Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Gabrielle Pantera
”In an era when women were viewed as weak creatures, morally and intellectually inferior to men, Catherine Howard was bound to be seen through the narrow lens of patriarchal assumptions,” says The Unfaithful Queen author Carolly Erickson. “But behind those assumptions there was a wellborn girl, cousin to Anne Boleyn, who was emotionally vulnerable and who loved ’not wisely but too well’.”
Catherine Howard cousin of Anne Boleyn, Henry the VIII’s second wife, is innocent and beguiling at the same time. Erickson shows the innocent and trusting girl Catherine Howard was and reveals how family turn on family to stay alive with a king who settles problems by killing those who displease him. Erickson paints a picture of court life and the highs and lows of Catherine Howard.
Brought up in her grandmother’s country home Catherine’ father was off trying to make his fortune while she was largely ignored as the poor relation. As Catherine gets older she started to garner attention from men. This pleased her as she was starved for affection. Having no strong man in her life she fell prey to many men and their physical attention to her.
When her grandmother moves to Lambeth to be a part of the festivities for the new Queen of England, Anne of Cleves, Catherine catches the eye of Henry VIII. Catherine promises herself to one man, then falls in love with Tom Culpeper, who is one of the gentlemen who cares for Henry VIII.
Those around her tell Catherine that she MUST give in to the king by becoming either his wife or mistress – whichever he wants. Court intrigue unravels her fragile marriage to Henry VIII. When Prince Edward becomes ill Queen Catherine works to try to give the old, impotent king a son. Her family turns against her, as they did her cousin Anne Boleyn and she too must face execution.
“Having written fictional historical entertainments about two of Henry VIII’s wives, Catherine Parr and Jane Seymour, I thought of writing Catherine Howard’s story,” says Erickson. “Like the much better known Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard died on the scaffold, yet the details of her life, as recorded in contemporary sixteenth-century records, are sparse.
”I’ve been writing since the late 60s and The Unfaithful Queen is the latest in a long list of my books, now translated into some thirty languages worldwide,” says Erickson. “I am currently enjoying telling another queen’s story, in The Spanish Queen, about Catherine of Aragon.”
”I was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the Hollywood Hills, in a cultural environment freighted with aspiring actors and people in the motion picture industry,” says Erickson. “Overnight success was a widely-dreamed pipedream. My own primary aspiration was to escape to cooler, less smoggy climes, preferably the Pacific Northwest–later on to Berkeley and then to Hawaii.”
The Unfaithful Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII’s Fifth Wife by Carolly Erickson. Hardcover, 304 pages, Publisher: St. Martin’s Press; First Edition (September 18, 2012). Language: English, ISBN: 9780312596910 $25.99
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