Peter Ackroyd, one of Britain's most acclaimed writers, brings the age
of the Tudors to vivid life in this monumental book in his The History
of England series.
Tudors is the story of Henry VIII's relentless pursuit of both the
perfect wife and the perfect heir; of how the brief reign of the teenage
king, Edward VI, gave way to the violent reimposition of Catholicism and
the stench of bonfires under Bloody Mary. It tells, too, of the long
reign of Elizabeth I, which, though marked by civil strife, plots
against her, and even an invasion force, finally brought stability.
Above all, it is the story of the English Reformation and the making of
the Anglican Church. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, England
was still largely feudal and looked to Rome for direction; at its end,
it was a country where good governance was the duty of the state, not
the church, and where men and women began to look to themselves for
answers rather than to those who ruled them.