THE CAPTIVE QUEEN
Alison Weir
Hutchinson,$47.99, pbk
THE CONFESSIONS OF KATHERINE HOWARD
Suzannah Dunn
Harper Press, $36.99, pbk
The sex lives of two English queens, both married to kings called Henry, but born more than 400 years apart, shape the plots of The Captive Queen and The Confessions of Katherine Howard.
Alison Weir's queen is Eleanor of Aquitaine; Suzannah Dunn's is Katherine Howard, the fifth of Henry VIII's six wives.
Eleanor had the distinction of being a queen twice, the first time as consort to King Louis VII of France, the second by wedding Henry of Anjou (later King Henry II of England) shortly after her marriage to Louis had been dissolved.
Weir has Eleanor's desire to return to her southern lands and lust for Henry, some 10 years her junior, as equal forces in driving the queen's push to have her first marriage annulled.
But for an intelligent woman in the 12th century, the alliance with Henry was likely to be more about power - she had none while with Louis, despite holding Aquitaine - and extending it from her native land to England, where Henry planned to take over from King Stephen, whose hold on the throne was shaky.
The partnership Eleanor planned was not to be.
Impressive ruler though he was, Henry Plantagenet was violent-tempered, faithless, difficult and autocratic, with no intention of letting any woman have power.
Instead of the expected freedom, Eleanor was, even more than in her first marriage, her husband's unhappy captive.
She was unquestionably a political pawn, with no say in her marriage to Henry VIII in 1540, when he was 49 and she in her mid-to-late teens (her birth date is unknown).
But, as had been the case with Eleanor in 1152, marriage was about cementing alliances.
The pretty, frivolous Katherine made a grave mistake, one that was to lead to her beheading in 1542: she entered into a sexual relationship with the king's adviser, Thomas Culpeper.
Although there is no proof of such a liaison, it was the reason for the execution of both parties, and also the queen's secretary, Francis Dereham, who did admit a sexual relationship with Katherine before her marriage.
In Dunn's book, the queen's affair with Culpeper is pivotal.
Cat Tilney, one of Katherine's ladies-in-waiting and the current lover of Francis Dereham, relates The Confessions of Katherine Howard in the first person.
There is no historic evidence for such a relationship, although a Kath Tylney was recorded as one of the queen's "chamberers".
As always, the problem with historical fiction is using what material is available and building a plot around it.
As Weir, who has written a non-fiction account of Eleanor of Aquitaine, says: "Contemporary sources of her life are relatively sparse" and the biographer's role is "piecing together fragments of information and making sense of them".
The novelist has more freedom to fill the gaps.
It could be expected that Weir's novel, given her background, would be the stronger of the two but, although the historic background is impressive, The Captive Queen lacks the appeal of The Confessions of Katherine Howard.
Perhaps it is because, before either book is opened, Katherine the pawn evokes more sympathy than Eleanor the schemer.
• Gillian Vine is a Dunedin writer.
