The Fifth Queen

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Historical Fiction with a Capital F… - Rated
Ford’s The Fifth Queen trilogy deals with, as may be conjectured, Katherine Howard – after all, how many other monarchs have had five or more queens? If you are at all familiar with your Tudor history then I’m afraid you’re not going to find the Katherine Howard you are familiar with here. Ford’s Katherine is tall, witty and an expert in Latin. The real Katherine we know was petite and barely literate. Here she is Ford’s Catholic martyr and romantic heroine.

Many of the other characters, or historical figures, are pretty well drawn, although the Lady Mary comes across as a thoroughly unpleasant woman, sneering and snickering her way through the book.

Usually blatant historical inaccuracies in novels like these really get my goat. I shudder at the very name of Phillipa Gregory. Nevertheless I did enjoy the Fifth Queen trilogy and got through it reasonably quickly, being nearly 600 pages in all. The writing was good, the settings realistic and characters behaved consistently, even where they weren’t as they were supposed to be! This is another example of why you should not judge a book by its first chapter as I did think it would be a struggle to finish, but afterwards I got drawn in to the story.

All in all an enjoyable read, although not a great book. I think sometimes it says more about its author and the Edwardian period than Katherine Howard and the Tudors!