The Queen's Rival: In the Court of Henry VIII [Paperback]

I've read a gazillion books about Henry VIII, his court, and his wives. I watched all the movies, new and old, and the Showtime TV series. In all these books and movies I've come across Bessie Blount many times, but no one ever took the time to tell her story. When I saw this book was about to be released I was SUPER excited, and it absolutely lived up to my expectations.

Bessie Blount, while certainly not the first mistress of Henry VIII, was definitely a favorite of his. Even before she bore his only son (well before the arrival of Edward, his son with Queen Jane Seymour), Henry had a deep fondness for Bess. Their affair lasted for 8 years...a significant amount of time for Henry to spend with any woman. In fact, the only other woman he spent so much time with (besides Catherine of Aragon) was Anne Boleyn, but she wasn't his mistress. She held him off sexually for 9 years until finally becoming Queen (though she gave into him shortly before then since she was pregnant at her coronation). But I believe the only reason Henry waited so long for Anne was so he could finally have her. I doubt he would have bothered breaking with the church and making her Queen if she'd given into him from the very beginning...but I digress.

We meet Mistress Blount as an 11 year old girl still at home in Kinlet. We follow her from her very first naive days at court, through her love affair with the King of England, the heartache of birthing the kings only son and having him taken away from her so he could be raised properly at court. We see her through her first marriage, then her second, and finally, the death of her precious boy which leads to the final page of her relationship with Henry VIII. While I personally think this story leaned more towards the fiction side, I thought it was very well done, and it was VERY hard to put down.

Some parts seemed a wee bit unbelievable to me, like the way Henry would act around Bess, or conversations they would have...it seemed so far from the Henry I feel I've come to know over the years, but that's the point of Historical Fiction, is it not? To bend the story sometimes for entertainment sake, while keeping the basic facts true. Ms Haeger has done an excellent job with Bess's story, and I absolutely recommend it. Especially for anyone interested in Tudor novels. The story of Bessie Blount is NOT one you'll come across often (or EVER!), so it was a pleasure to read about a time I love from a very different perspective. I'll absolutely be keeping an eye out for future novels from Ms. Haeger, as well as checking out some of her past books. I read Courtesan: A Novel by her a while back and absolutely LOVED it, so I'm excited to see who else she's written about.

This historical novel is neither good nor awful. Without being excruciatingly modern, it doesn't have a sixteenth century feel to it. It seemed devoid of atmosphere. Henry VIII didn't come across as a dreadful caricature, but neither did he come to life or have much depth.

Given how bad much historical fiction is this would be forgivable, were it not for the author's deliberate decision to fudge historical fact. In Chapter 11, dated November 1518, we have Thomas Boleyn presenting his two daughters at court. Mary Boleyn may very well have returned to England from France around this time, but it's well known that Anne Boleyn returned in late 1521 or early 1522, and first publicly appeared at the Shrovetide celebrations in February 1522. As if that's not bad enough, in Chapter 15 - dated June 1520 - we have this:

"Katherine knelt alone in the dark shadows of early evening inside the king's privy chapel of cold stone. Beneath her unadorned black gown she had taken to wearing the hair shirt of the Order of St. Francis to increase her discipline and self-punishment. She knew she would be left safely alone here since Henry would be with her--Anne Boleyn: temptress, beauty, thief. One Boleyn sister had not been enough, so now these past weeks he had begun to show favor to the other."

The author has backdated Henry VIII's interest in Anne Boleyn, which is generally reckoned to have commenced in late 1525 or early 1526, by at least five years. Did she think that historical fiction readers, who stand a good chance of also being readers of popular history, wouldn't notice? And, of course, Anne Boleyn was in another country at this time. There's more of this later in the book: in 1525 she has Katherine of Aragon ruminating on her divorce, when Henry VIII didn't convene an ecclesiastical court to begin divorce proceedings until May 1527.

Another problem was that I felt there just wasn't enough material for a book of nearly 400 pages. Without feeling actively padded out, it seemed a bit thin on story. Beverly Murphy's biography of Bessie Blount's son by Henry VIII, Bastard Prince: Henry VIII's Lost Son, claims that the fact that Bessie fell pregnant suggests she wasn't an experienced courtesan who knew how to avoid unwanted pregnancy, and that her affair with Henry was brief: "All the evidence suggests this was no an affair of any duration, but a short-term liaison with an unexpectedly pleasant result" (p. 27). There's no proof she and Henry weren't fond of each other, and historical novelists are fully entitled to speculate on people's feelings, and imply that there may have been a great romance when there's no evidence there was. But the result is that this novel sometimes reads more like a romance novel than a historical novel. This isn't necessarily a criticism, since historical romances can be as enjoyable as historical novels, but those who prefer more substantial, literary historical novels might not be impressed.

There are also some strange mistakes, e.g.: "Elizabeth Carew had heard the entire exchange as she stood a few feet away with Lady Elizabeth Howard, wife of Thomas Boleyn" (p. 290) and ""She will not be back," Mary Boleyn's mother, Lady Howard, put in crudely" (p. 291). As a married woman, Mary and Anne Boleyn's mother, born Elizabeth Howard, would not have been referred to by her maiden name, let alone as "Lady Howard".

And on p. 43: "Marguerite of Navarre was said to be beautiful and witty, which Wolsey knew was the real reason Henry was keeping his army in Therouanne longer than necessary." Actually she means Marguerite of Austria, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy, and Regent of the Netherlands. She has mixed her up with Marguerite d'Angouleme, sister of Francis I of France, who became Marguerite of Navarre much later, when she married Henry II of Navarre. Haeger also fudges the date of Cardinal Wolsey's death, pretending he died in April 1530 instead of November 1530, and admitting in her Author's Note that "the month of his death was here altered". Why, oh why, alter it? Shouldn't historical novelists who want to be taken seriously fit their stories around the facts, and not the other way around?

Aside from making mistakes, fudging facts and being rather lightweight and romantic, this book doesn't have any catastrophic flaws, so it doesn't quite deserve a one or two star "vote of no confidence". I can just bring myself to give it three stars, but it certainly doesn't warrant even three-and-a-half.

Fourteen years old Bessie Blount is part of the retinue of Queen Katherine of Aragon. However, the precocious teen catches the eye of Katherine's wandering husband King Henry VIII. He wants her, which makes her an enemy of her employer.

The monarch and the teenager begin a tryst, which ends when she becomes pregnant; replaced by the Boleyn sisters. When she gives birth to a son Henry, her baby is removed from her care and she is forced to leave court. She marries her friend, Lord Gilbert Tailbois and has three children with him before his death makes her a widow. She dies from consumption when she is in her thirties.

The latest In the Court of Henry VIII historical thriller (see The Queen's Mistake), Diane Haeger focuses on the life of Bess Blount who was Henry's mistress when she was a teen only to be kicked aside when the Boleyn babes arrived at court. Ironically, their offspring is the only illegitimate that the lusty womanizing monarch recognized. Even with Bessie bringing freshness as a rarely used (if ever) character, the period has been the setting so frequently that fans of anything Tudor will find little fresh though "Bless 'ee, Bessie Blount" makes for an engaging biographical fiction anyway.

Harriet Klausner

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 10 reviews  4.2 out of 5 stars