Showing results by author "Alison Weir" in All Categories

The lives of Henry VIII's queens make for dramatic stories, and Alison Weir writes a series of novels that offer insights into the real lives of the six wives based on extensive research and new theories. In all the romancing, has anyone regarded the evidence that Anne Boleyn did not love Henry VIII? Or that Prince Arthur, Katherine of Aragon's first husband, who is said to have loved her, in fact cared so little for her that he willed his personal effects to his sister?

Fresh from the cultivated hothouse of Renaissance France, Anne draws attention at the English court. A nobleman, a poet and a king vie for her love. She has a spirit worthy of a crown - and a crown is what she seeks. It is a more powerful aphrodisiac than love. And so she embarks on her perilous course, which will plunge a kingdom into turmoil. Blood will flow on her account. Her only protection is the King's great love.

The woman haunted by the fate of her predecessor. Eleven days after the death of Anne Boleyn, Jane is dressing for her wedding to the King. She has witnessed at firsthand how courtly play can quickly turn to danger and knows she must bear a son...or face ruin. This new Queen must therefore step out from the shadows cast by Katherine and Anne - in doing so, can she expose a gentler side to the brutal King?

A German Princess with a guilty secret. The King is in love with Anna's portrait, but she has none of the accomplishments he seeks in a new bride. She prays she will please Henry, for the balance of power in Europe rests on this marriage alliance. But Anna's past is never far from her thoughts, and the rumours rife at court could be her downfall. Everyone knows the King won't stand for a problem queen. Anna of Kleve. The fourth of Henry's Queens. Her story. 

At just 19, Katheryn Howard is quick to trust and fall in love. She comes to court. She sings, she dances. She captures the heart of the King. Henry declares she is his rose without a thorn. But Katheryn has a past of which he knows nothing. It comes back increasingly to haunt her. For those who share her secrets are waiting in the shadows, whispering words of love...and blackmail. 

The Plantagenet queens of England played a role in some of the most dramatic events in our history. Crusading queens, queens in rebellion against their king, queen seductresses, learned queens, queens in battle, queens who enlivened England with the romantic culture of southern Europe - these determined women often broke through medieval constraints to exercise power and influence, for good and sometimes for ill.

1549. Katharine Parr, the last of Henry VIII's queens, has been dead for some eight months. Her cousin, Mary Odell, comes to mourn her by the beautiful marble tomb Thomas Seymour has erected at their home, Sudeley Castle. Alone in the peaceful chapel, Mary will never be able to predict the fate of Katharine's resting place in the centuries to come. 1782. Sudeley is a ruin and Katharine's body has lain hidden for decades. But a determined young woman has resolved to find her grave - and pay homage to her legacy. 

Anne Bassett served four of Henry VIII's queens, yet the King himself once pledged to serve her. Had fate not decreed otherwise, she might have been his wife - and Queen of England. But now, far from court and heavy with her husband's child, Anne prays in the Hungerford chapel and awaits the ghostly figure she knows will come. This is her story, one that entwines with the fate of another Lady Hungerford from not so many years before. 

This acclaimed best seller from popular historian Alison Weir is a fascinating look at the Tudor family dynasty and its most infamous ruler. The Six Wives of Henry VIII brings to life England’s oft-married monarch and the six wildly different but equally fascinating women who married him. Gripping from the first sentence to the last and loaded with fascinating details, Weir’s rich history is a perfect blend of scholarship and entertainment.

Over the years of his reign, six different women took their place beside King Henry VIII of England as his wife and queen. But the real stories of the six Tudor queens belong to those who lived among them. Played out in glittering palaces and whispering courts, these are tales of the people who loved and served these women, and those who lied and betrayed them.

A woman torn between love and duty. Two husbands dead, a boy and a sick man. And now Katharine is free to make her own choice. The ageing king's eye falls upon her. She cannot refuse him, or betray that she wanted another. She becomes the sixth wife - a queen and a friend. Henry loves and trusts her. But Katharine is hiding another secret in her heart, a deeply held faith that could see her burn.

In this remarkable book, Alison Weir recounts one of the greatest and most remarkable love stories of medieval England. It is the extraordinary tale of an exceptional woman, Katherine Swynford, who became first the mistress, and later the wife, of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. But Katherine Swynford was much more than that.

1525. As Anne Boleyn's star rises at Henry VIII's court, Jane Parker's marriage to Anne's brother, George, brings her status and influence. But theirs is not a happy union and results in a bitter and bloody end. 1540. When Katheryn Howard, a young cousin of the Boleyns, becomes the King's fifth bride, Jane's past allegiance to the crown secures her senior rank in the new queen's household.

Mary Seymour is just a few weeks old when her mother, the Dowager Queen Katharine Parr, dies from childbed fever. She cannot know the tragedy that has befallen their home at Sudeley, or the secrets that her father, the Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour, is hiding. Lost in grief, he entrusts baby Mary to the care of Elizabeth Aglionby, one of Katharine's closest companions. But Elizabeth knows that the Lord Admiral has enemies in high places - and that he stands on the edge of a ruinous fall from grace. And, if the worst should happen, what will become of his infant daughter? 

The New York Times best-selling author of The Six Wives of Henry VIII and The War of the Roses, historian Alison Weir crafts fascinating portraits of England’s infamous House of Tudor line. Here Weir focuses on Elizabeth I, also known as the Virgin Queen, who ascended to the throne at age 25 and never married, yet ruled for 44 years and steered England into its Golden Age.

Exclusive to Audible. Join Alison Weir in the studios talking about her ambitious six part series - Six Tudor Queens. Explaining the process of writing a historical novel and how her passion was first ignited, we are given a glimpse into what it takes to write about well-known but often misunderstood historical figures. Alison Weir is a British writer of history books, and latterly historical novels, mostly in the form of biographies about British royalty.

Alison Weir was already one of Britain's most popular historians when she wrote her first novel, Innocent Traitor, which hit the Sunday Times bestseller list to a chorus of praise. Now, in her second novel, Alison Weir goes to the heart of Tudor England at its most dangerous and faction-riven in telling the story of Elizabeth I before she became queen. The towering capricious figure of Henry VIII dominates her childhood, but others play powerful roles.

Mary Boleyn was the mistress of two kings, Francois I of France and Henry VIII of England, and sister to Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife. In this astonishing and riveting biography, Alison Weir’s extensive research gives a new and detailed portrayal, in which she recounts that, contrary to popular belief, Mary was entirely undeserving of her posthumous notoriety as a great whore.

King Henry VIII is set to marry a woman he's never met. Wary of rumours whispered by foreign envoys, he sends Susanna Gilman, royal painter and trusted friend, to Kleve to find out more about his chosen bride. Before long, Susanna is returning to England with the Princess Anna, assuring the king she is a suitable match. But the king is disappointed - Anna is not as beautiful as her portrait.

The year is 1562. Lady Catherine Grey, cousin of Elizabeth I, has just been arrested along with her husband, Edward. Their crime is to have secretly married and produced a child who might threaten the Queen's title. Alone in her chamber at the Tower of London, Catherine hears ghostly voices; echoes, she thinks, of a crime committed in the same room where she is imprisoned.