Children of England: The Heirs of Henry VIII 1547-1558 by Alison Weir

In the eleven years between 1547 and 1558, four heirs of Henry VIII took the crown of England: Edward VI, Henry’s son by Jane Seymour; Jane Grey, Henry’s niece; Mary Tudor, his daughter by Catherine of Aragon; and finally Elizabeth, his daughter by Anne Boleyn.  If Henry’s rule was tumultuous and fraught with personal entanglements, the dramas that unfolded in the next decade made the Old Tyrant’s reign look like a rehearsal.  Religious wars, fatal diseases, kidnappings, beheadings, persecutions, false pregnancies, a lecherous stepfather, child abuse, assassination plots, and treasonous scheming unfolded in the dicey and dangerous political world of England after Henry’s death.

Historian Alison Weir brings order to the chaotic times of Tudor England with her remarkably readable Children of England: The Heirs of Henry VII 1547-1558. In a well laid-out chronology, Weir tells the stories of the three children and one niece who, in quick succession, inherited the throne.  Sickly Edward VI was an obdurate Protestant child-king manipulated by his ambitious maternal uncle Edward Seymour.   When the young king died at age sixteen, Henry’s great niece, fifteen-year-old Jane Grey—another cruelly manipulated child—came to the throne for her tragic nine-day reign.  Then Bloody Mary Tudor, stubbornly Catholic and determined to restore her religion to the realm, ruled for five years during which she burned at least 300 so-called heretics; when she died, she had lost the overwhelming popularity she had held when she came to the throne.  Weir’s book ends with the ascension of Elizabeth.  Her reign, of course, was a long and productive era, a time which has been called England’s “golden age.”

Weir writes accessible history, which is not to say superficial; her scholarship is undeniable, and her ability to enliven the characters and to explore their relationships is what makes this book work.  The author explains one of the most interesting times of English history—an era that has caught the interest of historians and novelists for centuries.