
Reign Of Henry VIII: The Personalities and Politics (Paperback)
Dr David Starkey (author)Published: 03/10/2002
The Reign of Henry the VIII is not a tale of Henry VIII. It is about the great game of politics over which he presided.
Henry VIII was almost never alone. He was surrounded, twenty-four hours a day, by the small group of intimates and personal attendants who made up the staff of his Privy Chamber. They organised his daily life, kept him amused and acted as the landline between the King and the formal machinery of government.
These men: intermarried, interbred, and close-knit even in their mutual feuding, were supremely well placed to rig politics and patronage for their own benefit. Their influence was important and sometimes decisive: factions in the Privy Chamber destroyed Anne Boleyn, they frustrated the 'Catholic' reaction of the 1540s, and, by doctoring Henry's will, prepared the way for the full-blooded Protestantism of his son's reign.
Bursting with sleaze and scandal, David Starkey's account of the machinations of the court of Henry VIII are worthy of modern-day political saga.
'To anyone who savours the atmosphere of high politics, this book will make exciting reading' Conrad Russell
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9780099445104
Number of pages: 176
Weight: 151 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 12 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
To anyone who can savour the atmosphere of high politics, this book will make exciting reading -- Conrad Russell
Starkey's great innovation as a constitutional historian has been his readiness to take a closer look at the organisation of the early modern royal household * Times Literary Supplement *
To anyone who savours the atmosphere of high politics, this book will make exciting reading * Conrad Russell *
David Starkey brings to the task not only a mastery of institutional framework...but also skills in graphic delineation of character and an exuberant narrative panache -- R. A. Houlbrooke
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“The Reign of Henry VIII”
This is both a detailed and thorough exploration of the inner workings of the early Tudor court, and a useful, easy-to-read starting point for anyone interested in the king himself.
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