'The authors are to be congratulated on a book which merits usage in the national curriculum.' - International Journal of Nautical ArchaeologyThe raising of the Tudor warship Mary Rose in 1982 has made her one of the most famous ships in history, though there is a good deal more to her story than its terminal disaster. She served successfully in the Royal Navy for more than thirty years before sinking, for reasons still uncertain, during ...

This is the history of the men and women who occupied the highest position in English, and later British, society. From Richard III’s infamous life and death, to Henry VIII’s wives, Charles I’s execution and Queen Victoria’s exceptionally long reign, their dramatic story unfolds within the pages of this book. For about a thousand years they were superior lords, the leaders of a nobility which ruled, and for about three hundred years thereafter they were sovereigns, whose servants ruled in ...

David Loades provides a masterful overview of this formative period of British history.Exploring the reign of each monarch within the framework of the dynasty, he unpacks the key questions surrounding the monarchy; the relationship between church and the state, development of government, war and foreign policy, the question of Ireland and the issue of succession in Tudor politics.Loades considers the recent scholarship on the dynasty as a whole, paying particular attention to Henry...

Henry’s fifth queen is best known to history as the stupid adolescent who got herself fatally entangled with lovers and ended up on the block. However, there was more to her than that. She was a symptom of the power struggle that was going on in the court in 1539–40 between Thomas Cromwell and his conservative rivals, among whom the Howard family figured prominently. The Howards were an ambitious clan, and Catherine’s marriage to Henry appeared to signify their triumph. However, her weakne...

The fall of Anne Boleyn and her brother George is the classic drama of the Tudor era. The Boleyns had long been an influential English family. Sir Edward Boleyn had been Lord Mayor of London. His grandson, Sir Thomas had inherited wealth and position, and through the sexual adventures of his daughters, Mary and Anne, ascended to the peak of influence at court.The three Boleyn children formed a faction of their own, making many enemies: and when those enemies secured Henry VIIIs ear...

Thomas Cromwell was a self-made lawyer who served first Cardinal Wolsey and then Henry VIII. His time with Wolsey served him well in his work for the king after the cardinal’s fall from power in 1529. Cromwell’s time in office from 1530 until his execution in 1540 was one of the most crucial periods in English history. This biography explores Cromwell’s relationship with Henry VIII and why it failed. It also shows how he manipulated the politics of the court that eventually destroyed him. ...

Mary Tudor was the first female English sovereign a ruling queen who was not simply the consort of the king. Yet little is known about this complex woman, whose reputation for ruthlessness belied her emotional fragility and who, like her half-sister Elizabeth, had to survive from childhood in the turbulent Tudor court.David Loades explores the twisting path whereby Princess Mary, daughter of a rejected wife, Catherine of Aragon, and a capricious father - Henry VIII - endured disfav...

The story of Henry VIII and his six wives has passed from history into legend – taught in the cradle as a cautionary tale and remembered in adulthood as an object lesson in the dangers of marrying into royalty. The true story behind the legend, however, remains obscure to most people, whose knowledge of the affair begins and ends with the aide memoire ‘Divorced, executed, died, divorced, executed, survived’. David Loades’ masterly book recounts Henry’s whole sorry tale in detail from his f...

The Reader's**Guide to British History is the essential source to secondary material on British history. This resource contains over 1,000 A-Z entries on the history of Britain, from ancient and Roman Britain to the present day. Each entry lists 6-12 of the best-known books on the subject, then discusses those works in an essay of 800 to 1,000 words prepared by an expert in the field. The essays provide advice on the range and depth of coverage as well as the emphasis and point of...

'A paradise - tall, slender, grey-eyed, possessing an extreme pallor.' The contemporary view of Henry VIII's younger sister, Princess Mary Rose, as one of the most beautiful princesses in Europe, was an arresting one. Glorious to behold, this Tudor princess, with her red hair flowing loose to her waist, was also impossible for Henry to control. She first married the King of France, a match of great importance to Henry's diplomatic plans. He was dead within three months, 'danced to death' b...

First published in 1999, This book is a wide-ranging and authoritative review of the reception in England and other countries of Foxe’s Acts and Monuments of the English Martyrs from the time of its original publication between 1563 and 1583, up to the nineteenth century. Essays by leading scholars deal with the development of the text, the illustrations and the uses to which the work was put by protagonists in subsequent religious controversies. This volume is derived from the second John...

The reign of Queen Mary is popularly remembered largely for her re-introduction of Catholicism into England, and especially for the persecution of Protestants, memorably described in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments. Mary's brief reign has often been treated as an aberrant interruption of England's march to triumphant Protestantism, a period of political sterility, foreign influence and religious repression rightly eclipsed by the happier reign of her more sympathetic half-sister, Elizabeth....