By Alison Plowden
Publisher: Sutton Publisher
182 pp
0750928808
O dear. Take a deep breath. Remember book reviews aim to present a balanced view. Let's now put aside my reason for annoyance, and firstly focus on the positives offered by this brief book, a re-publication of a work first published in 1979. Come to think of it, considering the length of time between its first publication, and the book's new release in 2002, it is interesting why the writer didn't take the opportunity to offer to her readers a more revised version of this work, broadening her research, and double checking all her facts. Nevertheless, Alison Plowden's Tudor Women's still does have many good points to recommend it as a brief examination and introduction of the subject, although I issue a warning here not take every word as the gospel truth. The book title too is misleading - very little in the book concerns the lives of 'common' women.
I welcome any book introducing students to the Tudor world, especially works hopefully opening the door to further investigation of women's lives in Tudor period, giving voice to the more familiar silence - helping us hear and understand women in the context of their times. As this writer writes in a very accessible, undemanding style, High School students will find this book useful and suitable for their history school projects. School librarians will welcome it for their students research needs. But I'm afraid nothing new is offered by the writer for the more serious Tudor student.
Plowden's Tudor Women basically explores the subject through chapters briefly describing the lives of the main women of the Tudor royal family. I am afraid it also succumbs to the stereotypical views held to be true of these women. It is almost as if Plowden fears to present readers with any deep and important examination - or her own views. What can you say about a woman writer seemingly agreeing with Robert Cecil that Elizabeth's success as a queen came about because Elizabeth was 'more than a man and, in troth, sometimes less than a woman.'? Yes - Elizabeth was more than most men, but she was more than most people, but that never ever made her less than a woman! Can you guess now at what annoyed me?
Parts of the book are contradictory too. Take what the writer says about Anne Boleyn. Alison Plowden writes, 'It's never been easy just to understand what Henry VIII saw in Anne Boleyn,' but then goes on to say, 'She was lively, sophisticated and accomplished - a charming and witty, well versed in the arts of pleasing.' Surely enough explanation to help explain what the King saw Anne Boleyn! Alison Plowden also tells us Catherine of Aragon possessed a soft, sweet voice, when it well known to people who know the period her voice was deep and 'big sounding'(1) - something inherited by her daughter Mary.
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