It also seemed unlikely to me that even the most constant heart would cling, as she did, to a memory that had an endurance of six months and occurred at the tender age of fifteen. I think this is the first time I have ever had that reaction while reading one of her novels. There is a specific conversation that takes place between Arthur and Catherine that is ludicrous, in my opinion. I cannot imagine that it could have EVER happened this way. The way Gregory deals with this issue of the remarriage is disappointing. I can find no evidence, and have never heard it even implied, that Henry VII lusted after his daugher-in-law and sought her for his own bride before she was married to his son, Henry VIII.įor anyone who is familiar with Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII, they will know that she was first married to his older brother, Arthur, with whom she was meant to have never consummated the marriage. I even had cause to doubt the accuracy of her history.
Somehow, I felt she went off the rails in this one. Most of time, I can feel that Gregory’s version might have been true, because she sticks very close to the facts and only interpolates feelings and emotions to make the characters human. I do not apologize for taking great pleasure in going to visit historical places like a fly on the wall and peeking into the way those lives might have been. And while it really isn't, I felt that I would have enjoyed this novel more if I knew the stories of the other characters better. I saw that it is the first book in the Tudor Court series, so I thought it was not compulsory to read Cousin's War before that. The only thing I regret doing is starting the series from this book. When I started reading it, I thought of "constant" as loyal, but Philippa Gregory described so many more cases to apply that word to Catherine. The title of the story fits really well too. She seemed real to me and it made me like her. The writer created a very true-to-life portrait of Catherine. And it is very unusual to me and therefore very interesting. Maybe that's because they have preserved monarchy till our days. I like history, and English history especially. But things don't go as they were planned, so Catherine has to face a lot of ordeals to get what she wants. She arrives in England to become a wife to Prince Arthur, the heir to the throne. This is the story of Catherine of Aragon, the Queen of England.
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