THE BOY KING

In this final installment of a historical fiction trilogy chronicling the Tudors, young Prince Edward suddenly becomes king and deals with palace intrigue.

When King Henry VIII succumbs to illness, his son, Prince Edward, only 9 years old, ascends to the British throne. Edward is provided counsel by his uncle Edward Seymour, the Earl of Hertford, who is made his Lord Protector and quickly promoted to the Duke of Somerset. Somerset is a sagacious veteran of the kingdom’s internecine political squabbles, but Edward chafes under his sometimes-prohibitive tutelage. The boy quickly becomes aware that many “bowed to Edward, obsequiously so, but they listened to Somerset.” Meanwhile, Tom Seymour, Somerset’s brother and another of Edward’s uncles, slyly manipulates the child king into endorsing a marriage between him and the Queen Dowager, an opportunistic bid to seize the reins of power, possibly by violence. As Edward grows ill and his reign looks to be a brief one, he frets anxiously that the succession to the throne of his Roman Catholic sister, Mary, will usher in a wave of “popish superstition,” a fear powerfully portrayed by Wertman: “Edward would fulfill his destiny. He owed it to God, who had entrusted him with removing superstition from his men’s prayer. He owed it to his people, as their king.” The author’s research is magisterial—this is a worthy history lesson wrapped in a compelling drama. The genealogical intricacies of the plot can become overwhelming, but the story as a whole is conveyed with admirable lucidity and emotional poignancy. The character of Edward is memorable—daunted by responsibilities he struggles to fully comprehend, he rises to the occasion as much as anyone could expect of a child. Wertman offers what everyone should want from historical fiction—rigorously enacted authenticity and gripping literary drama.

A compelling blend of historical portraiture and novelistic flair.