIII. The author used primary sources to follow the evidence of the lives of these children who were the children of Henry. I found some of the details hard to follow and while I don't doubt the author's evidence I am surprised that this is the first book I have found to chronicle these additional women and children.

[Zany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trochu jsem se obával laciného bulváru, ale příjemně překvapilo, že autorka milenky a levobočky Jindřicha VIII. (ať už přiznané, nepřiznané, více či méně pravděpodobné i ty zcela nemožné) rozebírá věcně s odkazy na dobové prameny, které také často cituje. Poměrně rozsáhle popisuje nejen zrození, ale i další často velmi bouřlivý život všech osmi levobočků, které lze s větší či menší mírou pravděpodobnosti Jindřichovi připsat

[Melisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was full of information that I had previously not known. That being said, it was a very dry read and took me much longer than I expected to get through it. I liked finding out about the lives of women who were known to be, and suspected of being Henry the VIII's mistresses. Also, about all lives of his known bastard children, and suspected bastard children. It was full of interesting information on all these people, but it was drawn out and not so much fun to read.

[Lynnaurya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite informative into the families of the women that Henry had or possibly had children with as well as what happened to these children. I knew going into this book that Henry had 4 children, 3 from his first three wives and one from a mistress that grew to age 17. But to hear of 8 children fathered by Henry VIII, very fascinating.