SOURCE: "Return of the Monarch," in The Spectator, Vol. 269, No. 8564, August 29, 1992, pp. 25-26.

In the following review, Worden comments on Fraser's previous work and examines the style and content of The Six Wives of Henry VIII.

It is a surprise to realise that Antonia Fraser has not written about Henry VIII's wives already. She has written so many books on monarchs and women. There are her long biographies of Mary Queen of Scots and Oliver Cromwell and Charles II. There is The Weaker Vessel, a long study of 17th-century women. There is The Warrior Queens, an account of women leaders from Boadicea to Margaret Thatcher which, exceptionally among her history books, she kept below 400 pages. There is a novel about a royal wedding. Then there is Weidenfeld's Kings and Queens of England series, which she edited and to which she contributed a life of James I. Yet, she...