Loved this book!

Very well researched, full of gems about the Tudor world. Highly recommended for history buffs.

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Easy to listen to, quite interesting.

Quite interesting. I am completely horrified with the author ridiculous conclusions.
I am truly at a loss how one presents a case where the evidence so overwhelmingly point to one overriding conclusion, then state that the reason for Catherine's downfall was basically her own fault and she was a slut!
NO. HENRY VIII WAS INSANE AND OUT OF CONTROL.
It's amazing that just a few 100 years later a civil war and the execution of a king will happen because the peers of the realm believe that said king is not acting within certain expected values.
Yet despite living under the constant threat of death the peers living under Henry do nothing except his bidding!

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Well done, fresh and in-depth book

A wonderful and well researched book with a fresh look at the tragic life and end of Catherine Howard. Beautifully written and well performed by Jenny Funnell. An important book for anyone intrested in the daily lives of those who lived and suffered the Tudors. Thank you, Gareth Russel, for an outstanding work.

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Catherine Howard: A raging Misogynist weighs in

I’m not bothered particularly by the side tangents this book goes into about Tudor England and the Howard family. The fact in the matter is that Catherine is unknowable because so little of her survives, whether because she was deliberately erased or simply because she was too young to have had much of a legacy. I’m sure there is a lot of good research in this book.


However, there’s a giant elephant in the room; the massive amount of misogyny woven into everything the author has to say about Catherine herself. While I don’t get the impression the author hates Catherine (he never calls her names or accuses her of deliberate malice), he is all-too-ready to dismiss her victimhood with whatever flimsy piece of evidence he could find. Catherine and the things she personally claimed are treated with much more skepticism than any other person, who are often taken at their word without question. I doubt the author is aware of his sexist biases, but they are impossible to ignore.


It’s glaringly obvious to anyone who knows anything about Catherine’s life that Russell has omitted and twisted several details to create the narrative that Catherine was never groomed and was not a victim of anything besides her own bad choices. In the process, he exposes his utter ignorance on the subject of grooming, consent and sexual abuse. If there is actually compelling evidence for the theory that Mannox was “only 5 years older” than Catherine, Russell fails to show it. All he can say is that Mannox seemed to surround himself with what we’d consider today to be teens, and if that’s all he’s got, I remain unconvinced. Russell also conveniently forgets to note that Catherine would have been only 13 or 14 at the start of her “relationship” with Mannox, so even if he were only 5 years older, his sexual contact with her would still be considered grooming by modern standards. When it comes to Dereham, Russell doesn’t mention his age at all, and given that most sources suggest he was at least 15 years older than her and how concerned Russell seems to be with exonerating these men, I doubt that was by accident. 


Russell cites things such as Catherine’s personality and how she appeared to others. She was flirty, therefore she couldn’t have been groomed. She seemed happy and consenting. This isn’t how grooming works. Catherine very well may have believed she was consenting, many children who have been groomed do, but by definition she COULD NOT CONSENT because she is a child incapable of informed consent. I’m no expert in this stuff either, this is very basic but it’s glaringly obvious how little Russell understands these things. And I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to look into even basic psychology about the effects of grooming and how this stuff works, you have no business writing about Catherine Howard. Period, end of story.


But it’s not just that, Russell is keen on erasing any sort of victimhood from Catherine’s narrative. She wasn’t neglected because she lived in a fancy house and the servants paid her reverence. Nevermind that she was basically an orphan who was only one of several kids living in her grandmother’s care, nevermind that it is blatantly obvious that she didn’t receive much oversight, nevermind that she was sexually active from age 13 with an older man. Catherine was emotional when she broke up with them, so she led them on. They couldn’t help but stalk and manipulate her, really it’s her fault.


Russell’s analysis of Catherine as a person is ignorant at best, horrifically misogynist at worst. I have to assume someone involved in the audiobook saw the misogyny, and thus opted for the female voice actor in order to obfuscate it. It doesn’t work. The author’s agenda bleeds through extremely clearly; Catherine wasn’t a victim, the men who abused her were actually victims of her feminine wiles, when she said Mannox raped her, she was lying. No, there isn’t any proof, just trust me, bro. 


I’d like to give this book a higher rating for the rest of the research, but I can’t. The narrative the author weaves of Catherine makes me too angry, so it gets 1 star. The voice actress did fine, but it doesn’t save the book. 

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2 people found this helpful