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Cynjok

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A Little Revenge: Benjamin Franklin and His Son

by Willard Sterne Randall

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Jul 15, 2014 07:40PM

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Sister Queens: The Noble, Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile

by Julia Fox

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Reading for the 2nd time

read in July 2014

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Cynjok said: " I'm giving this book four stars because I believe that if you enjoy reading about the controversial history surrounding Henry VIII's divorce from his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, you will enjoy this book by default. It also features a complementa I'm giving this book four stars because I believe that if you enjoy reading about the controversial history surrounding Henry VIII's divorce from his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, you will enjoy this book by default. It also features a complementary historical comparison to Katherine's sister, Juana of Castile.

I first read this book last year when I was ill and having trouble concentrating when trying to read. As a result, I had decided to reread many of the books I first undertook last year, this book being one of them. Unfortunately, even though I had already recommended this book to a few people, the book didn't hold up as well in the second, more thorough, reading as it had initially.

Why not? The first reason is perhaps nitpicking, but I find it to be an important detail--the author seems to assign blame to Anne Boleyn for incidents that I am not certain historical sources would bear out to be decidedly Anne Boleyn's fault. I am a huge fan of Anne Boleyn, however, so perhaps it is my prejudice showing. For example, the author seems to imply fault in Anne for being in favor of the dissolution of monasteries--I don't think we really know whether that was the case. That she did like to study and debate religion and wasn't as dogmatic as Katherine, certainly. But that she went as far as that, maybe not, we just don't know.

Another thing I began to wonder about, after noticing the discrepancies about Anne, is whether the source material actually bears out much of what is suggested by this book as being definitive history regarding Juana of Castile. On the second reading, I began to see that the author had presented the case for Juana being sane and held against her will by her husband, father, and son in an abusive manner as a fact wrapped in supposition. Then, near the end of the book, she seemingly undercuts her own presentation by listing how many times Juana's family, consisting of children and grandchildren, had actually visited her over a twenty year time span and it seemed rather a lot considering that these were personages of importance in European monarchy.

Then, the author relates that "jailer" of Juana (Denia), who had previously been presented as abusive and oppressive, refusing to let her have mail or write letters, is suddenly passing nice and loving messages along to Juana's daughter-in-law from Juana. So, I don't know--I really don't know enough about Juana other than the story of her hauling her husband's corpse around and refusing to bury it but this book did make me want to read more about her.

So I do recommend it, but I suggest you possibly take some of it with a grain of salt and explore other sources for further evaluation. It's what I intend to do. I don't like when writers of history put their own slant and present it as fact. I don't mind if they present a point-of-view but it's a no-no in my mind to present p.o.v. as fact. ...more "

Jul 16, 2014 05:41PM · see review