Alison Weir: Complete Guide to Books & Series

Alison Weir is one of the best-known popular historians writing in Britain today, and one of the few who moves between history and historical fiction with equal success. Her biographies of Henry VIII’s wives, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the medieval queens of England have introduced millions of readers to the people behind the crown. Her novels, above all the Six Tudor Queens series, give those same people a voice.

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About Alison Weir

Early Life

Alison Weir grew up in London and was educated at the City of London School for Girls, where she took A-levels in English Literature, Art and History. She went on to train as a teacher at North Western Polytechnic. Her fascination with the past began at the age of 14, when she read a novel about Katherine of Aragon and went looking for the real history behind it.

She worked in the Civil Service before leaving to raise a family. From 1991 to 1997 she ran her own school for children with learning difficulties in Carshalton, Surrey, and she has remained a committed supporter of adult literacy ever since. She lives in Surrey.

Writing Career

Weir started writing seriously long before she was published. An early manuscript on the six wives of Henry VIII, written in the 1970s, ran to more than a thousand pages and was turned down. Her first published book was Britain’s Royal Families (1989), a genealogical guide to the British monarchy, and two years later the rewritten The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1991) launched her as a bestselling historian.

Over the next two decades she wrote a steady run of royal biographies, from The Princes in the Tower (1992) to Eleanor of Aquitaine (1999) and Isabella (2005). Her first novel, Innocent Traitor, followed in 2006, and since then she has alternated between fiction and nonfiction. Today her histories appear in the UK from Jonathan Cape and her novels from Headline, while Ballantine publishes her in the United States.

In 2016 she began the Six Tudor Queens series, one novel for each of Henry VIII’s wives, and completed it in 2021. She followed it with the Tudor Rose trilogy (2022 to 2024) and a four-volume history of England’s medieval queens that ended with Queens at War in 2025. She remains active, with a new novel published in 2026 and another announced for 2027.

Writing Style

Weir describes herself as a popular historian and is proud of the label. Her nonfiction is narrative history, built on the primary sources and written to be read for pleasure, with plenty of the domestic and court detail that brings a period to life. She is known for laying out the evidence in disputed cases, such as the fate of the Princes in the Tower or the murder of Lord Darnley, and then stating her own conclusion.

Her novels draw on the same research. She has said that she holds out for the history whenever she can, and her fiction keeps close to the known facts while imagining the inner lives that the records leave out. Each of the Six Tudor Queens novels is told from the queen’s own point of view, and she often adds an author’s note explaining where she has used invention.

Alison Weir Series in Reading Order

Weir’s novels fall into three groups, plus a set of standalones. Her nonfiction is listed separately below, with the England’s Medieval Queens series first.

Six Tudor Queens

  • Setting: England and the Tudor court, from the 1480s to 1548
  • Number of books: 6 novels, plus a collection of short stories
  • Main characters: Henry VIII’s six wives, from Katherine of Aragon to Katharine Parr

The series that made Weir a bestselling novelist. Each book follows one of Henry VIII’s queens from childhood, so the same events at court are seen from six different sides. Weir uses a different spelling for each of the three Katherines (Katherine, Katheryn and Katharine) and calls Henry’s fourth wife Anna rather than Anne, to tell them apart. Some US titles differ from the UK ones, so both are given below.

For the full guide with the short stories, publication details and our reading advice, see the Six Tudor Queens reading order.

1. Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen (2016)

A sixteen-year-old Spanish princess arrives in England to marry Prince Arthur, alone among strangers and far from her family. Weir follows Catalina from that arrival to the fight for her marriage, her rights and her daughter’s place.

2. Anne Boleyn: A King’s Obsession (2017)

Fresh from the courts of Burgundy and France, Anne draws attention at the English court and enters the game of courtly love. When the King’s interest becomes serious, her ambition sets a kingdom on a perilous course.

3. Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen (2018)

Jane once longed to become a nun, but her ambitious family sends her to court as a lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon. When the King’s eye falls on her, she is drawn into a political game that sets her conscience against her family’s hopes.

4. Anna of Kleve: Queen of Secrets (2019)

Published in the US as The Princess in the Portrait. A German princess whose portrait has charmed Henry VIII sails to England to marry him, knowing she is no beauty and hiding a secret of her own.

5. Katheryn Howard: The Tainted Queen (2020)

Published in the US as Katheryn Howard, The Scandalous Queen. A lively young girl pushed forward by her ambitious family captures the heart of an ageing king, but she has a past that Henry knows nothing about.

6. Katharine Parr: The Sixth Wife (2021)

Twice widowed and in love with Sir Thomas Seymour, Katharine catches the eye of the King and cannot refuse him. As queen she must hide her religious beliefs from enemies who are closing in, and the story continues after Henry’s death.

Companion collection: In the Shadow of Queens (2021)

The short stories written to accompany the six novels, gathered in one volume. Each tale shows life at the Tudor court from the side of someone close to the queens.

Tudor Rose Trilogy

  • Setting: England, from the Wars of the Roses to the reign of Mary I
  • Number of books: 3 novels (complete)
  • Main characters: Elizabeth of York, her son Henry VIII and his daughter Mary I

After the six queens, Weir turned to three generations of the Tudor family. The trilogy starts with the York princess whose marriage ended the Wars of the Roses, gives Henry VIII his own voice, and closes with his elder daughter.

1. Elizabeth of York: The Last White Rose (2022)

Published in the US as The Last White Rose. The eldest daughter of Edward IV sees her world overturned when her father dies, her uncle takes the throne and her two young brothers disappear in the Tower. Marriage to Henry Tudor offers a way to unite the red rose and the white.

2. Henry VIII: The Heart and the Crown (2023)

Published in the US as The King’s Pleasure. Having told the story of each of his wives, Weir now tells Henry’s own, from a boy who never expected to be king to a ruler torn between love and duty in his search for a son.

3. Mary I: Queen of Sorrows (2024)

Published in the US as The Passionate Tudor. Princess Mary is raised as her father’s heir, then declared illegitimate and banished from court when Henry marries Anne Boleyn. The novel follows her through those hard years to the throne and her short, violent reign.

Elizabeth I Novels

  • Setting: Tudor and Elizabethan England
  • Number of books: 2 novels
  • Main character: Elizabeth I

Two linked novels about the young Elizabeth. The Marriage Game is the sequel to The Lady Elizabeth.

1. The Lady Elizabeth (2008)

The story of Elizabeth before she became queen, from a childhood upended by her mother’s execution through the dangerous reigns of her brother and sister. It reads like a Tudor thriller, because the question is whether she will survive at all.

2. The Marriage Game (2014)

The young Queen Elizabeth begins an open flirtation with the handsome but married Lord Robert Dudley, and rumours spread across Europe. When Dudley’s wife is found dead at the foot of a staircase, the scandal threatens the throne.

Standalone Novels

Innocent Traitor (2006)

Weir’s first novel tells the story of Lady Jane Grey, the reluctant nine days’ queen, through several narrators. It follows Jane from a harsh childhood to the struggle for the crown after the death of Edward VI.

Captive Queen (2010)

Published in the UK as The Captive Queen. A novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of two kings and mother of two more, and her stormy marriage to Henry II. Weir had already written her biography of Eleanor in 1999.

A Dangerous Inheritance (2012)

Two women of royal blood, a century apart: Lady Katherine Grey, sister of Lady Jane, and Kate Plantagenet, daughter of Richard III. Their stories are linked by the mystery of the Princes in the Tower.

The Cardinal (2025)

Published in the UK as The Cardinal: The Secret Life of Thomas Wolsey. The rise of an Ipswich butcher’s son to become Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor and closest friend, and his fall when the King sets his heart on Anne Boleyn. Weir also explores the private life Wolsey kept hidden, including the mistress and children he loved.

The Boleyn Secret (2026)

At twelve, Katherine Carey, daughter of Mary Boleyn, attends her aunt Anne Boleyn to the scaffold. She grows up as companion to her cousin Elizabeth, until her dying mother tells her a secret that will follow her for the rest of her life.

Alison Weir Nonfiction in Order

England’s Medieval Queens

  • Period covered: 1066 to 1485
  • Number of books: 4 (complete)
  • Subjects: the queens consort of England from the Norman Conquest to the death of Richard III

Weir’s largest project tells the story of England’s medieval queens in four volumes, each covering several queens in turn. She has said that after writing about Henry VIII’s wives she wanted to go back in time and look at the women who came before them, many of whom held real power behind the throne. The series was completed in 2025.

1. Queens of the Conquest (2017)

The first volume covers the Norman queens, beginning with Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror. It follows these women through invasion, rebellion and a long civil war over the succession, and shows how much influence a queen could hold in the century after 1066. It was a Daily Telegraph Book of the Year in 2017.

2. Queens of the Crusades (2020)

The second volume turns to the first five queens of the Plantagenet dynasty, starting with Eleanor of Aquitaine. These were crusading queens, queens who rebelled against their husbands, learned queens and queens who went to war, women who often broke through medieval constraints to wield power. They also brought the romantic culture of southern Europe to the English court.

3. Queens of the Age of Chivalry (2022)

The third volume follows the queens of the later Plantagenet kings, in an age of tournaments, courtly culture and the opening of the Hundred Years’ War. Weir pays special attention to the “soft power” these women exercised behind the scenes. It is the volume to read for the background to her Isabella biography.

4. Queens at War (2025)

The final volume covers the five queens who held the consort’s throne from 1403 to 1485, all caught up in the Hundred Years’ War or the Wars of the Roses. Joan of Navarre was accused of witchcraft, Katherine of Valois’s marriage was meant to bring peace with France, and Margaret of Anjou fought for her husband and son. Elizabeth Widville, mother of the Princes in the Tower, and Anne Neville, wife of Richard III, close the series.

Other Nonfiction in Publication Order

1. Britain’s Royal Families (1989)

Weir’s first published book is a complete genealogy of the British royal family, with every monarch and their children gathered in one volume. It grew out of more than twenty years of research. Reviewers called it an indispensable reference, and it remains a useful companion to all her other books.

2. The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1991)

The book that made her name. Weir gives each of the six queens a full and fair hearing, from Katherine of Aragon to Katharine Parr, and the historian A.L. Rowse praised it as both scholarly and unpartisan. It has become Penguin Random House UK’s best-selling e-book, and it is the natural nonfiction companion to the Six Tudor Queens novels.

3. The Princes in the Tower (1992)

An investigation into the disappearance of the boy king Edward V and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, in 1483, one of the most famous mysteries in English history. Weir works through the sources and the competing theories and sets out the case against their uncle, Richard III. The book was reissued in 2014 as Richard III and the Princes in the Tower.

4. Lancaster and York: The Wars of the Roses (1995)

Published in the US as The Wars of the Roses. A narrative history of the long quarrel between the royal houses of Lancaster and York, which leads the reader through the tangled family trees and rival claims to the throne. Nearly twenty years after it first appeared, it reached number one on the Wall Street Journal’s nonfiction e-book list.

5. The Children of Henry VIII (1996)

Published in the UK as Children of England: The Heirs of King Henry VIII. Weir follows Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth and their cousin Lady Jane Grey through the years after Henry’s death, when each in turn stood close to the throne. It is the bridge between her books on Henry’s wives and her biography of Elizabeth I.

6. The Life of Elizabeth I (1998)

Published in the UK as Elizabeth the Queen. A biography of Elizabeth as queen rather than as a symbol, with particular attention to her court, her ministers and her many suitors. Reviewers singled out Weir’s handling of the complex relationship between Elizabeth and her court of suitors.

7. Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life (1999)

Published in the UK as Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England. The life of the twelfth-century duchess who was queen of France and then of England, wife of two kings and mother of two more. It won the Good Book Guide award for the best biography of 1999 and is Weir’s own bestselling book.

8. Henry VIII: The King and His Court (2001)

Published in the UK as Henry VIII: King and Court. Rather than a straight biography, this is a portrait of the reign through Henry’s court: its palaces, entertainments, ceremonies, politics and people. The historian Lisa Jardine described it as a meticulous compilation of source material on the Tudor period.

9. Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley (2003)

A detailed examination of the 1567 murder of Mary’s second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and of the question that has followed her ever since: how much did she know? Weir lays out the evidence piece by piece, and the Wall Street Journal said she “thinks like a forensics expert.”

10. Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England (2005)

Published in the US as Queen Isabella. The life of Isabella of France, wife of Edward II, who turned against her husband and his favourites and led an invasion of England in 1326. Weir looks past the “she-wolf” legend to the woman and the circumstances that drove her.

11. Mistress of the Monarchy (2007)

Published in the UK as Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and His Scandalous Duchess. The life of the woman who was John of Gaunt’s mistress for many years and later became his third wife. Their children, the Beauforts, were ancestors of the Tudor dynasty, and Weir builds her story from the few surviving records.

12. The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn (2009)

A close study of the last months of Anne Boleyn, from the plot against her to her arrest, trial and execution in May 1536. Weir examines each charge and each witness, and the Tudor historian David Loades praised the book for its impartiality and sound judgement.

13. Traitors of the Tower (2010)

A short book written for Quick Reads, the adult literacy series, and published on World Book Day 2010. It tells the stories of famous prisoners who died at the Tower of London in a form designed for readers who are getting back into the habit of reading.

14. The Ring and the Crown (2011)

A history of royal weddings from the Norman Conquest to 2011, written with fellow historians Kate Williams, Sarah Gristwood and Tracy Borman. Heavily illustrated, it places the royal weddings of the present day in their long historical context.

15. Mary Boleyn: The Mistress of Kings (2011)

Published in the UK as Mary Boleyn: The Great and Infamous Whore. Anne Boleyn’s sister was the mistress of Henry VIII and, by repute, of the King of France, and legends have grown around her. Weir turns detective to test those stories against the evidence, and the Chicago Tribune named it one of the best books of the year.

16. Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World (2013)

Published in the UK as Elizabeth of York: The First Tudor Queen. The life of the daughter of Edward IV who became the wife of Henry VII and the mother of Henry VIII. Weir shows her as a pawn in the dynastic ambitions of her father, her uncle Richard III and her husband, and this biography is the research behind her later novel The Last White Rose.

17. The Lost Tudor Princess (2015)

The life of Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, daughter of Margaret Tudor and niece of Henry VIII. She was imprisoned more than once over marriages and romances, her own and her sons’, that displeased the crown, and her son Lord Darnley married Mary, Queen of Scots. Through that marriage she became the grandmother of James I.

18. A Tudor Christmas (2018)

Written with Siobhan Clarke. A short illustrated book in twelve chapters, one for each of the twelve days of Christmas, on the feasting, games, pageants and customs of the Tudor court and of ordinary people. It shows how many modern traditions, from carols and mince pies to Father Christmas, go back to Tudor times, with poems, carols and recipes along the way.

Where to Start with Alison Weir

Best First Book

For fiction, start with Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen. It opens the Six Tudor Queens series, it sets up the court that all six novels share, and it shows Weir’s approach at its best. For nonfiction, start with The Six Wives of Henry VIII, which covers the same women in one volume and is her best-known history.

If You Want…

Books by Time Period

Medieval England (1066 to 1485)

Weir’s medieval books follow the queens and royal families of the Norman and Plantagenet centuries. Start with Queens of the Conquest, Queens of the Crusades, Queens of the Age of Chivalry and Queens at War, then turn to the single biographies: Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life, Isabella and Mistress of the Monarchy. On the fiction side, Captive Queen is set in the twelfth century.

The Wars of the Roses are covered in Lancaster and York and The Princes in the Tower, and in the novels The Last White Rose and A Dangerous Inheritance. For more novels from these centuries, see our Medieval Europe historical fiction hub, our best medieval historical fiction and Conn Iggulden’s Wars of the Roses series.

Tudor England (1485 to 1603)

Most of Weir’s work sits here. Among the novels: all six Six Tudor Queens books, Henry VIII: The Heart and the Crown, Mary I: Queen of Sorrows, Innocent Traitor, The Lady Elizabeth, The Marriage Game, The Cardinal and The Boleyn Secret.

Among the histories: The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Henry VIII: The King and His Court, The Children of Henry VIII, The Life of Elizabeth I, The Lady in the Tower, Mary Boleyn, Elizabeth of York, The Lost Tudor Princess and A Tudor Christmas. Our Tudor England historical fiction hub has many more novels set in this century.

Scotland and the Stewarts

Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley is her one book centred on the Scottish court, and The Lost Tudor Princess follows Margaret Douglas, whose son married Mary.

Across the Centuries

Britain’s Royal Families, The Ring and the Crown and Traitors of the Tower range across many reigns.

Popular Alison Weir Series

Six Tudor Queens

The Six Tudor Queens series is the best place to see what Weir does as a novelist. Instead of treating the wives as a sequence of episodes in Henry’s life, each book makes one queen the centre of her own story, from childhood to death. Familiar scenes come back from different angles, so the reader sees the divorce from Katherine of Aragon one way in the first book and quite another in the second.

The research behind the series is the same that went into The Six Wives of Henry VIII, updated with new findings, and Weir explains many of her choices in her author’s notes. The series also introduced readers to the less famous queens: Anna of Kleve is one of the most sympathetic books in the set, and Katharine Parr: The Sixth Wife ends with the chaos that followed Henry’s death.

For the complete reading order, the short stories and our notes on which books to read first, see the Six Tudor Queens reading order.

England’s Medieval Queens

Weir’s nonfiction series on the medieval queens is her largest project, spanning four volumes and more than four centuries of English history. She has said she wanted to go back in time after working on Henry VIII’s wives and look at their predecessors, many of whom held real power behind the throne.

The series runs from Queens of the Conquest through Queens of the Crusades and Queens of the Age of Chivalry to Queens at War, which closes with the last Plantagenet queens. Readers who enjoy medieval novels by writers such as Sharon Kay Penman will find many of the same women here, told from the sources.

Awards and Recognition

  • Good Book Guide Award, Best Biography of 1999, for Eleanor of Aquitaine, voted for by readers.
  • Le Grand Prix du Roman Historique, awarded by the French publisher Bragelonne to Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen.
  • Daily Telegraph Book of the Year 2017 for Queens of the Conquest.
  • Waterstones Best Books of 2023 for Henry VIII: The Heart and the Crown.
  • Waterstones History Books of the Year 2025 and BBC History Extra Best History Books of 2025 for Queens at War.
  • Honorary Doctorate, Bishop Grosseteste University, 2023.
  • Honorary Life Patron of Historic Royal Palaces, the charity that cares for the Tower of London and Hampton Court.

The Six Wives of Henry VIII has become Penguin Random House UK’s best-selling e-book, and several of her novels reached the Sunday Times top ten. More details are on Alison Weir’s official website.

Writing Schedule and Upcoming Books

Weir has kept up a pace of roughly one book a year, often alternating novels and histories, and for several years she worked on two series at once: the Tudor Rose trilogy and the medieval queens.

Latest Releases

The Boleyn Secret was published in 2026 in the UK and the US. It follows The Cardinal (2025) and Queens at War (2025), which completed the medieval queens series.

Upcoming Books

Her next novel, The Pretender’s Wife, is due in the US on May 25, 2027. It tells the story of Lady Katherine Gordon, the Scottish noblewoman who married Perkin Warbeck, the young man who claimed to be one of the lost Princes in the Tower. For the latest news, check the What’s Next page on her website.

Similar Authors You’ll Enjoy

Philippa Gregory

The obvious next step for Six Tudor Queens readers. Philippa Gregory writes about many of the same women, from Elizabeth of York to Katharine Parr, with more invention and drama than Weir. Our Plantagenet and Tudor reading order shows where to begin.

Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel tells the story of Henry VIII’s court through Thomas Cromwell, Wolsey’s protégé. Readers of The Cardinal will meet Wolsey again in the Wolf Hall trilogy, in a denser and more literary style.

Sharon Kay Penman

For Weir’s medieval readers. Sharon Kay Penman wrote long, deeply researched novels about the Plantagenets, including Eleanor of Aquitaine and Richard III, with the same respect for the sources.

Elizabeth Chadwick

Elizabeth Chadwick writes about the women and knights of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, including a trilogy on Eleanor of Aquitaine. Start with her William Marshal novels.

C.J. Sansom

For Tudor history with a mystery attached. C.J. Sansom‘s Shardlake series follows a lawyer through the later years of Henry VIII’s reign, with Katharine Parr appearing in one of the books.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Alison Weir’s best book?

Her own bestselling book is Eleanor of Aquitaine, and The Six Wives of Henry VIII is her best-known history. Among the novels, most readers choose Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen or Anne Boleyn: A King’s Obsession from the Six Tudor Queens series.

In what order should I read the Six Tudor Queens books?

Read them in the order of Henry VIII’s marriages, which is also the publication order: Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Kleve, Katheryn Howard and Katharine Parr. The short story collection In the Shadow of Queens can be read alongside or afterwards.

Do I need to read Alison Weir’s books in order?

Only within a series. The Six Tudor Queens and the Tudor Rose trilogy work best in order, and The Marriage Game follows The Lady Elizabeth. The other novels and all of the nonfiction stand alone.

Is Alison Weir historically accurate?

Her histories are built on the primary sources, and she sets out the evidence before giving her view in disputed cases. Her novels keep close to the known facts but invent dialogue, thoughts and some events, and she explains in her author’s notes where she has used imagination.

What is the Tudor Rose trilogy?

It is a trilogy of novels about three generations of the Tudor family: Elizabeth of York: The Last White Rose (2022), Henry VIII: The Heart and the Crown (2023) and Mary I: Queen of Sorrows (2024). In the US the second and third books are titled The King’s Pleasure and The Passionate Tudor.

Why do some of her books have different titles in the US?

Her UK and US publishers sometimes choose different titles for the same book. Examples are Anna of Kleve (US The Princess in the Portrait), Henry VIII: The Heart and the Crown (US The King’s Pleasure) and Lancaster and York (US The Wars of the Roses). The text is the same, so there is no need to buy both.

What time periods does Alison Weir write about?

Mostly English royal history from the Norman Conquest of 1066 to the end of the Tudor dynasty in 1603. Her largest body of work covers the Tudor court, and her medieval queens series covers the four centuries before it.

Are Alison Weir’s books suitable for younger readers?

Her nonfiction suits older teenagers with an interest in history. Her novels are written for adults and include executions, childbirth, court violence and some sexual content, so they are better for older teens and up.

Has Alison Weir’s work been adapted for film or TV?

None of her books has been made into a film or television series.

Is Alison Weir still writing?

Yes. The Boleyn Secret was published in 2026, and her next novel, The Pretender’s Wife, about the wife of Perkin Warbeck, is due in 2027.

How many books has Alison Weir written?

Her official website lists 17 works of fiction, including the In the Shadow of Queens collection, and 22 works of nonfiction, for 39 books by 2026. That count does not include her e-short stories.

Conclusion

Alison Weir has spent more than thirty years telling the stories of England’s kings and queens, first as a historian and then as a novelist. Whichever side of her work you begin with, the other is waiting, and the two shed light on each other.

New readers of fiction should start with Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen and follow the Six Tudor Queens reading order. Readers who prefer history should start with The Six Wives of Henry VIII or, for the Middle Ages, Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life.

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