Katherine Parr the Sixth Wife

Alison Weir does it again with the final book in The Tudor Queens series about Henry VIII’s sixth and final wife Katherine Parr. Katherine was the wife that survived the dangerous Tudor court and outlived Henry VIII without being divorced beheaded or dying of natural causes. The book about Katherine Parr is tied with Jane Seymour for being my favorite books out of The Tudor Queens series.

Pros & Cons

There weren’t too many new details I learned unfortunately it was still a fun book to read though. Alison said in the author’s note that there was no concrete proof that Katherine’s first husband could have been gay, but since none of us were there we’ll never know for sure. After all Katherine never bore any children till she married Thomas Seymour. I liked seeing Katherine’s interaction with her stepchildren and treated them all as if they were her own. In the end Katherine named her daughter Mary after Mary Tudor. I also respect Katherine she had to use her smarts to survive being married to Henry, if he found out she was staunch Protestant he’d have her executed. While Henry created his own Church of England, it still had a lot of Catholic traditions. Books where religious strife between Catholics, Protestants and other faiths, make me appreciate being born in American. In America I chose to be Catholic and I can practice my faith without fear of being executed for it. It’s also sad seeing Thomas Seymour become a bit corrupt, it seemed Katherine never had much luck in her marriages.

Overall

Overall it was a great conclusion to The Tudor Queens series. I can’t wait to see who Alison Weir writes about next. I would love for her to write a Mary Queen of Scotts book or about The Stuarts or about Catherine of Braganza the Portuguese Queen of King Charles. Theres so many royals out there that would be a great book to read about that I believe Alison would do an excellent job of writing about.