Recent Reads {The Constant Princess}

The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory - It's no wonder Philippa Gregory is knowwn as the 'queen of royal fiction'  Reading this historical novel often felt like I was reading Katherine's personal diary.  I think that most of us are familiar with Katherine of Aragon as the first wife of Henry VIII, and view her as the older,  severely and stiffly religious queen that he set aside in favor of Anne Boleyn.  Fewer people remember much about a younger Katherine, when she was Catalina, the Infanta of Spain - a glamourous young princess who married the beloved older Tudor son, Arthur, and was prepared from babyhood to be the future Queen of England.  Gregory begins her story with Catalina's life in Spain and her arrival in England, and presents us with believable personalities for the historical figures that may explain some of their actions.  One of the scandals of the Tudors was the question of whether Katherine was a virgin as she claimed when she married Henry.  At the time, there wasn't any suggestion that her marriage to Arthur had never been consummated - it was only after Arthur died that this was asserted by Katherine and her duenna.  Later, when Henry VIII was planning to have the marriage annulled, it was asserted that she had lied about this.  Gregory believes that Katherine probably did lie, and offers us a very likely explanation for her motives in this book.  An thoroughly enjoyable read, as I'm coming to expect from Philippa Gregory.