Good but not for the the faint hearted.

This will not be for those die hard romantic historical fiction readers/listeners who firmly believe a revolting, psychologically BPD Henry VIII is some kind of hero rather than a user/abuser of women. That’s the cold hard fact. Yeah he did a lot for the navy etc etc but reality of Henry is very very different. Gristwood takes the listeners back to the start of courtly love in the medieval via troubadours and discusses their influence over the centuries. She makes a valid comment that courtly love has a murderous twinge to it. Chasing the chaste, the wooing from a love struck afar and then after capture complete discarding or disgrace. I disagree with some points that she makes but overall she is correct. Gristwood should have been more critical of the Tudors who were at best upstarts trying to be royalty, plagued with inadequacies and paranoia and murderous. The judicial murder of one spouse on trumped up ludicrous charges and the killing of another hardly out of her teenage years is morally reprehensible and wrong in any age no matter how much spin you put on it as historians generally do tying themselves up into human pretzels making excuses. Pathologically dysfunctional best describes the Tudor family when it comes to love.

The book should have been entitled “ The history of Courtly Love from the medieval to the Renaissance’ But of course, put the word ‘Tudor’ in the title and it will sell. Those that wear Tudor Rose coloured glasses I fear will be disappointed because the first half of the book deals with the historical context.Regardless, the narration is good but there are glaring errors with dates. I’m not sure if this is the narrator or the author but they jar on ones nerves ie: Constance of Castile John of Guants 2nd wife dies in 1394 not 1934. It was Edward III that started the Garter not Edward II.

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