Katheryn Howard, the Scandalous Queen - Alison Weir Audiobook

Written by Alison Weir
Read by Rosalyn Landor
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Six Tudor Queens, Book 5
Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
Release date: May 26, 2020
Duration: 16:31:39

The tragic story of Henry VIIIs fifth wife, a nineteen-year-old beauty with a hidden past, in this fifth novel in the sweeping Six Tudor Queens series.

In the spring of 1540, Henry VIII is desperate to be rid of his unappealing German queen, Anna of Kleve. A prematurely aged and ailing forty-nine, with an ever-growing waistline, he casts an amorous eye on a pretty nineteen-year-old brunette, Katheryn Howard. Like her cousin Anne Boleyn, Katheryn is a niece of the Duke of Norfolk, Englands premier Catholic peer, who is scheming to replace Anna of Kleve with a good Catholic queen.

A fun-loving, eager participant in the life of the royal court, Katheryn readily succumbs to the kings attentions when she is intentionally pushed into his path by her ambitious family. Henry quickly becomes besotted and is soon laying siege to Katheryns virtue. But as instructed by her relations, she holds out for marriage and the wedding takes place a mere fortnight after the kings union to Anna is annulled. Henry tells the world his new bride is a rose without a thorn, and extols her beauty and her virtue, while Katheryn delights in the pleasures of being queen and the rich gifts her adoring husband showers upon her: the gorgeous gowns, the exquisite jewels, and the darling lap-dogs.

She comes to love the ailing, obese king, enduring his nightly embraces with fortitude and kindness. If she can bear him a son, her triumph will be complete. But Katheryn has a past of which Henry knows nothing, and which comes back increasingly to haunt hereven as she courts danger yet again. What happens next to this naïve and much-wronged girl is one of the saddest chapters in English history.

Narrator Rosalyn Landor is a one-woman full-cast production. Alison Weir turns history into flesh and blood. The combination is extraordinary. The story of Henry VIII’s fifth wife reminds us how deadly dangerous he was. Before she even imagines going to live in the court, Katheryn Howard–beautiful, young, willful, and from a prominent family–makes several bad choices in men. Cousin to Anne Boleyn (a little foreshadowing?) and niece to the ambitious, throne-obsessed Duke of Norfolk, Katheryn is sent to court to catch the eye of the much-married, obese, and ailing king. Landor captures young Katheryn’s joy in youthful pleasures and her delight at the luxurious surroundings of the glittering life at court. When her past is revealed and tragedy is inevitable, Landor makes our hearts ache. Exceptional storytelling. A+ listening. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2020,