The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage that Forever Changed the Fate of… (edition 2010)

Read 80% and skimmed the rest. Maybe it was Kate apologizing to Harry for making him rape her. Maybe it was the fact that most of the book was really boring. No, I'm going to say it was the rape. ( )

Having taken Tudor-Stuart history in college, how I wish this book had been around instead of the horrifically dry textbook outlining statistics about the black death and number of rats in Tudor London. Much conjecture here, but Higginbotham brings that period of time to life through the eyes of two relatively unknown players. ( )

The youngest sister of Katherine Woodville played a quiet part during the War of the Roses. Today’s reader never hears about her. She was born to a noblewoman accused of witchcraft, was sister to the queen that considered an upstart, and wife to a traitor to the crown. Married as a child, she was married for 18 years and had four living children as her husband turned traitorous to Richard III. She was in her twenties when it happened.

Higginbotham takes us through the War of the Roses with Kate Woodville, as an added bonus she uses Harry’s voice (Henry, Duke of Buckingham) to describe the events of War of the Roses. Harry was also a child when he and Kate married. He was liked, but never favored, with Edward IV. Only with Richard’s throne did he begin to have the titles and tribulations a duke would expect from the crown. But at what price? It cost the lives of Kate’s brother and several nephews, including the crown princes.

Kate and her children survive the traitorous acts of her husband to live on when Henry VII comes to the throne. Her little known story is just one of the many that should be told. Love, betrayal, and death surround her family as the quest for the throne is pursued.
Susan Higginbotham has done her research well and used the facts to form a compelling story that any fan of the War of the Roses will find this fictional account a must-read.

NOTE: I purchased this book with my own funds.

I read this book after reading Phillipa Gregory's Lady of the Rivers that chronicles the great love affair between Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford and her second husband Richard Woodville, Earl Rivers. This story picks up with the next generation of Woodvilles and the secret marriage of Lady Elizabeth (Bess) Grey to Edward V, former Lord March of the House of York. The twist and turns in the War of Roses is the backdrop of the intermachinations of the warring houses of Lancaster and York as seem through the relationships both familial and through marriage. This story focuses on the alliance between Katherine (Kate) Woodville and her husband, the Duke of Buckingham, Henry (Harry), their 18 years together and Harry's tragic end. ( )

Fun read though I'm not sure I buy her argument. ( )