The novel imagines the women history never named. The history puts the birth chamber back on the record.
Non-fiction · Pen & Sword History
Tudor Childbirth in the Royal Court
The Midwives and Mothers
In the Tudor court, a woman’s body was never her own. Every pregnancy, every birth, was a link in the chain of dynastic succession — and failure was not forgiven.
Historian and midwife Brigitte Barnard reveals how royal women gave birth and the rituals that surrounded childbirth in Renaissance England, and brings readers into the world of the early modern midwife. Ranging from England to Spain, the Netherlands and the Holy Roman Empire, she traces the practices, beliefs and dangers that shaped maternal care — and asks why the Tudor dynasty ultimately came to an end.
Historical fiction · Book 1 of the trilogy
The Tudor Queens’ Midwife
In the glittering, dangerous court of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, the demand for a male heir overshadows everything. After each miscarriage the queen turns to Sarah Menendez, the most skilled midwife in England — a woman exiled from her homeland, living under a name that is not her own.
Sarah must keep the queen and her unborn child alive, and keep her own daughter safe from a past that could still destroy them both.
“Barnard crafts her Tudor story with much sensitivity and skill.”
Wendy J. Dunn, author
Content note: stillbirth.