The first history of childhood in Tudor England“Tudor Children is social history at its best. . . . By connecting with our own history as children, Orme invites us to embrace a new way of engaging with the past.”—Joanne Paul, Times (UK)What was it like to grow up in England under the Tudors? How were children cared for, what did they play with, and what dangers did they face?In this beautifully illustrated and char...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Beautifully written, exhaustive in its research . . . a gem [that] outshines all previous studies of Henry.”—The Philadelphia InquirerFor fans of Wolf Hall, an intimate biography of Henry VIII, one of English history’s most turbulent, complex rulers, and the glittering court he made his own, from “the finest historian of English monarchical succession writing” (The Boston Globe)

The political and military history of the sixteenth century is well known, and much written about, but what of the thousands of women who have, for the most part, eluded the historian's pen? The Tudor Housewife aims to answer this question, providing a unique and accessible introduction to everyday life and responsibilities of women from all levels of society in the age of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. With chapters on marriage, childbirth, the upbringing of children, washing and cleaning, f...

Elizabeth Woodville is undoubtedly a historical character whose life no novelist would ever have dared invent. She has been portrayed as an enchantress; as an unprincipled advancer of her family's fortunes and a plucky but pitiful queen in Shakespeare's histories. She has been alternatively championed and vilified by her contemporaries and five centuries of historians, dramatists and novelists, but what was she really like? In this revealing account of Elizabeth's life David Baldwin sets o...

A study of the committee behind the creation of the 1611 English Bible—"an engaging work of literary, cultural, and religious history" ( Kirkus Reviews ).NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK"This scrupulously elegant account of the creation of what four centuries of history has confirmed is the finest English-langu...

"An exceptional and compelling biography about one of the Tudor Age's most complex and controversial figures." —Alison WeirThomas Cromwell has long been reviled as a Machiavellian schemer who stopped at nothing in his quest for power. As King Henry VIII's right-hand man, Cromwell was the architect of the English Reformation; secured Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and plotted the downfall of his second wife, Anne Boleyn; and was fatally accused of trying t...

The century spanning the wars of the roses and the reigns of the Tudor kings was a volatile time of battle and bloodshed, execution and unexpected illness. Life could be nasty, brutish and short. Some met their end in battle, others were dragged to the block, losing everything for daring to aspire to the throne. Some were lost in mysterious circumstances, like Edward V, the elder of the Princes in the Tower. But the majority of these young men died in their teens, on the b...

Preeminent Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro, author of Shakespeare in a Divided America**, shows how the tumultuous events in 1606 influenced three of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies written that year—King Lear, Macbeth,** and Antony and Cleopatra. **“**The Year of Lear is irresistible—a banquet of wisdom” (

NEW YORK TIMES BETSELLER • A poignant, suspenseful, and sometimes tragic biography of Elizabeth of York, the first Tudor queen and mother of Henry VIII, from the renowned author hailed as “the finest historian of English monarchical succession writing” (The Boston Globe)“[Weir] is a meticulous scholar. . . . [She] sincerely admires her subject, doing honor to an almost forgotten queen.”—The New York Times Book Review...

Learn what went on behind closed doors in the Tudor court. Illegitimate children, adulterous queens, impotent kings, and a whole dynasty resting on their shoulders. Sex and childbirth were quite literally a matter of life or death for the Tudors - Elizabeth of York died in childbirth, two of Henry VIII's queens were beheaded for infidelity, and Elizabeth I's elective virginity signalled the demise of a dynasty. Amy Licence guides the reader through the births of Henry VII and Elizabeth of ...

The turbulent Tudor age never fails to capture the imagination. But what was it actually like to be a woman during this period? This was a time when death in infancy or during childbirth was rife; when marriage was usually a legal contract, not a matter for love, and the education of women was minimal at best. Yet the Tudor century was also dominated by powerful and characterful women in a way that no era had been before.Elizabeth Norton explores the seven ages of the Tudor woman, ...

Did Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the Princes on the Tower, survive his imprisonment? In this revealing new book medieval historian David Baldwin presents an original and intriguing scenario.On 27 December 1550 an old man named Richard Plantagenet was buried at Eastwell in Kent. He had spent much of his life working as a bricklayer at St John's Abbey, Colchester, but, unusually for a bricklayer, he could read Latin. Reluctant to give any account of his back...