Which Tudor do you like / dislike and why ?

[Harvey]

....just a bit self loving!!!!!

[[deleted user]]

hehe ok ok, a lot... like a lot a lot!!! haha

[Jayme(theghostreader)]

Let's just admit Henry 8 is a nariccist.

[Brigid]

Aly -- I agree that Anne was calculating and could be very cold, but I wouldn't agree that she was "ruthless." Have you read Ives' biography of her? It's my favorite, and I mostly agree with his portrayal of her. IMO, she was a woman put in a difficult situation who tried both to survive and to claim it as her own. She didn't always make the smart choice available, but she refused to fade into the background or be controlled.

I am interested to read more about Katherine Howard. I will have to pick up one of her biographies when I finish with my Anne Boleyn and Jane Grey research.

And I will heartily agree that Henry was a narcissist. :)

[Jayme(theghostreader)]

Thank you Brigid:)

[Aly]

I'm currently reading it now, Brigid. I haven't gotten very far into it yet because I'm trying to get through another book!! I'm anxious to read it through.

[Brigid]

Of the straight-up Anne Boleyn books, it's my favorite of the two I've read. Skip Joanna Denny's if you haven't read it already. I am trying to get my hands on a few more, too (Weir's, Hester Chapman's and Retha Warnicke's). I'm reading Lady Jane Grey right now.

[Colleen, Mod #3]

Aly, I try to have sympathy for him but it is really hard when I read about, for instance, the greed he had at getting his paws on the riches from the destruction of the monasteries and churches. There was a particular incident with his desire for a ruby ring that made me think, "greedy!" For the supposed "defender of the faith" he sure didn't follow the bible and it's teachings well at all; except one stupid passage in Leviticus.

[Jayme(theghostreader)]

He needed the money from the churches and monasteries to fund the war with France.

[Colleen, Mod #3]

I know Jayme, and a lot of it was more Cromwell than anything but still; it all could have gone about a better way.

[Jayme(theghostreader)]

Alot of things could have gone about a better way

[Aly]

I totally understand where you are coming from, Colleen!!!!!! It's just that sometimes, we generalize who we don't like into categories that aren't as deep as the person themselves. People here have been calling Henry narcissistic and have been putting him to categories that are so black and white. He was so much more than that (also, while he did love himself, I don't know if he could technically be called narcissistic.). So I guess for me, it's not so much that I "like" Henry, it's just that for SOME things I can kinda see where he was coming from. Obviously, the dissolution of the monasteries and killing two of his wives as well as countless other people don't agree with me. He did do some pretty awful things!! And you are right, not long after being called "Defender of the Faith" he turned a blind eye to the person who gave it to him and did turn ambivalent passages in the Bible to his own use. I'm just really curious how much of that was Cromwell. How much of what Cromwell was saying swayed him if at all?? Was it all Henry doing things, or did someone in the shadows have more say than we could ever know? I wish I knew!!

Brigid, Weir's Lady in the Tower is a great book!! I highly recommend it!! I haven't read a biography soley dedicated to AB's entire life so I'm anxious to read it. I've read Starkey's, Weir's, and Fraser's Six Wives books and they are pretty decent (and similar!!). I'm really fascinated by Katheryn Howard, so I was disappointed by the lack of info on her (I know there isn't much, but something more than a chapter split between her and Anne of Cleves would have been nice).

[[deleted user]]

Hi Brigid, if you come accross any good Katherine Howard books let me know, I'm very interested in reading more about her...

[Colleen, Mod #3]

Niecole, I will send you a list of KH books tomorrow but I have to say again that the top two (and not just IMO) are:
The Fifth Queen by Ford Maddox Ford
A Tudor Tragedy: The Life and Times of Catherine Howard by Lacey Baldwin Smith

KH is one of my favorites, can you tell by the profile picture? LOL

[[deleted user]]

Hehe I can...
So tell me more about her... what you know about her, I'd really love to hear, especially from someone who might explaine it in my language if you know what I mean? And thanks for the list! I'll really appreciate it, oh and thanks for the recomendation!!! Wanted to enter the give away for the book, but I'm in SA and cant :( boo :(

[Colleen, Mod #3]

That sucks Niecole :( double boo

I like her because I think she has been misrepresented as some ultra experienced prostitute when all she wanted was to be a young girl, marry a man she was in love with, and live a normal life. Her uncle Norfolk was so desperate for power he used her as a pawn in his nasty game of politics and it cost the poor girl her head. I know it was the way it was but using your own flesh and blood like that, as nothing more than a chess piece, is pathetic and disgraceful. How much do you know about KH?

[[deleted user]]

Well not a whole lot, the books I've read about the wives of Henry VIII really dont elaborate much about her, for how long was she his wife? I know she was Anne's cousin right? And well, the poor girl, we all know that that whole family was a bit power hungry.

Of all the wives I must say I know the least about her. Then Anna of Cleves, but I dont really care to know a lot about her, she doesnt facinate me at all, I think she was a weekling who took the easy way out when Henry presented it to her. I really like KoA, Katherine Parr and Anne, but probably because I dont know much of Katherine Howard, and I dont really care much for Jane

[Colleen, Mod #3]

18 months I believe, she was AB's cousin; The Duke of Norfolks sister was AB's mother, one of the Duke of Norfolk's brother's (the youngest I believe, hence very little Howard money trickled down to him) was KH's father. The Howard's and the Seymour's were the most power hungry of them all in that time. I'll write more later unless someone beats me to it... gotta go to bed sometime tonight, LOL

[Colleen, Mod #3]

P.S.- did everybody here vote on the poll yet? If not get to it!!! ;)

[[deleted user]]

Yes I voted :)

Thanks for the info, I also went to look up some on the internet, and by the way if anyone has downloadable books or sites they know of please let me know?

I get what you're saying about KH getting a raw deal, and her family really didnt help things along, they should have known better than sending in a poor 19 year old girl, who was love struck by the KING of ENGLAND and then I bet she just got kind of fed up and couldnt really care about her inocent flirations anymore

[Brigid]

Niecole -- The two books Colleen mentioned are the KH books I'm most eager to read.

Aly -- I'm looking forward to Weir's. Apparently it is hugely popular in the local library, so I'm still on the waiting list for it. I should get Warnicke's book this week, though. I just finished Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII, which was good but way too short an overview to give too much information. I'm planning to read biographies on all the queens. It's funny. I hadn't been doing much leisure reading since I got out of college, but then I watched "The Tudors" a few months ago, and now I can't stay out of the library! :)

[Harvey]

A feminist history or rather, reinterpretation? Is this relevant? Christopher Hill was a sort of 'famous' Marxist historian of the Stuarts. I say tosh! all manner of 'isms' might be popular, trendy and PC now... or in the seventies, but do they give a great insight into the sixteenth or seventeenth century mind?

[Brigid]

I don't think a feminist take on the wives is irrelevant, but I wouldn't really say the book accomplished that much any way. I found it more useful as an overview of the six women than any kind of radical take on their lives. The author pretty much said what everyone else has already said but in a condensed manner. She speaks more of feminist theorists in the intro than in the rest of the book as a whole.

[Harvey]

Brigid, I am not commenting on the book.... just the ethos. Karen Lindsey is clearly marketing her book... or her publisher... or both on a false premise. I can accept that a biography of Mary Wollstonecraft might get away with it, though it would be interesting to have a time capsule to really find out if she saw herself in the same terms that the 70s movement saw the cause. History has to be much more scientific than the gloss we put on things!

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads, Mod #4]

You're assuming that history is really a science.

[Brigid]

I don't like the idea of "reinterpretation" in general, but every historian looks at the past through some kind of lens. Even contemporaries made judgments, inadvertently or not, based on their religion, nationality, etc. In that regard, it's not a true science.

[Jennifer, Mod #5]

Aly wrote: "I seriously think I'm the only one who likes Henry LOL"

I like him too Aly :)
I was going to write up a long-winded posted about why but then realized I'd basically be reiterrating everything you said so I won't bother. Just wanted to let you know that (once again) I agree with you lol

[Harvey]

Brigid wrote: "I don't like the idea of "reinterpretation" in general, but every historian looks at the past through some kind of lens. Even contemporaries made judgments, inadvertently or not, based on their rel..."

True... However, in examining history I believe we should be somewhat 'forensic' to try and get at the 'truth'. In centuries to come, which will be more valuable? The words of a contemporary Minister of Housing or the houses themselves? As an example A.J.P. Taylor in the introduction to his book The Origins of the Second World War that had he used transcripts from the Nurenburg War trials he would have come to very different conclusions than by examining documents and facts of the period in question. We all have our own cultural and emotional baggage; it colours our opinions and therefore the way we interpret and write. The more we allow these things to intrude, the less we can understand (and as it were, get under the skin of) our objects of study. As an editor of history and culture I cannot simply take 'yes' for an answer. I have to worry each detail as much as I can!

[Brigid]

I agree with you that taking a "forensic" approach is ideal. I just see room for both fact-finding and interpreting. Since Tudor England was certainly a patriarchal society, I think looking back at the period through a modern -- feminist or whatever -- lens has value. It doesn't take the place of the actual facts of what happened, but it does offer a new perspective. Plus, a lot of the facts we have from contemporary sources are already tainted by ideology and the like, so it necessary to sort through them using some kind of standard.

[Harvey]

Brigid, don't get me wrong... I AM male. A fact. Having been married for a total of something like 27 years, apart from living and being brought up by my mother and grandmother, alongside my father and grandfather. the female perspective is not alien. Now, when we talk about such luminaries of the feminist perspective we are entering into another avenue. I do have a problem with ideology. While I have been politically active in the UK (when there), I do not carry such thoughts over into historical study. David Cameron, Brown, Blair, de Gaulle, Franco, Hitler, Marx, W. Wilson etc. have no relevance in my mind to Henry VII's politics or Henry VIII or anything except their own age. While I might think unworthy thoughts about Andrea Dworkin and her acolytes it is simply not my thesis at all. 'isms' side-track one from the main issues of history .... and our own time too!

[CF]

^ I have to say I agree with this. David Starkey did a brilliant lecture where he talked about the different re-interpretations of history. It's unessecary, I want the bare facts and the truth in whole. I would rather it not be subject to opinion.

We all KNOW that the horrific things that were done in that time were just that. Horrific, and we don't need anyone to tell us it is. Brilliant historic writers like Weir, Starkey, and Hutchinson can portray facts without putting their own opinion (aside from a joke here and there, which Hutchinson seems to love!) too much into it.

I also like to assume that history IS a science. Archaeology certainly is, so I don't think that it's coupling subject should be downgraded to Arts. Unfortunately most of the time it is.

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads, Mod #4]

Being an Art is not a "downgrade" in my book. Is English somehow lesser than physics?

And all historians, as all people, have biases. Some of them are just more obvious than others, and have labels to make them easier to spot.

You must be in the UK, Claire - as archaeology is rarely paired with history in the US.

[CF]

I am indeed in the UK ^^ History and Archaeology are paired here a lot. It's a shame they aren't over there as I think it's an awesome thing to do.

Nothing wrong with arts, but we need all the scientists we can get in this day and age.

[Jayme(theghostreader)]

I can see why they would pair History and Archeology together.

[Aly]

Here at MSU (Montana State) they are paired together. We also have a really awesome paleontology department and most of those students have to take some History classes too. I think it's important for the two to be paired together. why dig up things if you don't really understand the history behind it?

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads, Mod #4]

That's interesting that they are paired at Montana State - mostly I've seen archaeology as part of anthropology.

[Aly]

Archeology is actually one of the hardest majors to get through here. You're required to take certain math and science classes and anthropology classes too as well as history and the archeology classes. I've heard it's almost impossible to do in four years here.

[CF]

^ I'm planning to do a masters in Archaeology after my BA in history, I will be allowed in because of the history degree. It's so odd that differing places have such different entry requirements!

[Aly]

That's awesome, Claire!! I'm probably going to get a Master's in History after my BA in photography and history.