And here I am back at the library, returning three of the holds I picked up yesterday. Coach Girl's party was postponed due to the weather, but today is just beautiful. Snowy, but lovely.

I actually read the three books I just returned--one was large print and a very cursory fictionalized overview of the life of Catherine Howard. One was a highly sentimenal but still pretty gripping fictionlization of the lives of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard--too much to stuff into one book, really, except that in many ways the main character was Henry, who begins the book as a monster and gets progressively more monstrous as the story goes on. (Murder Most Royal, by Jean Plaidy. 1949, I think.)

The last was a biography of Catherine H, published in 1961. They say no man is a hero to his valet. Well, the poor queen was certainly no heroine to her biographer, whose kindest term for her seems to be "imbecile." Okay, she was by no means wise, but on consideration I object to the biographer's scornful comment that, unlike Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, nobody spoke up for Catherine, which tells us something about her qualities. There must have been a reason she inspired no loyalty.

Because naturally the fact that, after Katherine and Anne, everybody realized exactly what Henry was capable of, could not have been a factor in courtiers' efforts to distance themselves from the disgraced Queen. No, no, it must have been her fault nobody rushed to stick their heads into the same noose.

From a 21st century perspective it was amazing to me that the great families remained eager to throw their daughters to the monarch, but it does appear that after Catherine Howard's fall, when Henry made it a crime to present the king with a less-than-maidenly bride, the families were a bit less eager. I guess it's one thing for your daughter to get her head lopped off, but quite another to suffer the same fate yourself. It was indeed likely then to die in a fall while social climbing.

Next time I read online discussions of how dissolute society is now...

Right. On to the barn...