Six wives : the queens of Henry VIII

Catherine of Aragon, the pious Spanish Catholic who suffered years of miscarriages and failed to produce a male heir; Anne Boleyn, the pretty, clever, French-educated 'Protestant' whose marriage to Henry changed England forever; Jane Seymour, the demure and submissive contrast to Anne's radical and vampish style; Anne of Cleves, 'the Mare of Flanders' whose short marriage to the over-weight Henry followed a farcical 'beauty contest'; Catherine Howard, the flirtatious teenager whose adulteries made a fool of the ageing King; and Catherine Parr, the shrewd, religiously radical bluestocking who outlived him...In this dazzling study, David Starkey gives a richly textured picture of daily life at the Tudor Court from the woman's point of view.

Above all, he establishes the interaction of the private and public, and demonstrates how the Queens of Henry VIII were central in determining political policy.