phillipa gregory
I just bought "The Bolyn Inheritance" It, like the other installments in her fictionalized Tudor History , does not paint the rosiest picture of male/ female relationships.

This one is about Anne of Cleaves. She was one of the divorced wives of Henry the Eighth, and the traditional account is that he was duped by a overly flattering portrait, and that she was too unattractive to arouse Henry enough to consummate the marriage. Gregory finds historical evidence that suggests that this translation is less fact based than it is Henry- based. and that the real reason the marriage failed had more to do with Henry's ill health, overindulgence in wine, and the fact that Anne, not knowing him on first meeting, made it loudly and publically clear that she was repulsed by him.

This is what gets me about all of these stories, and this will probably sound wierd == I am almost less appalled by the actual executions of Anne and Katherine Parr than I am by the incredible amount of shame and contempt henry heaped on Anne of cleaves and Katharine of Aragon. The shame they had to live with. The shame that their own kin and friends had to agree with, to save their own necks== or, in some cases, just because it is so much more sexy to believe ugly stories.

Anyhow.. running out of steam for some reason....