King Henry Viii's Stereotypes

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“Divorced, beheaded, died . . . divorces, beheaded, survived . . .” This is the famous order of King Henry VIII’s wives. Antonia Fraser suggests that these descriptions serve not as the women’s lives, but how these lives ended. Each of these wives also has a stereotype attached to her character: the Betrayed Wife, the Temptress, the Good Woman, the Ugly Sister, the Bad Girl, and the Mother Figure. From the beginning, Fraser states that her mission is to examine each wife and decide as to what degree, if any at all, these wives deserve these stereotypes. Fraser makes it a point to describe the life of each of the wives, from birth to death, from a purely historical standpoint in order to determine why each woman has acquired her stereotype.
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