Six Tudor Queens: Writing a New Story

by Alison Weir Book 0.1 in the Six Tudor Queens series.

First published 2016

Amazon

2.5(5)

Alison Weir explains the conception of the Six Tudor Queens project and the historical method behind retelling the lives of Henry VIII’s wives as fiction. The short publication considers the surviving evidence, the need to distinguish documented fact from credible invention, and the different viewpoints through which familiar Tudor events can be understood. It serves as an introduction to the sequence rather than as a standalone historical novel.

The discussion is useful for distinguishing historical fiction from biography. Weir explains where documentary evidence permits firm reconstruction and where a novelist must infer private conversation, emotion or motivation. The project therefore becomes a case study in how fiction can inhabit gaps in the record without presenting invention as established fact.

Historical Periods

Reign of Henry VIII1509–1547 CE

Genres

Court & Political Fiction

Historical people

Henry VIII1491–1547 Catherine of Aragon1485–1536 Anne Boleyn1501–1536 Jane Seymour1508–1537 Anne of Cleves1515–1557 Catherine Howard1523–1542 Catherine Parr1512–1548