Novel Travels: Six Wives

I'm having to get creative with the last few letters of the alphabet.

Ever since Phillipa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl came out and the Tudors hit Showtime, Henry VIII is everywhere with his wives. Suddenly, bookstore shelves are buckling under the weight of the Tudor Era novels, many re-imagining and re-tellings (not a word, really) of stories about Henry VIII's wives. Many of the books (I've not read many) give a good sense of a woman's powerlessness at that time in history. And those books are probably good airplane reading.

Long before The Other Boleyn Girl I studied in London for a summer. My goal, besides learning about politics and media, was to visit the graves of each of Henry VIII's six wives. Antonia Fraser's The Wives of Henry VIII made this possible by the photographs and captions of all the grave sites.

Catherine of Aragon is in Peterborough Cathedral.
Anne Boleyn lies in the Tower of London, in the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula.
Jane Seymore is buried with Henry VIII in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.
Ann of Cleves is in Westminster Abbey.
Katherine Howard is also in the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula.
Catherine Parr lies in the Chapel at Sudley Castle.

Reminder: Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived.

I also recommend Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII. I'm looking forward to reading David Starkey's The Queens of Henry VIII.