Pen & Sword Review: Sex & Sexuality in Tudor England, by Carol McGrath

Blurb

The Tudor period has long gripped our imaginations. Because we have consumed so many costume dramas on TV and film, read so many histories, factual or romanticised, we think we know how this society operated. We know they ‘did’ romance but how did they do sex?

In this affectionate, informative and fascinating look at sex and sexuality in Tudor times, author Carol McGrath peeks beneath the bedsheets of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century England to offer a genuine understanding of the romantic and sexual habits of our Tudor ancestors.

Find out the truth about ‘swiving’, ‘bawds’, ‘shaking the sheets’ and ‘the deed of darkness’. Discover the infamous indiscretions and scandals, feast day rituals, the Southwark Stews, and even city streets whose names indicated their use for sexual pleasure. Explore Tudor fashion: the codpiece, slashed hose and doublets, women’s layered dressing with partlets, overgowns and stomachers laced tightly in place. What was the Church view on morality, witchcraft and the female body? On which days could married couples indulge in sex and why? How were same sex relationships perceived? How common was adultery? How did they deal with contraception and how did Tudors attempt to cure venereal disease? And how did people bend and ignore all these rules?

My Review

Thanks to Rosie Crofts at Pen & Sword for my copy of this book. I finished Sex & Sexuality in Ancient Rome the other day and immediately started this one. I’ve started on the one about Medieval England now. This is actually a really interesting series because the focus might be sex and sexuality, but the authors all include topics like clothes, art, social rules, legal matters, and gender roles and expectations.

I am ambivalent about this book.

It had lots of information and was fairly interesting. I thought her suggestion, based on the work of other authors that Henry VIII might have had Kells syndrome was interesting and there is a decent bibliography of popular history books for more information. I did appreciate her pointing out that the ‘witch craze’ was later than this period, during periods of social upheaval, and most of the criticism of Anne Boleyn was from later Catholic writers who really didn’t like her or her daughter. I do hope historical fiction writers take note: no one called Anne Boleyn a witch at her trial, and the way Henry referred to her as ‘bewitching’ him had more to do with his own ego than superstition.

But.

The book doesn’t do what it sets out to do; it only really covered in any detail the reign of Henry VIII, not the whole Tudor period, and there were a few things that struck me as not quite right. I am passing the book to my sister, who is a bit of an expert in all things Henry VIII, for further assessment.

I think some other reviewers have made mistakes in their criticisms, (McGrath didn’t say Henry didn’t have many children because he was impotent, for example, as one reviewer on Good Reads alleges, she said that he became impotent later in life due to his illnesses) but I agree with those that complain about the quality of the writing. It is awkward and repetitive. I’m sure McGrath spelt Katherine Howard’s name two or three different ways. There were odd moments when the writing felt like it came from another pen, a wittier one. I don’t know if that was her ‘novelist’-self escaping or if she was in a different state of mind when she wrote them, but it was jarring. The entire book could have been entertaining and comprehensive, but it wasn’t.

About Carol McGrath

Following a first degree in English and History, Carol McGrath completed an MA in Creative Writing from The Seamus Heaney Centre, Queens University Belfast, followed by an MPhil in English from University of London. The Handfasted Wife was shortlisted for the Romantic novel of the Year. The Woman in the Shadows, a best-selling historical novel about Elizabeth Cromwell, wife of Henry VIII’s statesman Thomas Cromwell, was republished by Headline in 2020. She is writes Historical non-fiction and fiction.