SOURCE: "Betrothals and Beheadings," in Chicago Tribune, December 20, 1992, p. 7.

In the following review of The Wives of Henry VIII, Cole examines the intricate individual stories that make up the work.

In this new study of King Henry VIII and his wives [entitled The Wives of Henry VIII], Antonia Fraser sets out to dispel the historical perception that stereotypes those six women—Catherine of Aragon as the Abandoned Wife, Anne Boleyn as the Temptress, Jane Seymour as the Good Woman, Anna of Cleves as the Flanders Mule, Katherine Howard as the Bad Girl and Catherine Parr as the Mother Figure. Fraser points out that those images, while true in some measure, will not bear the hard scrutiny of history.

Anne Boleyn was certainly more than the King's goggle-eyed whore and Anna of Cleves more dignified than the cruel sobriquet that attaches to her name. Catherine of Aragon was a...