The Boleyn Inheritance – by Philippa Gregory

13 05 2025

Continuing my read through the Tudor and Plantagenet series of Philippa Gregory books, this year’s read covers wives 4 and 5 of Henry VIII. It’s told by three narrators:

  • Anne of Cleves (wife #4, chosen by Henry as his next wife from a drawing, but then he doesn’t like her when she arrives)
  • Katherine Howard (wife #5, bratty, spoilt, stupid, fifteen year old girl – but Henry, while old enough to nearly be her grandfather, is besotted)
  • Jane Boleyn (sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn, and lady-in-waiting to most of Henry’s wives over the years, also related in some way to Katherine Howard)

I really liked Anne, I felt sorry for her, she was just in an awful situation. Katherine, as you may have gathered from my description above, was just irritating. Jane, comes across as likeable, but is so tied up in the Boleyn/Howard world. And yes, of course, loads of people are related to each other.

That’s one thing this book really lacked, that others of hers have had, and that’s a family tree, to help understand how various families are related, and within the families too, I kept wanting to flick back to check things, but there was nowhere to flick back to. The end of the book says there’s one on the website, but it doesn’t seem to be there anymore sadly, plus what good is telling me at the end?!

By this stage Henry is around 50 years old and has a permanent infection in his leg leaving him in constant pain, but he is accruing more and more power to do whatever he wants, however he wants, to change laws at whim, etc. One thing that struck me was how Trumpian some of Henry’s rants sounded, for example: “No-one could beat me, Ever. Not one knight. I was the greatest jouster in England, perhaps in the world. I was unbeatable and I could ride all day and dance all night, and be up the next day at dawn to go hunting. […] There was none like me! I was the greatest knight since those of the round table! I was a legend.” Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t, but you could hear Trump saying it couldn’t you? That said, Katherine makes similarly arrogant comments about her looks throughout, and constantly lists how many dresses and jewels she has – maybe they weren’t that dissimilar in some ways.

While reading this, I heard that Philippa Gregory is publishing another book called the Boleyn Traitor, which I understand will be fully about Jane, but be set before this one, so I might have to jump backwards a step next year!


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The Other Boleyn Girl – by Philippa Gregory

22 03 2024

The next in my go through Philippa Gregory’s Tudor novels, easily the most famous, the only one I’m aware of that’s been made into a film, and characters that feel a little more familiar than in the last couple of books I’d read, which I guess made it a little easier to read.

That said, it’s still over 500 pages, and small font, so it took me about 6 weeks to read – not good for my Goodreads targets at all!

We all know Anne Boleyn as the second wife of Henry VIII, but this is the story of the affair her sister Mary had with him first, followed by the story we know better, but with other strings to its bow too.

Some people are critical of the historical accuracy of Gregory’s Tudor fiction, and yes, the conversations and how things happened are clearly imagined. However, some things that happened in this book were truly shocking and so as soon as I finished I opened up our friend Wikipedia, and found that the basic facts were indeed true.

The further I got through the book, the more hooked I became. And now I write this with the film on in the background, which has a ridiculous number of famous people in it, let’s see how it goes….


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Three Sisters, Three Queens – by Philippa Gregory

16 07 2023

When I started this series I came in partway through the suggested reading order, so while this is the third I’ve read, it’s actually the eighth…. I’ll go back to the beginning once I get to the end!

It seems to overlap a fair amount timeline-wise with The Constant Princess and The King’s Curse, but takes you to mostly a completely different set of events. It’s narrated by Margaret Tudor, the older sister of Henry VIII, and the three sisters/queens referred to in the title are herself, as she marries the king of Scotland, her younger sister Mary who marries the king of France, and Katharine of Aragon, wife of Henry VIII, so sister-in-law, and queen of England. The focus is on Margaret’s story, but with written correspondence with her two sisters in London to include theirs.

Margaret is sent to Scotland as a teenager to marry their King James, over the many many years covered, she ended up having three marriages (died, divorced (and very off and on until the divorce was final), survived), and five children, only two of whom survived infancy.

Obviously there is a fictional element to the book, but the author puts a note in the end to discuss the historical elements, which was interesting (and I’ve had a go through some Wikipedia pages too to find out a bit more!). I found this paragraph from the author’s note particularly interesting to show why she told the story in the way she did:

“[…] I was struck by how their histories intertwined and reflected each other. They all three experienced arranged marriages, were widowed, and remarried the men of their choice. They all three lost children in infancy. They all three depended on the goodwill of Henry VIII, they all three fell from his favour, all three were threatened by the rise of Anne Boleyn. They were all born princesses, but experienced debt and even poverty.”

At some points it felt a bit repetitive, in and out of relationships, and so many lost pregnancies and children between the three women. Much as these are obviously really sad things, in a novel I guess it can just get a bit “oh that again” when it happens so often, but sadly a reality of that time.


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The King’s Curse – by Philippa Gregory

17 01 2022

A few years ago I read The Constant Princess, and have finally gotten around to reading the next book in the series! This book runs from 1499-1541, covering quite an expanse of time, but following the story of Margaret Pole. She was a Plantagenet, niece of both Edward IV and Richard III, and cousin of Elizabeth of York who was wife of Henry VII, and so while from a family that had been defeated by the Tudors, was highly involved in the family.

Near the start of this book she takes guardianship of Prince Arthur and his wife Katherine of Aragon, and as time goes on, Arthur passes away and Katherine becomes Henry VIII’s first wife, she becomes one of Katherine’s closest ladies in waiting.

Throughout the book are scattered updated pictures of her family tree so you can keep track of what’s going on as time passes – I always appreciate a book with diagrams!

Life is not easy for Margaret Pole; when life is good it’s very good, but when Henry throws her out of court things become much more frightening.

Henry as a child seems to be fairly delightful, but as he gains power, and time passes without him successfully producing an heir, he becomes much more unbearable. The book covers his first four marriages, and as things go on he seems to become more and more delusional, refusing to acknowledge anything bad that happens, it felt a little pertinent to our current leaders, but with a lot more hangings and beheadings, this situation was clearly much worse!

The other part of the book that felt oh so familiar was when The Sweat spread round the country, and people had to shut themselves away to stop the spread….

It was strange to read about things that were seen as awful at the time they happened, but for us are now perfectly normal: Henry declaring himself head of the church, requiring himself to be referred to as Your Majesty instead of Your Grace, and requiring churches to have the Bible in English instead of Latin.

I didn’t read this for ages because I didn’t know who Margaret Pole was, and so didn’t care much to read it, but I found it so interesting! Yes you take it all with a pinch of salt as it’s fiction at the end of the day, but these are supposedly well researched, there’s a long bibliography in the back, and so there’s definitely some things to learn from it! Looking forward to the next one now!


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The Constant Princess – by Philippa Gregory

11 09 2017

I aimed to read a load of books on holiday, but I realised that when I was a child I think I got so much reading done on the long car journeys; now it’s me driving, I’ve lost all that reading time!

I’d been thinking about trying a Philippa Gregory book for a while, and always liked the Tudors, so when it came to topping up an Amazon order to get free delivery I tacked this one on my basket.

She’s written so many books, but helpfully has put a suggested reading order together so you get a chronological flow.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/philippa-gregory/novels-in-reading-order/759503054092544
It may look like I’ve started in the middle, but I decided to go for the one about the first of Henry VIII’s wives, Katherine of Aragon. That said, once I was reading it I kinda wished I’d started one book further back on Henry VII’s wife, but I imagine I’d work my way right back if I did that – maybe one day I will!

We start with Catalina age five in Spain to get a bit of background – at this point she’s already betrothed to Henry VII’s oldest son Arthur (Henry VIII’s older brother), and then quite quickly skip forward nine years to her arrival in England for her wedding to the Prince of Wales.

It’s hard to know how much to share without a spoiler alert because this is based on history – we all know that Arthur died before he made it to the throne because we know there was never a Tudor King Arthur! That said, there’s a lot to read about their relationship, and then of course how she ended up to be married to his younger brother later on.

I’d be fascinated to know where the line is between fact and artistic licence in these books. They are said to be very well researched, but how far does that go? Did a very young Prince Henry really walk her down the aisle to Arthur? Probably. Did Henry VII really storm in her bedroom to check she was attractive when she first arrived to marry his son? Who knows! All sorts of questions arise!

I really enjoyed this and can see me at some point working my way through the series, just got lots of other books to get through in the mean time!


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