“Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England’s Most Notorious Royal Family”, by Leanda de Lisle

 

576 pages, PublicAffairs, ISBN-13: 978-1610395458

This is one long-winded title, make no mistake, but Leanda de Lisle shows in Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England’s Most Notorious Royal Family that every word is necessary in order to convey her point. A word of warning: if you’re looking for a book that goes into the infighting and interpersonal relationships of the Tudor royals and key members of their inner circles, then this book certainly delivers, but if you’re seeking a history of not only that, but their overall achievements and failures, then you'll need to look elsewhere, for de Lisle is heavily focused on the family and factional dynamics in and around the House of Tudor and on spotlighting the achievements of the respective Tudor reigns.

And when de Lisle says “Tudor” she means it: after recounting how this minor Welsh landowning family lost everything in 1399 when they backed Richard II against the usurping Henry IV – the first Lancastrian king of England – she tells the tale of Owen Tudor and his seduction of Henry V’s widow, Queen Catherine, thus setting the House of Tudor definitively on its onward and upward societal ascent. Many of the works I have read on the Tudors skip these details, but de Lisle reminds us of just how high this unlikely royal dynasty climbed and, subsequently, just how far they fell – good job, Elizabeth (hell, she even resurrects David Tudor, Owen Tudor’s last child, from obscurity; I had never heard of him before this book).

Naturally, when you attempt to discuss all of the Tudors at once you are left with a lot that is unsaid. This book is an overview of the Tudor era, and so much must be sacrificed; any hope of in-depth examinations of policies or philosophies must be jettisoned and left to other, more detailed works (there are a plethora of biographies on any of the personages mentioned in this book). But that’s okay: seeing the lives and reigns of one Tudor monarch flow into the next gave a sense of continuity that can be lacking in studies that focus on one monarch at a time and showed just how and why change came over the course of 16^th Century England. Nothing happens in a vacuum and showing the flow of history really solidified my understanding of the era.

Except for de Lisle’s using two very flimsy excuses from this period of history to lend us her personal opinion on two very modern, very polarizing issues, Tudor is history as it should be: engaging, complete and even entertaining – oh, and don’t skip the Appendices at the back.