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Henry VIII: King and Court by: Alison Weir

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Rating: - An Informative Account of the great Rennasiance Tyrant

Alison Weir's Henry VIII: King and Court is a very informative biography and tastes of the most glamourus tyrant in English history. A man who built the great palaces of Greenwich, Richmond, Whitehall, and Hampton Court. The man who strived for glory in war and pleasure. And the man who fell in love with his mistress. How could such a man not be a great lover of luxury and glamour.

Weir's descriptions of Henry's expenditure on cloths, palaces, politics, and relics was shocking. The man obiviously had no problem frolicking around outrageous sums of money just to look like a glorius prince on the scale of Francis I and Charles V. Weir also shows the way that Henry got his money back. One example is when he fined his sister, Mary, and his best friend, the Duke of Suffolk, 24,000 pounds for marrying each other!

And after all this glamour and glitz, we have Henry's political aims contained within great celebrations such as the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520. Henry's aims was to be a new Henry V, and he also wanted to show that he was capable of lavish displays of magnifience. In his military aims, he failed. In his lavish lifestyle, he succeeded with grear success.

Weir's biography of Henry VIII through his court was a cool experiment. Although some parts of it were tedious, such as the too long discriptions of the arrangments of Henry's privy chmaber, it was a really succesful experiment. Alison Weir has done it again

Rating: - brilliant read

fantastically written historical book. Alison Weir writes factual books that read like the best fictional ones! If history was presented to me like this at school I never would have forgotten a fact!

Rating: - Avid History buff

This is an interesting account of life in Henry V111's Court but I should have liked to know more about the man.
Somehow I couldn't get as immersed in this as in the other Weir's books that I have read. Nevertheless anyone who is interested in court life of this period will find it engrossing and as informative as this author's books always are.

Rating: - Henry VIII

A must for anyone who wants to know more about King Henry VIII. You learn so much more from this than you do from watching TV programmes. The only problem is you cannot read too much at once and I have to keep going back to what I have read before to clarify things.

Rating: - Interesting read but not detailed enough on Henry the man

This was an interesting, and pleasingly accessible read. Weir writes in a friendly, easy to understand manner. Weir writes in the introduction that she hopes readers "will be able to make that great leap of imagination across the centuries ... and that, for them, Henry VIII and his court will come to life". I have to day that to some extent Weir succeeds in this - for me Henry VIII is firmly placed in his times and court, with his many palaces, hunts, pageants, masques etc.

The first third of the book is not really a biography of Henry, but an in-depth study of the court, the palaces, and the world in which Henry lived. This section was the weakest part, and for me, the least interesting. The section is far too detailed - an endless list of buildings, names, court positions etc. I agree this aspect of the period is important to study, but it was overdone.

Once we get into the biographical aspect of Henry VIII, the book improves drastically. Weir has produced a good, but not comprehensive, study of Henry as monarch and man, and the personalities of the reign (More, Cromwell, Wolsey, Fisher etc) come to life. Disappointingly, the biography is not as detailed as it could be - especially concerning the important events of the reign. I would have liked more analysis, even narrative, of the Pilgrimage of Grace; and a study of the technicalities of the Canon law of Henry's divorce (or annulment) from Catherine of Aragon. Nevertheless, the book is readable and gives a good overview of the politics and factionalism at court and abroad. I did learn, however, that Anne Boleyn was likely to be pregnant at the time of her execution. This surprised me, given Henry's desperation for a son. However, given the offical reason for Anne's execution (adultery amongst other things), it would have been foolish to allow the child to be born - there would have been doubts over its paternity and possibly lead to a succession dispute.

Weir provides plenty of footnotes (at the back of the book) and sources, both secondary and primary, which is an added bonus, and there are two sections of illustrations. However, as other have noted, the genealogical table is very simplified. It is entitled "The Tudors and their Rivals" but it only shows some of Henry's Yorkist cousins (the Courtenays and Poles), whilst omitting other possible alternatives for the throne, such as the De la Poles and Staffords. The Tudor descent from Edward III, via the Beauforts, is not shown, indeed, Edward III isn't even on it.

However, in summary, I can recommend the book, as a good introduction, to anybody interested in Henry VIII, the Tudors and the Henrician court.

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