The Queen's Lady by Barbara Kyle

If the rest of my reading year goes like the first part of it, I don't hold much hope of completing this year's reading list before the end of the year.  2010 already has its fair share of distractions!

I finished The Queen's Lady by Barbara Kyle.  The author's website describes the plot thusly:

Set in the nerve-jangled court of King Henry VIII during his battle with the Catholic church for a divorce, The Queen's Lady is the story of Honor Larke, a ward of King Henry’s chancellor, Sir Thomas More, and lady-in-waiting to Henry’s first wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon. Forced to take sides in the religious extremism of the day, Honor fights to save the church’s victims from death at the stake, enlisting Richard Thornleigh, a rogue sea captain, in her missions of mercy, and finally risking her life to try to save Sir Thomas from the wrath of the king.

The book is well-written and well-researched. 

I don't like it.  Not even a little bit.

First, the sad plight of Queen Catherine is worsened by those closest to her, not the least of whom is Honor Larke, the main character.  Honor betrays the Queen's trust with the help of Thomas Cromwell.  The Queen, a secondary character anyway, never realizes Honor's betrayal, but lack of realization does not lessen the effects of Honor's deed.  For the remainder of her service to the Queen, Honor continuously lies to the Queen while using her status to her own advantage.  Nor do Honor's betrayals end with the Queen.  She also betrays her King, her mentor, and her husband. 

Second, while Kyle's descriptive and colorful painting of Henry's court invites the reader into a different era in the opening chapters, the novel becomes less than authentic as Honor nearly single-handedly rescues hundreds of heretics, her dead husband is discovered not dead, and she miraculously escapes her own death-by-fire for her heresy.  Honor achieved a great deal of independence in a time when a non-noble woman would have had little independence.  She even marries without the approval of her ward and secretly uses her money to fund the rescues she attempts.

Finally, the questions raised about religion, theology, and nobility is less than captivating.  Honor finds her own peace as an aetheist, even in the face of devotion by those close to her.  Scarred and weakend by horrific images from her past, she justifies turning away from the poxed religion of her time because it was so evil and managed by such flawed characters.  She forgets, as do so many others, that the human manifestation of religion or theology is not what God hoped His people would have.  She, in essence, throws out the baby with the bathwater.

I was left with the sense that Honor, shorn of her family and her faith, lost her honor, and she never regained it or mourned its loss by the time her story ended. 

I shelve the book with a lingering curiosity about the person of Sir Thomas More, a man the Roman Catholic Church declared a saint in 1935.

Next I finish the book of Joshua from the Old Testament.