Search
Log in
  • Home

  • Categories

  • Audiobooks

  • E-books

  • For kids

  • Top lists

  • Help

  • Download app

  • Use campaign code

  • Redeem gift card

  • Try free now
  • Log in
  • Language

    🇳🇱 Nederland

    • NL
    • EN

    🇧🇪 Belgique

    • FR
    • EN

    🇩🇰 Danmark

    • DK
    • EN

    🇩🇪 Deutschland

    • DE
    • EN

    🇪🇸 España

    • ES
    • EN

    🇫🇷 France

    • FR
    • EN

    🇳🇴 Norge

    • NO
    • EN

    🇦🇹 Österreich

    • AT
    • EN

    🇨🇭 Schweiz

    • DE
    • EN

    🇫🇮 Suomi

    • FI
    • EN

    🇸🇪 Sverige

    • SE
    • EN
  1. Books
  2. True stories
  3. Heartbreaking stories

Read and listen for free for 30 days!

Cancel anytime

Try free now
0.0(0)

Young and Damned and Fair : The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of King Henry VIII

Written with an exciting combination of narrative flair and historical authority, this biography of Henry VIII’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard, is “a stunning achievement” (The Sunday Times, London), and “a masterly work of Tudor history that is engrossing, sympathetic, suspenseful, and illuminating” (Charlotte Gordon, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography).

On the morning of July 28, 1540, a teenager named Catherine Howard began her reign as queen of an England simmering with rebellion and terrifying uncertainty. Sixteen months later, she would follow her cousin Anne Boleyn to the scaffold, having been convicted of adultery and high treason.

The broad outlines of Catherine’s career might be familiar, but her story up until now has been incomplete. Unlike previous biographies, which portray her as a naïve victim of an ambitious family, Gareth Russell’s “excellent account puts the oft-ignored Catherine in her proper historical context” (Daily Mail, London) and sheds new light on her rise and downfall by showing her in her context, a milieu that includes the aristocrats and, most critically, the servants who surrounded her and who, in the end, conspired against her. By illuminating Catherine’s entwined upstairs/downstairs world as well as societal tensions beyond the palace walls, Russell offers a fascinating portrayal of court life in the sixteenth century and a fresh analysis of the forces beyond Catherine’s control that led to her execution.

Including a forgotten text of Catherine’s confession in her own words, color illustrations, family tree, map, and extensive notes, Young and Damned and Fair is “a gripping account of a young woman’s future destroyed by forces beyond her control…an important and timely book” (Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire). This account changes our understanding of one of history’s most famous women while telling the compelling and very human story of complex individuals attempting to survive in a dangerous age.


Author:

  • Gareth Russell

Narrator:

  • Jenny Funnell

Format:

  • Audiobook
  • E-book

Duration:

  • 15 h 57 min
  • 507 pages

Language:

English

Categories:

  • True stories
  • Heartbreaking stories

More by Gareth Russell

Skip the list
  1. The Ship of Dreams : The Sinking of the “Titanic” and the End of the Edwardian Era

    Gareth Russell

    audiobook
  2. The Palace : From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 Years of British History at Hampton Court

    Gareth Russell

    audiobookbook
  3. Do Let's Have Another Drink! : The Dry Wit and Fizzy Life of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother

    Gareth Russell

    audiobookbook
  4. The Ship of Dreams : The Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era

    Gareth Russell

    audiobookbook
  5. Young and Damned and Fair : The Life and Tragedy of Catherine Howard at the Court of Henry VIII

    Gareth Russell

    audiobook

Others have also read

Skip the list
  1. I Want You to Know We’re Still Here : My family, the Holocaust and my search for truth

    audiobook
  2. Gone

    Linda K. Olson

    audiobook
  3. Where Has Mummy Gone? : A young girl and a mother who no longer knows her

    Cathy Glass

    audiobook
  4. Lost Child : The True Story of a Girl Who Couldn't Ask for Help

    Torey Hayden

    audiobook
  5. One Child

    Torey Hayden

    audiobook
  6. The Child Bride

    Cathy Glass

    audiobook
  7. Daddy’s Little Princess

    Cathy Glass

    audiobook
  8. Cruel to Be Kind : Saying no can save a child’s life

    Cathy Glass

    audiobook
  9. Hidden : Betrayed, Exploited and Forgotten. How One Boy Overcame the Odds.

    Cathy Glass

    audiobook
  10. Another Forgotten Child

    Cathy Glass

    audiobook
  11. Damaged : The Heartbreaking True Story of a Forgotten Child

    Cathy Glass

    audiobook
  12. The Saddest Girl in the World

    Cathy Glass

    audiobook

  • 10 books

    Gareth Russell

    Educated at Oxford University and Queen’s University, Belfast, Gareth Russell is a historian, novelist, and playwright. He is the author of several books, including The Palace, The Ship of Dreams, Young and Damned and Fair, The Emperors, and Do Let’s Have Another Drink. He lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

    Read more

Help and contact


About us

  • Our story
  • Career
  • Press
  • Accessibility
  • Partner with us
  • Investor relations
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Explore

  • Categories
  • Audiobooks
  • E-books
  • Magazines
  • For kids
  • Top lists

Popular categories

  • Crime
  • Biographies and reportage
  • Fiction
  • Feel-good and romance
  • Personal development
  • Children's books
  • True stories
  • Sleep and relaxation

Nextory

Copyright © 2025 Nextory AB

Privacy Policy · Terms ·
Excellent4.3 out of 5