Retha M. Warnicke

Retha Warnicke's fascinating and controversial reinterpretation focuses on the sexual intrigues and family politics pervading the court, offering a new explanation of Anne's fall.

Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII

The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn

Warnicke, Retha Marvine Warnicke

A study of the marrying of Anne of Cleves to Henry VIII and of sexual court politics.

Royal Protocol in Early Modern England

The Marrying of Anne of Cleves

Examines the reasons behind Anne Boleyn's execution, discusses the social and religious values of the period, and covers court intrigues

This book delves into the lives of six Tudor women celebrated for their reputed 'wickedness'— Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, the two consorts of Henry VIII who were executed for adultery; Anne Seymour, duchess of Somerset, and Lettice Dudley, countess of Essex and Leicester, two defamed noblewomen; and Jane and Alice More, the two wives of Sir Thomas More who were charged with contrariness and shrewishness. In the process, author Retha Warnicke rescues these women from historical misrepresentations and helps us rediscover the complex world of Tudor society.

Queens, Aristocrats, Commoners

Wicked Women of Tudor England

mary Queen of Scots

"Scholars now have Warnicke to use as their chief one volume study of Mary" Julian Goodare, University of Edinburgh In this biography of one of the most intriguing figures of early modern European history, Retha Warnicke, widely regarded as a leading historian on Tudor queenship, offers a fresh interpretation of the life of Mary Stuart, popularly known as Mary Queen of Scots. Setting Mary's life within the context of the cultural and intellectual climate of the time and bringing to life the realities of being a female monarch in the sixteenth century, Warnicke also examines Mary's three marriages, her constant ill health and her role in numerous plots and conspiracies. Placing Mary within the context of early modern gender relations, Warnicke reveals the challenges that faced her and the forces that worked to destroy her. This highly readable and fascinating study will pour fresh light on the much-debated life of a central figure of the sixteenth century, providing a new interpretation of Mary Stuart's impact on politics, gender and nationhood in the Tudor era.

Mary Queen of Scots

This study of early modern queenship compares the reign of Henry VII’s queen, Elizabeth of York, and those of her daughters-in-law, the six queens of Henry VIII. It defines the traditional expectations for effective Tudor queens—particularly the queen’s critical function of producing an heir—and evaluates them within that framework, before moving to consider their other contributions to the well-being of the court. This fresh comparative approach emphasizes spheres of influence rather than chronology, finding surprising juxtapositions between the various queens’ experiences as mothers, diplomats, participants in secular and religious rituals, domestic managers, and more. More than a series of biographies of individual queens, Elizabeth of York and Her Six Daughters-in-Law is a careful, illuminating examination of the nature of Tudor queenship.

Retha M. Warnicke

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