Book Review: In Print

The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn

by Alison Weir
Ballantine, 464 pp., $28

Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster

by Alison Weir
Ballantine, 432 pp., $17 (paper)

The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Tragedy

by Leanda de Lisle
Ballantine, 384 pp., $30

The pleasure in reading an author such as Alison Weir is that with every new book comes a deeper level of understanding. Weir, one of the first names of biographical writing, is as revered as her subjects, with as endless a hunger as her readers – a potent combination for an author.

In her latest, The Lady in the Tower, Weir examines Anne Boleyn during the final months of her doomed life. How has the second wife of Henry VIII and mother of Elizabeth I remained such a memorable figure over the centuries? Is it because she was a Renaissance Eve, daring to taste the fruit that did not belong to her and going to the chopping block for it? Seriously, is what amounts to the royal quest to bed Boleyn why Protestants aren't Catholic? By focusing on Boleyn's last days, Weir redirects the scope away from the court intrigue and Hollywood elaborations. Her strict use of documentation is itself intriguing because it works on the premise that the written words are truthful; she acknowledges this by questioning or codifying statements and suggesting conclusions from them. If Jane Seymour's brothers Edward and Thomas were as scheming and ruthless as it is understood, then, Weir guilelessly posits, "we might wonder if their sister shared the same character traits." Considering how fast was Seymour's climb into a royal bed still warm from Anne's departure, we vote yes.

For a woman of equal scandal and royal importance, the hard facts of Katherine Swynford's life are pitifully few and far between (Anya Seton's sainted historical novelization Katherine took some liberty filling in the blanks). In Mistress of the Monarchy, Weir collects the scattered evidence of Katherine de Roet Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster, and presents it as another finely wrought tapestry that is nonetheless as dense as it is thin. A young woman of common stock and uncommon beauty married at age 12 to a knight, she later became the lover of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, and bore him five children before marrying him late in life. Among her descendants were Henry VII (of the House of Tudor) and great-great-great-grandaughters Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Grey.

Weir's resources are impressive given the lack of imagery, letters, will, or other direct evidence of Swynford's alluring life – tax roles are most illuminating – but the use of so many qualifying phrases, even with Weir's authoritative tone – is tedious. It's quite clear that Katherine's behavior as the duke's leman was quite proper, humble even, and not deserving of the scorn she received. More visceral are the reactions in the late 1300s to John of Gaunt's public affection for "the enchantress" Katherine, spoken of in centuries-old prose that sounds quite Victorian in its disapproval, a testament to Weir's ability to mine history for nuggets.

Leanda de Lisle (After Elizabeth: The Rise of James of Scotland and the Struggle for the Throne of England) is no stranger to biographical excavation either, and The Sisters Who Would Be Queen thrusts the hapless Grey sisters into a royal maelstrom of ambition, manipulation, and denial that rivals anything Boleyn or Swynford were accused of. As descendants of Henry VII, the sisters' very lives threatened the rule of Elizabeth I: Any male child they had would supersede her. That Jane actually made it to the throne earned her the "Nine Days Queen" sobriquet; alas, she did not stay there. De Lisle's language is compelling; the account of Jane's last moments in her own words is heartbreaking, as is de Lisle's measured account of an eyewitness to the teen queen's execution: "'And so,' a witness recorded, 'she ended.'" De Lisle is particularly unrelenting of the Virgin Queen, whose persecution of Jane's sisters seems particularly vengeful as well as desperate.

Taken as a whole, these three books represent the eternal appetite for history re- examined and re-envisioned, and it's only part coincidence that their characters intersect: Anne Boleyn is sympathetic while still being culpable, Katherine Swynford comes to shadowy life, the three Grey sisters remain indeed a tragedy of mythic proportions, if more fully understood. The rub of love of history is that you always know how it ends.