Neville Williams (1924–1977)

In the last sentence of this book, Neville Williams reveals his basic thesis: Henry VIII was a transformational king. Well, not in so many words. Instead, he writes that Henry was “the miracle-maker who turned the water of medieval kingship into the heady wine of a personal, national monarchy, with the court as its chosen vessel.”
This is neither a full biography of Henry nor is it a full history of his reign, although the book contains elements of both. It is above all a narrative of court life, far-ranging in the topics it covers, including architecture, the decorative arts, music, and diplomacy. It recounts the improbable rise from working-class origins of his two most able ministers, Wolsey and Cromwell (and their fall), as well as the king’s relations with his six wives. The oft-told tale of Henry’s estrangement from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and his infatuation with Anne Boleyn takes into account the complex motivations and fears involved. Eternal damnation? Dying without leaving a male heir for the throne? Which would you choose?
It was an age when Henry, as well as most of his subjects, took religion very seriously. At the same time, economic pressures and an inchoate nationalism made the pope unpopular. In Williams’ telling, Henry’s faith was most consistently a popeless catholicism, rather than protestant.
The book is generously illustrated, including several full-color, full-page reproductions. These were particularly helpful to imagine the seven castles in and around London to which the court moved (including cartloads of furniture).
For those who can’t read enough about the Tudor era—so like and unlike our own—there is a helpful annotated bibliography (up to 1970, when this book was first published).
I turned to this book to get up to speed on the back story of the people and places while reading the final volume of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy. It provided what I hoped for.
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