Theresa Earenfight

A wonderfully fresh look at the life of a woman who's been written about for centuries, Theresa Earenfight's Catherine of Aragon: Infanta of Spain, Queen of England explores its subject's life through a focus on her physical possessions such as portraits, books, and shoes. Earenfight's framing of Catherine's life is very much informed by recent work in queenship studies and object-oriented approaches to history. For instance, Earenfight explores the diplomatic gifts sent to/from Catherine during the 1520s to complicate more traditional takes on Catherine during this period as a passive and dowdy woman who is no match for her husband's power.

Earenfight's prose is very approachable (albeit there are a shocking number of typos here for a university press book), and that plus the recap timeline which follows each chapter would no doubt make this a good book for use in the college classroom.… (meer)

"In order to rule well you have to have good advisors, a strong will, a receptive mind, an openhearted eagerness to learn from the past monarchs in what to do better, what to change, and how to enforce your wishes without forgetting that you have to be one with the people or else they will dethrone you and your family and chose another way to run their country."

"Good advisors are hard to come by and what Maria of Castile did well was to form relationships with people from different classes and ranks to achieve stability during her long tenure of ruling as Queen for her husband. What her husband did not do well was rule on how to manage the uprisings in a peaceful way and thinking that his way was right and that everyone should follow his order and dictates. Thankfully Maria ignored most of what her husband was saying and came into her own over her thirty-two year rule to stabilize the monarchy and give her people and sense of peace and belonging. I loved her relationship with her advisors and did not very much care for her husband. I wish both of them though could have talked some sense into their siblings to not meddle with their rulership and to be at peace. Sadly that never happened."… (meer)