about henry’s wives
One of the pleasures of reading biographies is getting insights into characters so unlike myself. Or anyone I know, for that matter. Recently I’ve been reading Alison Weir’s biography of the six wives of Henry VIII and I feel as though I’ve hit the mother lode of characterization. Each woman is unique and complex. There’s so much to chew on here that I thought it would be fun to come up with a Wife of King Henry characterization sheet that we could use for our own writing.
So, forth with:
Katherine of Aragon had the virtues of being intelligent and brave, but she was also intransigent. Really, after a point she could have gone to a nunnery and everyone concerned would have been happier. Don’t you know people who are so sure they are right that they are willing to destroy all around them? Are they fueled by pride or virtue?
And then there’s Anne Boleyn, who was charming and seductive, but also seemed to have a bad temper and when she began to panic about her relationship with the King, she behaved so outrageously that she pushed him away. If she could have stopped yelling at Henry a bit, she might have lived longer. Don’t you know people who undercut their relationships with others because of something they do? How does fear change a person’s behavior?
Jane Seymour was docile and a devoted wife. But she was also lonely because she would only associate with people of her stature. Don’t you know people who seem to have it all, but are really lonely on the inside? How do you behave if you think you are better than everyone else?
Then there was poor Anne Cleves, whose misfortune it was to be plain. She suffered an unbelievable insult when Henry put her away (and is there a writer out there who has not known humiliation?) But somehow she wound up happiest of the wives. She found the secret to contentment. Had she lived today she could have written an Oprah book. How do your characters search for happiness?
Fifth, and most tragic, was Katherine Howard, whose biggest problem was that she was young and foolish. Devil Wears Prada except that Meryl Streep has the power to behead you, to mix my media. How often have you seen someone headed for disaster and you know there’s not a thing you can do? In a new novel that I’ve begun working on, I’ve got a young woman out of control and I have to confess I was the sort of young woman who sat in the library reading. So learning about Katherine Howard is helpful. What’s it like to be wild?
And finally Katherine Parr, who has the most modern feel to her because she knew what was going on and worked it. I like her the least because she seems so calculating, but I suppose if I were marrying a man who’d had two of his wives executed, I might be cold too. How far will your characters go to get what they want?
So how about you? Any of the wives remind you of your own characters?
January 7th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
What a great topic for a blog! I’m with you, I don’t like the calculatedness of Katherine Howard, but I wonder how much of that is to do with my being indoctrinated with a male-oriented society. Good for her that she did what she could to live.
I don’t know that my characters are Henry wives. They tend to be ball busters (pardon my French). They’re women of our times, so they know what it is to be second to man — I guess Henry’s wives did too, but in our times they could fight back. My most recent heroine is returning to her high school reunion. She was ridiculed back then. She pulls off her excess fat and feeds it to the dogs. She pulls out her eyes and puts carnations in their place. She tucks lilies in her ears and enters the gym, skinless, fatless, eyeless, unable to hear the jeers. She’s really all of us, ok, most of us. O.k., ME. In the end, she makes her tormentors face her and what they’ve done. In the end, she holds her own heart and gives it the love that it needed all along.
I guess most of us are Henry’s wives in the sense that we believe or are captive to the idea that someone else determines our worth. Our characters are sometimes an outgrowth of ourselves or a reflection of society. At any rate, thanks for the blog. It really lightens my day when you have a new post. No pressure — really. Waiting is half the fun.
Btw, I have a memoir in the book Six-Word Memoirs of Love and Heartbreak that is out on Amazon and some independent book stores: http://www.amazon.com/Six-Word-Memoirs-Love-Heartbreak-Writers/dp/0061714623/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231219422&sr=8-1
It’s not much, but it’s a start. Thanks Susan, for all of your encouragement through your own story.
KT
January 8th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
KT,
What a wonderful comment, and so much to think about. Congratulations on your memoir(ette?); that sounds like a great book. I’ll look for it. And thank you for your encouragement, too. It is greatly appreciated!
April 9th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Regarding Katherine of Aragon you ask: “Don’t you know people who are so sure they are right that they are willing to destroy all around them? Are they fueled by pride or virtue?”
The first question also describes Henry, which to me means this marriage and the next four were doomed from the start–with or without a male heir. (Katherine Parr’s would probably have failed, too, had Henry not died first.) But while Kof A’s single-mindedness, in my opinion, was fueled by both pride and virtue, the king’s was driven by pride and the love of power. (Consider how many of his personal friendships and official alliances ended in the execution of the un-royal party!)
Good summary, though!