The story of Edward Seymour, brother to Henry VIII’s Queen Jane, and Lord Protector to Edward VI is well known, those of his wives, are less so. If these women do make the pages of history books, it is often in connection with the scandalous tales attached to their names.
Rebecca Batley tackles the evidence behind the scandal and gossip and pieces together the lives of Catherine Fillol and Anne Stanhope from the surviving sources in a superbly written narrative account.
The most I knew about Catherine Filliol before reading this book, was the story that she may have had an affair with her father-in-law, was sent to a convent and that her sons were disinherited by Edward.
Anne Stanhope is known for her arguments with Dowager Queen Katherine Parr over jewels and precedence at court. The author shows that there was so much more to this Tudor survivor. After a spell in the Tower during her husband’s downfall, Anne was lucky not to return there during Elizabeth I’s reign, when her son Edward married Katherine Grey without permission. Under the terms of Henry VIII’s will, one of Anne’s grandsons should have inherited the throne in 1603.
This is a must read for all lovers of Tudor history.
Thank you to Pen and Sword and Net Galley for my review copy
