The Penguin History of Britain: New Worlds, Lost Worlds:The Rule of the Tudors 1485-1630

Description

No period in British history today retains more resonance and mystery than the 16th century. The leading figures of the time have become almost mythical, and the terrors and grandeurs of Tudor Britain form an essential part of even the least historically minded readers. This book gives the reader a sense of the atmosphere of a great era and if its epochal events. Above all, the author sees the key to the Tudor world as religion - the new world of Protestantism and its battle with the old world of uniform Catholicism. This great religious rent in the fabric of English society underlies the savage violence and turbulence of the period - from Henry VIII's break with Rome to the overwhelming threat of the Spanish Armada. Full attention too is paid to Ireland and the critical role it played in determining English affairs.

Susan Brigden is Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Lincoln College, Oxford.

"* "Susan Brigden has produced a highly readable, compulsive work that will surely take its place amongst the chief secondary sources for the period" Alison Weir * "This is history in the best sense, a doorway flung wide to a whole century of our past, an all-embracing panorama which sweeps the reader along... an extraordinary achievement written by somebody who unashamedly believes that history has a place not just in the academic's study but in the wider world of everyman". - Sir Roy Strong."