Katharine Parr: the Sixth Wife // Book Review

Katharine Parr: the Sixth Wife

By Alison Weir

★★★★☆

My thoughts:

It’s no secret that I love Tudor fiction. In 2016, I read my first Philippa Gregory novel, and that lead me to Alison Weir. After reading my first books from these authors, my love for this sub-genre was cemented, and I’ve been hooked ever since. So Katharine Parr: the Sixth Wife was very much a comfort read for me, and I knew I would enjoy it before I read the first page.

I like the way Alison Weir developed Katharine’s character throughout the story. From an early age we see Katharine having an interest in education, but she also lacks the super ambitious personality that I’ve seen in other Tudor fiction novels. What we end up with is an intelligent female protagonist in a time period where this would be controversial and even frowned upon, and she also is perfectly content with the life she’s been handed. Of course, it’s not a difficult life, but historically, women didn’t have much in the way of choice in the 1500s, but Katharine was happy to take her lot and make the most of it. I admired that in her.

As Katharine gets older and we see her in her first two marriages, we also witness her compassion and her desire to do good things with a pure heart. And I found these efforts to be genuine. It lead me to care for Katharine and to root for her. She’s quite likable, and her intentions always felt honest. So I was bummed when the moment came for Katharine’s marriage to Henry VIII to take centerstage.

Henry VIII is a notorious king both historically and in all the fiction I’ve read of this time period. He’s often depicted as ruthless, power-hungry, and dangerously unpredictable. But this is where Alison Weir surprised me. She gave us a different look at this larger-than-life king. This time, he was more human, more composed, and more thoughtful. We see flashes of honest devotion to Katharine and glimpses of a man who may have had a heart after all. And for the first time, I can see the possibility of a highly strategic king who truly was always in control, playing his courtiers as puppets while knowing their motives and power plays all along.

Opting for this perspective of Henry VIII allowed me to more fully enjoy reading about his marriage to Katharine. I didn’t just care for Katharine, I found myself caring for Henry, too. And knowing the historical facts - that Katharine was the last wife of Henry VIII - I allowed myself to fall into their romance as I read, and I was invested in their well-being as individual characters and as a married pair.

But after Henry’s death, I started to get impatient with the story. As much as I wanted to like Thomas Seymour, I didn’t. As much as I had liked Katharine, she started to annoy me. Throughout much of the book, Katharine didn’t care for power or control, yet toward these latter pages she just “couldn’t let it go.” The “it” being her influence as a queen. And Thomas’s increasing jealousy only made it worse along with his advances on the young Elizabeth.

Of course, all of this is based on historical record, so I understand Alison Weir not changing facts. But the way in which it was written didn’t work for me. Where I really loved the bulk of the book and found myself getting more and more wrapped up in the story’s conflicts as they unfolded, during this final part I found myself just being irritated. The drama felt more peevish and less juicy, which is why I’m rating this book four stars instead of five. The ending just wasn’t quite as strong as I had wanted it to be.

With that said, I did enjoy this book as a whole, and I looked forward to reading it every day. It’s a more plot-driven novel, but there was still enough character development for me to feel invested in the characters. I’d certainly recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction, especially this time period. It’s a good one.

Katharine Parr: the Sixth Wife is the sixth and final installment of Alison Weir’s Six Tudor Queens series. I’ve eagerly awaited each book’s publication date year after year, and it’s been bittersweet for me to finish the series after all this time. They have been something I’ve looked forward to every May from 2016 to 2021. I preordered the books or showed up to the bookstore the day of the release to buy my copy. It’s been a great joy to read this series, and I can see myself rereading the books now that I have them all and can read them back-to-back. But first, I want to tackle Alison Weir’s backlist - fiction and nonfiction alike.