Reign Of Henry VIII: The Personalities and Politics

Reign Of Henry VIII: The Personalities and Politics

by Dr David Starkey (Author), Dr David Starkey (Author)

Synopsis

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. The Reign of Henry the VIII is not so much a book about Henry VIII. It is about the great game of politics over which he presided.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 03 Oct 2002

ISBN 10: 0099445107
ISBN 13: 9780099445104
Book Overview: David Starkey's brilliant overview of the great game of politics, over which Henry VIII presided.

Media Reviews
Starkey has the mind of an historian but the eye of a court painter -- Peter Ackroyd * The Times *
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
Author Bio
David Starkey is an Honorary Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and the author of Elizabeth, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII and Henry: Virtuous Prince. He is a winner of the Norton Medlicott Medal for Services to History, and of the WH Smith Prize. He is well-known for his historical television series focusing on the Tudors, monarchy and Britain, and for his radio appearances. Starkey was made a CBE in 2007 and lives in London.