Skip to main content

Katherine Howard: A Tudor Conspiracy by Joanna Denny: A Book Review

Katherine Howard: A Tudor Conspiracy

Author: Joanna Denny

Genre: Nonfiction, History, Biography

Publisher: Pitakus Books

Release Date: 2005

Pages: 304

Source: Personal Collection 

Synopsis: A riveting new biography of a much neglected Queen - the doomed child-bride of Henry VIII Joanna Denny, author of Anne Boleyn, reveals another sensational episode in Tudor history - illuminating the true character of Katherine Howard, the young girl caught up in a maelstrom of ambition and conspiracy which led to her execution for high treason while still only seventeen years old. Who was Katherine, the beautiful young aristocrat who became a bait to catch a king? Was she simply naive and innocent, a victim of her grasping family's scheming? Or was she brazen and abandoned, recklessly indulging in dissolute games with lovers in contempt of her royal position? Joanna Denny's enthralling new book once again plunges the reader into the heart of the ruthless intrigues of the Tudor court - and gives a sympathetic portrait of a beautiful young girl trapped and betrayed by her own family.


     My Review: Katherine Howard was Henry VIII’s fifth queen and his teenage wife. She was executed because she had an affair with her husband’s servant, Thomas Culpepper. In this biography of  Queen Katherine Howard, she is portrayed as a pawn for her uncle in order to restore Catholicism in England. Once her past was revealed, her uncle betrays her in order to save himself. This biography portrays Queen Katherine Howard in a sympathetic light. She was an obscure teenager who suddenly became Queen of England, a role in which she was unprepared for.


     I liked Ms. Denny’s portrait of Queen Katherine Howard. Queen Katherine Howard was a neglected and often forgotten child. Because of this, she was forced to become an adult and learned more about sensual pleasures. Thus, she lost her innocence in her youth. Because of this, it would be her first step that would lead her to the execution block. Ms. Denny also shows how Katherine was a pawn and that she was unequipped to be queen. Therefore, Queen Katherine Howard was very sympathetic. If only she was looked after, cared for, and was brought up, then her fate might have turned out differently.


      Overall, this was a very comprehensive biography of Queen Katherine Howard. Even though it was a short book, I did find it to be unnecessarily drawn out. I wished it was more focused on Queen Katherine Howard. Instead, it tended to go off on tangents not related to the subject. There was also a lot of speculation that was not founded on evidence. Still, it is a fascinating account of a young queen who died a tragic death. It also read like a thriller, for Queen Katherine Howard made many mistakes that caused to be executed. I recommend this for fans of Alison Weir, Gareth Russell, and Antonia Fraser!


Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer by Samuel Noah Kramer and Diane Wolkstein: A Book Review

Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer Author: Samuel Noah Kramer and Diane Wolkstein Genre: Nonfiction, History, Biography, Religion, Mythology Publisher: Harper Perennial Release Date: 1983 Pages: 256 Source: Personal Collection Synopsis: With the long-awaited publication of this book, we have for the first time in any modern literary form one of the most vital and important of ancient myths—that of Inanna, the world’s first goddess of recorded history and the beloved deity of the ancient Sumerians.      The stories and hymns of Inanna (known to the Semites as Ishtar) are inscribed on clay tablets which date back to 2,000 B.C. Over the past forty years, these cuneiform tablets have gradually been restored and deciphered by a small group of international scholars. In this groundbreaking book, Samuel Noah Kramer, the preeminent living expert on Sumer, and Diane Wolkstein, a gifted storyteller and folklorist, have retranslated, order...
Post a Comment
Read more

Guest Post: The Ladies-in-Waiting: Lady Isabel Baynton by Alexandra Walsh

    Today's guest writer is Alexandra Walsh. She is the author of The Catherine Howard Conspiracy , which is a historical thriller surrounding the infamous Tudor queen. In this guest post, Mrs. Walsh discusses the life of Catherine's lady-in-waiting, Isabel Baynton. This post will be sure to fascinate fans of Tudor era. If you enjoy her post, please pick up a copy of The Catherine Howard Conspiracy ! Thank you, Mrs. Walsh! The Ladies-in-Waiting – Lady Isabel Baynton by Alexandra Walsh     One of the most enjoyable things about writing an historical novel is discovering the tiny details that make the period real on the page. While I was researching The Catherine Howard Conspiracy , I spent a great deal of time hunting out the life stories of the women who surrounded the young queen in order to create a group of realistic friends and confidants.       There are some well-known names linked with Catherine and her downfall: Lady Jane Boleyn,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Guest Post by Aleksey Linetskiy: The Women Behind the Klondike Story

       Today's guest writer is Aleksey Linetskiy. He is the co-author of Finch and Hawk:   The Klondike Letters , which is a unique yearly subscription in which the reader reads a story by mail. In this guest post, he introduces us to a few historical women of the Klondike era. Some of these women are Alice Freeman, Flora Shaw, and Helen Dare. Thank you, Mr. Linetskiy! The Women Behind the Klondike Story        Before we began writing Finch and Hawk: The Klondike Letters , my partner, Alona Umansky, and I spent a great deal of time researching the Klondike Gold Rush. We were interested in finding the stories of people who maybe didn’t become rich and famous but still went through the experience of a great stampede.  As we were reading the newspapers of the time and firsthand accounts, it became very clear to us that we wanted to tell at least part of the story through the women’s eyes. There were so many incredible women who underto...
3 comments
Read more