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 Historical
Henry VIII: The King and His Court
 by Alison Weir
$16.95 / Ballantine Books
/ 2001
I have not been a great fan of Alison Weir, although it would
be hard to say precisely what struck me as a little "off"
about her writing-the occasional not-quite-accurate point, a
slightly questionable interpretation of a personality-nothing
tangible but nonetheless, I have not always felt at ease with
her work or with her conclusions.
With Henry VIII: The King and His Court, I admit to having
had reservations in the beginning, But this book is thorough
and evocative, and Weir's use of Henry's passion for building
is cleverly woven into the work. She describes how Henry was
the one who brought English architecture out of the Middle Ages
of battlemented fortresses and moated keeps, and into the sunlight
of the Italian and French renaissance influences. And it was
Henry who brought erudition, scholarship, and the arts to English
society.
Furthermore, the palaces which he constructed for the various
wives (or to house his children or to accommodate his growing
court) outline for us the windings of Henry's unfolding growth
or diminution of character. The high and low tides he faced financially
are equally imprinted on his building projects, especially in
his later years when money went more for fortifications against
increasingly vitriolic European foes than for building new castles
and manor houses. Henry's reign is reflected in his building,
and both are cleverly and attentively covered here.
No bland and list-like rendering this. Rather, this biography
is a complex and convivial marriage of man with lifestyle, as
was mirrored in the homes he chose to create.
—Anjuli MacDoanld
of Clanranald
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