Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen

Reading Prairie Fires, I realized that historical fiction was my first genre.  Laura Ingalls Wilder's books were the first I remember re-reading multiple times, and like many little girls in the 70s, I played "pioneer" (rather surprising for a fastidious, super-indoorsey city girl). The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Johnny Tremaine also fell apart due to multiple re-readings, but as an adult, I stayed away from the genre until I was re-introduced through the hybrid sub genre of historical mysteries.

It helps that Alison, Weir, one of my favorite biographers, decided to start writing novels.  Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen, her 6th novel, starts series animating the six disparate women who married Henry VIII.

Weir begins Katherine's story when she's Catalina, Infanta of Spain, betrothed to Arthur, Prince of Wales, and about to land at Plymouth.  There she will become Kathrine, and eventually Queen.  Her Prince, however will never be King, and Katherine's first meeting with Arthur disappoints her.  Not only is he rather shy, but he's clearly ill, pale and weak and frequently coughing from a "lingering rheum."  He's too weak to consummate their marriage (although like a teenager, even one whose kingdom doesn't depend on it, he brags of his conquest).  The young newlyweds are affectionate, though, and Katherine mourns not just her lost position but her husband when he dies from tuberculosis a few months later.

Arthur's death plunges Katherine into several years of uncertainty as a political pawn.  After some talk of marrying her to the new heir, 11-year-old Henry, Duke of York, she falls into limbo. After Queen Elizabeth dies in childbirth, Henry VII considers marrying her, then abandons that in favor of this alliance or that, always looking for the most lucrative option - and not supporting the Dowager Princess and contractually required.  Parsimonious Henry Tudor didn't just want the best alliance; he wanted the best dowry.  Katherine spent her widowhood acting as a go-between for her father and father-in-law, trying to enforce he contract which held back her plate and jewels.

It's during this period that the always devout Princess met her new confessor, Frey Diego.  A magnetic personality and hard line moralist (at least in appearance), he encourages her to confess deep sins and mortify her flesh (Weir hints at the possibility that Katherine's devout fasting was a form of anorexia nervosa, as theorized by Giles Trement).  Diego, who comes across ad manipulative but without a known agenda, enters her household after the Spanish Ambassador, Dr. de Peubla, forces out Katherine's protective but cunning duenna, Dona Elvira in yet another battle over the dowry.

Katherine's uncertain youth ends with Henry VII's death (also from tuberculosis) in 1509.  Already 24, she finds a love match in the 18-year-old Henry VIII who ends their betrothal with a quick wedding so that they may be crowned together.  Weir shows us the young, passionate, athletic king; one whom we can find attractive and yet, in his mercurial moods and extravagance, we can also see hints of the despot to come.  At first, though, he's a loving and doting husband, more suited to be a courtier than King. He celebrates Katherine's pregnancies as a father as well as a King, and mourns with her when the first two end with a stillbirth and a young Prince who only lives a few weeks.  Five more pregnancies over the next decade leave only Mary living, and although Henry is discreet, Katherine hears rumor of Bessie Blount and wonders why her still youthful husband flies a chivalrous banner at certain tournaments.  Eventually, Katherine learns that Henry feels their marriage is cursed because (even though their marriage was never consummated), she is Arthur's widow

Weir wisely keeps the political and theological arguments as the background of the third section of Katherine of Aragon. Instead, she shows a stubborn but righteous woman who still loves her husband (who may still love her).  As Katherine's status and household shrink, we see the personal toll it takes, tearing her from the devoted friends who have made up her inner circle and planting the seeds of dogmatic intolerance in Princess Mary.  Weir also subtly hints at how closely intertwined five of Henry's six wives, were, with a cameo by Jane Seymour and references to Maud Parr's daughter Kate.  Although of lasting political import, Henry's break with Rome and marriage to Anne Boleyn was a personal tragedy to Katherine and her ladies. Weir really brings that across, and even gains  bit of sympathy for Henry who, at least when he begins his quest for an annulment,s seems driven in part by grief. He's wrong, of course, but it's this sort of nuance that makes me look forward to Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession.  I'm sure many characters will reappear there, but in a different light.