The Constant Princess | 
| Author: Philippa Gregory
Publisher: Touchstone
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  161 reviews
Sales Rank: 674
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1
ISBN: 0743272498
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780743272490
ASIN: 0743272498
Publication Date: August 28, 2006
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Condition: Visible shelf wear -- may have some notes/markings on pages
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Product Description
"I am Catalina, Princess of Spain, daughter of the two greatest monarchs the world has ever known...and I will be Queen of England."Thus, bestselling author Philippa Gregory introduces one of her most unforgettable heroines: Katherine of Aragon. Known to history as the Queen who was pushed off her throne by Anne Boleyn, here is a Katherine the world has forgotten: the enchanting princess that all England loved. First married to Henry VIII's older brother, Arthur, Katherine's passion turns their arranged marriage into a love match; but when Arthur dies, the merciless English court and her ambitious parents -- the crusading King and Queen of Spain -- have to find a new role for the widow. Ultimately, it is Katherine herself who takes control of her own life by telling the most audacious lie in English history, leading her to the very pinnacle of power in England. Set in the rich beauty of Moorish Spain and the glamour of the Tudor court, The Constant Princess presents a woman whose constancy helps her endure betrayal, poverty, and despair, until the inevitable moment when she steps into the role she has prepared for all her life: Henry VIII's Queen, Regent, and commander of the English army in their greatest victory against Scotland.
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"I am Catalina, Princess of Spain, daughter of the two greatest monarchs the world has ever known...and I will be Queen of England.""
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| Customer Reviews: Read 156 more reviews...
 More Fantasy Than History July 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I really, really wanted to like this book. When I saw it on the shelf and read its back cover, and I was very interested and immediately set about reading it. The idea of a romantic fiction story involving Queen Catherine and set against the backdrop of pre-Reformation England was quite intriguing. Further, I noticed that its end date was in 1529 (five years before the break between Henry VIII and Rome) so it promised to be free from the controversy surrounding the 1534 Act of Supremacy.
In many ways, the book delivered. Its characters were well-developed and the dialog well written. I especially savored the depiction of the final reconquista of Spanish Granada, despite the fact that Ms. Gregory seems unaware that Moslems do revere Jesus and Mary (although they do not respectively acknowledge them as Son of God and Mother of God), and therefore would in all likelihood not knowingly have defiled an Ave Maria prayer in the manner depicted in the first chapter of the book (Granada, 1491).
Unfortunately, this book proved very problematic from that point onward. As the sincerely devout daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel (the Catholic) - under whose rule Catholic Spain completed its 800-year fight for liberation from the Moors - the Infanta would not have been prone to the repeatedly expressed sense of hyper-predestination that Ms. Gregory's writing ascribes to her. This stood out as a major anachronism pasted onto someone who in reality would have been unable to conceive of such a doctrinal innovation so completely at odds with the Catholic and Apostolic Faith she professed.
Similarly, Ms. Gregory's hamfisted attempt near the end of the book to put the concept of peaceful coexistence between Christians and Moslems into the mind of Queen Catherine is just plain risible. Unlike our era, the 16th Century world believed in doctrinal and objective truth, and so this type of secular Enlightenment mindset is as blatantly out of place in Imperial Spain and Tudor England as atomic warfare. (This, I would assume, is an example of the author simply projecting her own ideology into the past.) Nor, I suspect, would the Infanta have harbored much in the way of positive inclinations toward the Moorish culture that subjugated her people from 711 to 1492, for that matter.
But the biggest sin that this book commits against the historical record (as an earlier reviewer correctly noted) is its unambiguous depiction of the consummation of the marriage between Prince Arthur and Princess Catherine. This is not some minor detail; it is **the** linchpin of what would become the single biggest issue in separating the English realm from loyalty to the Bishop of Rome.
If I am to believe the premise of this book, then I am to assume (against prevaling moral and legal customs, all of recorded history, and evidence to the contrary) that Catherine made an illict vow with her dying husband Prince Arthur in 1502 to effectively deny their marriage, then lied to her confessor for over 30 years (and to the womanizing Henry VIII, who would have certainly discovered the real truth on their wedding night) - and then, come 1534, when merely admitting this truth would have guaranteed Catherine an annulment from Henry and spared England and Rome the chaos of the Reformation (not to mention smoothed relations between England and the powerful German Empire, led at the time by Catherine's uncle Kaiser Charles V), she still chose to cling to falsehood - even to her deathbed, when she could have reconciled herself to God by freely renouncing such errors, although the book doesn't go far enough for us to find out.
Please, Ms. Gregory, considering the well-documented disparity between the personal and moral life of Catherine compared to that of Henry VIII, this strains all credibility. There used to be a time when maligning a woman's reputation in such ways were fighting words. I recognize that this is a work of fiction, but historical accuracy is still supposed to count for something. Even in her grave, the saintly Queen Catherine of Aragon deserves better than such shabby treatment.
One unfortunately comes away from this book with a sense that Ms. Gregory is projecting her own 21st Century beliefs and social mores onto 16th Century characters and settings that cannot possibly support them. This is a well-written, stylized work, but please do not look to it for historical truth or accuracy, because those things are absent within its pages.
 Wonderful story July 6, 2008
I'm a huge fan of the whole Tudor series, and this is one of my favorites! Gregory creates a unique look at young Katherine in a way few other novels have portrayed her (and yes, there is fiction to fill in what we can't know for sure as fact). But the story is intriguing, and the book itself is a shorter read than the rest of the series- a fantastic way to start it off!
Not my favorite but learned a lot June 19, 2008
I was expecting a lot more from this book. I found it actually kind of boring at times. I love Philippa Gregory but I wasn't impressed by this one. I think Katherine was a great and admirable woman and I hate how her life ended but nothing too much happened in this book. Here's a summary: Katherine came from a powerful kingdom whose parents were great warriors. She married King Henry VIII's brother out of love but he died and married King Henry VIII who was much younger than her and who did have a boy's puppy love for her. They reined side by side for the first few years of their marriage and Henry trusted and honored Katherine. Until he began to come into manhood and became paranoid and had a wondering eye. From there it tells how Henry falls out of love with Katherine and in love with Anne Boleyn and how he tries to denounce their marriage and cast her out which she eventually dies of emotional and physcial neglect. That sums it up.
 Great Historical Fiction June 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Constant Princess tells the story of Katherine of Aragon, King Henry VIII's first wife. Katherine was born "Catalina" to the King and Queen of Spain. Her marriage to Prince Arthur, the heir to the throne of England, was decided when she was an infant. She knew she would be Princess of Wales all of her life. When she turned 15, she was sent to England to marry Prince Arthur. At first she despised Arthur, but she grew to love him very much during the short months that they were married. As Arthur lay dying of a sudden illness, he made Catalina promise that she would marry his brother, Henry, and become Queen of England.
Chronologically, The Constant Princess comes before Gregory's other book, The Other Boleyn Girl. I really wanted to read The Other Boleyn Girl, but when I found out that this book takes place before it, I decided to read them in order. The book switches between telling the story in third person to Katherine's point of view in the first person, indicated by italics. I loved it, because it was like looking into her mind at certain points in her life. Her story is sad, but she is very strong throughout all of her hardships. I am ashamed to say that before reading this book, I had very little knowledge of King Henry VIII and the Tudors. Now I want to read anything I can about the subject. It's so interesting! I know a lot of people say that Gregory's books are not historically accurate, but I like them; she tells a good story.
Kept me entertained June 13, 2008
Very good book. I was entertained throughout. I enjoyed seeing things from Katherine's perspective.
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