The Constant Princess

I've just stepped back in time to fill this months quota of blog posts with a brief book review of:

{ The Constant Princess }

Which I read in late May and very early June.

Spoilers alert......below

The book is part of a set.... so plenty of historical fiction to feast upon.... if Tudors history take your fancy.

It's called the Tudor Court Collection if you want to go and find them.

I actually really liked reading this book.  It kept me coming back again and again until it was finished.

Essentially it's the story of Katherine of Aragon who comes to England as a 15 year old to marry the 'next in line' to the throne, Prince Arthur.  Things are particularly short lived, as in only months, before he ups and dies in a tragic moment of the "sweats".

Before he dies though he gets Katherine to promise him to seek to have her place as the next Queen of England, which means she must marry his younger brother.  To ensure this happens she must always swear that Arthur was "unmanned" and that the wedding had never been consummated.  Everybody accepts that the wedding wasn't consumated, and so she is betrothed to Harry, but he's still a boy, so she'll be waiting a few years.

The plot thickens with the death of the Queen.  This brings on a proposal from the King himself that he might marry Katherine and thus she would be able to rise to the title of Queen, but she turns him down because it would not make her sons next in line.  Her only path is with Harry { Henry VIII } if she wants her offspring to succeed to the the throne.

As added interest we find that the King is royally ticked at having been spurned - so the next few years go by in poverty and isolation while her parents and the king continue to squabble over her dowry.  The Queen mother being particularly nasty towards Katherine the entire time.  Rumors that Harry is betrothed to another arise.

Finally, the king dies.  Harry comes to Katherine in a rush, enthusiastic and jubilant, ha ha, and not even overly saddened that his dad has just died because all he can think about is getting married to Katherine and........ the rest is History.  It's a royal happy ending - filled with infidelity within the first year, but nevertheless she becomes the Queen of England and remains in that office until they drag her into court 27 years later where she will be given her divorce.

And that my friends is where this book ends.... with her going in to court.

Not suitable for children under the age of 18.  While the book is not overly explicit, I thought that it handled it well in the minimized way that it did.  It's the fact that it mentions private moments in some capacity that makes it not appropriate.

Thanks for dropping in.