Review: A Matter of Time: Henry VIII: The Dying of the Light by Judith Arnopp

With youth now far behind him, King Henry VIII has only produced one infant son and two bastard daughters. More sons are essential to secure the Tudor line and with his third wife, Jane Seymour dead, Henry hunts for a suitable replacement.

After the break from Rome, trouble is brewing with France and Scotland. Thomas Cromwell arranges a diplomatic marriage with the sister of the Duke of Cleves but when it comes to women, Henry is fastidious, and the new bride does not please him. The increasingly unpredictable king sets his sights instead upon Katherine Howard and instructs Cromwell to free him from the match with Cleves.

Failure to rid the king of his unloved wife could cost Cromwell his head.

Henry, now ailing and ageing, is invigorated by his flighty new bride but despite the favours he heaps upon her, he cannot win Katherine’s heart. A little over a year later, broken by her infidelity, she becomes the second of his wives to die on the scaffold, leaving Henry friendless and alone.

But his stout heart will not surrender and leaving his sixth wife, Katheryn Parr, installed as regent over England, Henry embarks on a final war to win back territories lost to the French more than a century before. Hungry for glory, the king is determined that the name Henry VIII will shine brighter and longer than that of his hero, Henry V.

Told from the king’s perspective, A Matter of Time: Henry VIII: the Dying of the Light shines a torch into the heart and mind of England’s most tyrannical king.

My Review

This third book in the trilogy gives us a Henry who has finally come to the realization that he is mortal, fallible, and possibly undesirable. But not right away! First he has to get past wife number three, the clever but unappealing Anne of Cleves, then wife number four, the young, beautiful, but empty-headed Katherine. By then, he begins to wonder what has gone wrong. Katherine’s infidelity has shocked him to the core, and because the book is written in first person, we feel Henry’s pain. He so wants to believe that he is still the strapping, vigorous youth, but increasingly the old man slips through:

She stops and reaches up to kiss my nose, run her hands down my cheeks. Her smile is so doting, so affectionate, yet it lacks the passion I long to see. She makes me feel like one of her pets. If I am truthful, I have never known her look on me with lust, as Anne did when I was in my prime.
Perhaps it is Katherine’s lack of desire that reinforces the knowledge that I am … past my youth. Maybe I should seek out Anne Basset; she is among our party somewhere. She always knew how to restore my flagging virility; it would take little effort on her part to make me feel a man.
I sigh and follow my wife as she skips ahead along the path.

I can relate. I think that’s what makes this book so appealing. To a greater or lesser degree, we all fight off the disappointments that life dishes out to us. In Henry’s case, regrets come on with increasing rapidity, especially once he realizes that—just possibly—he may have been mistaken about Anne Boleyn’s infidelities. Did Cromwell use the opportunity to wreak revenge on his enemies? Did all his friends die under false pretences? Was God punishing him? His last wife offers some consolation, but by then even he sees that he will never achieve the greatness he had aspired to all his life. We see a Henry who is more human, more relatable than the history books present to us. I almost felt sorry for him!

Universal Buy Links to the three titles in the series:

A Matter of Conscience: https://mybook.to/amoc
A Matter of Faith: https://mybook.to/amofaith
A Matter of Time: https://mybook.to/amot

Meet Judith Arnopp

A lifelong history enthusiast and avid reader, Judith holds a BA in English/Creative writing and an MA in Medieval Studies. She lives on the coast of West Wales where she writes both fiction and non-fiction. She is best known for her novels set in the Medieval and Tudor period, focusing on the perspective of historical women but recently she has been writing from the perspective of Henry VIII himself.

Judith is also a founder member of a re-enactment group called The Fyne Companye of Cambria which is when she began to experiment with sewing historical garments. She now makes clothes and accessories both for the group and others. She is not a professionally trained sewer but through trial, error and determination has learned how to make authentic looking, if not strictly historically accurate clothing. Her non-fiction book, How to Dress like a Tudor was published by Pen and Sword in 2023.

Her novels include:

A Song of Sixpence: the story of Elizabeth of York
The Beaufort Chronicle: the life of Lady Margaret Beaufort (three book series)
A Matter of Conscience: Henry VIII, the Aragon Years (Book One of The Henrician Chronicle)
A Matter of Faith: Henry VIII, the Days of the Phoenix (Book Two of The Henrician chronicle)
A Matter of Time: Henry VIII, the Dying of the Light (Book Three, Coming soon)
The Kiss of the Concubine: a story of Anne Boleyn
The Winchester Goose: at the court of Henry VIII
Intractable Heart: the story of Katheryn Parr
Sisters of Arden: on the Pilgrimage of Grace
The Heretic Wind: the life of Mary Tudor, Queen of England
Peaceweaver
The Forest Dwellers
The Song of Heledd
Previously published under the pen name – J M Ruddock.
The Book of Thornhold
A Daughter of Warwick: the story of Anne Neville, Queen of Richard III