This volume explores a range of topics during a turbulent period in British history, with particular emphasis on political change and popular piety. On the eve of the Reformation, religious beliefs were shaped by a church which was falling under the growing control of the state, and by responses to England's one and only heretical movement, Lollardy. In political life, gradual disengagement from a cross-Channel political world was followed by civil war and the eventual rise of a strong Tud...

The conflict between England and France in the 14th and 15th centuries never ceases to fascinate. This stimulating edited collection, inspired by the Problems in Focus volume originally published in 1971, provides a fresh and accessible insight into the key aspects of The Hundred Years War. With chapters written by leading experts in the field, based on new methodologies and recent advances in scholarship, this book places the Anglo-French wars into a range of wider contexts, such...

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 Tudor Age began in August 1485 when Henry Tudor landed with a small force at Milford Haven intent on snatching the English throne from Richard III. For more than a hundred years England was to be dominated by the personalities of the fi ve Tudor monarchs, ranging from the brilliance and brutality of Henry VIII to the shrewdness and vanity of the virgin queen, Elizabeth I.

Means to be God, and do as pleases himself Martin Luther observed. It was a shrewd comment, not merely on the divorce in which the King was then embroiled, but upon his whole career. Henry VIII was self righteous, and convinced that he enjoyed a special relationship with the Almighty, which gave him a unique claim upon the obedience of his subjects. He subdued the church, sidelined the old nobility, and reorganised the government of his realm, all in the name of that Good Lordship which wa...

No period in British history today retains more resonance and mystery than the sixteenth century. The leading figures of the time have become almost mythical, and the terrors and grandeurs of Tudor Britain have resonance with even the least historically minded readers. Above all Brigden sees the key to the Tudor world as religion - the new world of Protestantism and its battle with the the old world of uniform Catholicism. This great religious rent in the fabric of English society underlie...

An accessible biography of Henry VIII by one of the country's leading Tudor experts. The future Henry VIII was born on 29 June 1491, the second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. This talented, athletic and temperamental man might have proved something of a handful to his elder brother, Prince Arthur, the firstborn, had he survived to wear the crown. But Henry's life was changed forever when Arthur died in 1502 and the course of English history took a very unexpected turn.

One of the best-known figures of British history, collective memory of Henry VIII presents us with the image of a corpulent, covetous, and cunning king whose appetite for worldly goods met few parallels, whose wives met infamously premature ends, and whose religion was ever political in intent.1536 - focusing on a pivotal year in the life of the King - reveals a fuller portrait of this complex monarch, detailing the finer shades of humanity that have so long been o...

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. ...

A sumptuously written people’s history and a major retelling and reinterpretation of the story of the English ReformationCenturies on, what the Reformation was and what it accomplished remain deeply contentious. Peter Marshall’s sweeping new history—the first major overview for general readers in a generation—argues that sixteenth-century England was a society neither desperate for nor allergic to change, but one open to ideas of “reform” in various competing guise...

An engaging, richly illustrated account of parish churches and churchgoers in England, from the Anglo-Saxons to the mid-sixteenth centuryParish churches were at the heart of English religious and social life in the Middle Ages and the sixteenth century. In this comprehensive study, Nicholas Orme shows how they came into existence, who staffed them, and how their buildings were used. He explains who went to church, who did not attend, how people behaved there, and h...

To an extraordinary extent everyone in Britain still lives under the shadow of the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688. It was a massive, brutal and terrifying event, which completely changed the governments of England, Scotland and Ireland and which was only achieved through overwhelming violence. Revolution brilliantly captures the sense that this was a great turning point in Britain's history, but also shows how severe a price was paid to achieve this.