Henry VIII

Quinten A. Buechner describes how, after 1519, Luther’s books circulated in England, but never entirely convinced King Henry VIII of the reformer’s sincerity.

C.G. Cruickshank describes how, having captured Tournai, the twenty-two-year-old king indulged his taste for sport and pageantry.

William Seymour introduces Sir John Seymour; an uncle of the King, and a favourite of the late Henry VIII, Somerset had an amiable character not strong enough for perilous mid-Tudor times.

C.G. Cruickshank describes bows and fire-arms in the early sixteenth century.

The first of two articles by C.G. Cruickshank describing logistics and pageantry in the reign of King Henry VIII.

H. Ross Williamson profiles the life and career of Cardinal Reginald Pole: cousin to Henry VIII; once Papal candidate; ‘a humanist of European reputation’; Pole spent much of his life abroad, in an artistic and philosophical circle that included Michelangelo.

Martin Biddle visits Nonsuch, a magnificent combination of French Renaissance decoration, with English late Gothic design, built by Henry VIII in a spirit of rivalry with Francis I of France.

The ‘moving spirit’ of the English Reformation was a skilful and far-sighted statesman, writes Geoffrey Elton. 

Lady Margaret Douglas, a favourite of Henry VIII, negotiated the shady politics and shifting alliances of the courts of four Tudor monarchs. Leanda de Lisle tells the story of the ‘progenitor of princes’, whose grandson, James VI of Scotland, became the first Stuart king of England.

Twenty-three crucial years in English history were covered by the arch-episcopate of Thomas Cranmer, whose most enduring monument is the English Book of Common Prayer. By H.A.L. Rice.