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Thomas Penn - Winter King (The Dawn of Tudor England) (2nd Hand Paperback)
SKU B002897
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Original price
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£2.95
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Synopsis
Multi Award Winning Book.
'He were a dark prince, and infinitely suspicious, and his times full of secret conspiracies and troubles' - Sir Francis Bacon.
A fresh look at the endlessly fascinating Tudors - the dramatic and overlooked story of Henry VII and his founding of the Tudor Dynasty - filled with spies, plots, counterplots, and an uneasy royal succession to Henry VIII.
In 1501, England had been ravaged for decades by conspiracy, coups, and violence. Through luck, guile, and ruthlessness, Henry VII, the first of the Tudor kings, emerged as ruler - but as a fugitive with a flimsy claim to England’s throne, he remained a usurper and false king to many, and his hold on power was precarious.
But Henry had a crucial asset: his queen and their children, the living embodiment of his hoped-for dynasty. His marriage to Queen Elizabeth united the houses of Lancaster and York, the warring parties that had fought the bloody century-long Wars of the Roses. Now their older son, Arthur, was about to marry a Spanish princess. On a cold November day sixteen-year-old Catherine of Aragon arrived in London for a wedding that would mark a triumphal moment in Henry’s reign. But Henry’s plans for his son would not happen - and waiting in the wings was the impetuous younger brother, the future Henry VIII.
Rich with drama and insight, Winter King is an astonishing story of pageantry, treachery, intrigue, and incident - and the fraught, dangerous birth of Tudor England.
In his remarkable debut, Penn vividly recreates the dark and turbulent reign of Henry VII. He traces the transformation of a young, vulnerable boy, Prince Henry, into the aggressive teenager who would become Henry VIII, and of Catherine of Aragon, his future queen. And at the book's heart is the tragic, magnetic figure of Henry VII - controlling, paranoid, avaricious, with a Machiavellian charm and will to power.
Details
- Format : Standard 2nd Hand Paperback
- Condition : Very Good (Almost As New)
- Category : Non-Fiction - History & Futurology
- Published : 2011 (This Edition 2012 - Penguin)
- ISBN : 9780141040530
- SKU : B002897
- PPC : SP400gm
- RRP : £8.99
- Quantity Available : 1 only.
External Reviews
"Remarkable . . . Penn brilliantly recreates the sterile atmosphere suffocating Henry's England. His eye for time, circumstance and the telling anecdote is keen. Winter King offers us the fullest, deepest, most compelling insight into the warped psychology of the Tudor dynasty's founder to have appeared since Bacon wrote. - Financial Times.
"Thomas Penn is a superb teller of a tale, a reveller in dodgy deeds, a keen observer of the febrile, dissimulating characters of court and embassy, and a splendid limner of the great jousts and entertainments of the age . . . with a sharp eye for detail and adroit use of a gifted historical imagination . . . he lets us hear the creak of oars and the scratch of pens, as well as the tubercular king fighting for every breath . . . Vigorous and thoroughly enjoyable. - Economist.
"I feel like I've been waiting to read this book a long time . . . a fluent and compelling account. The level of detail is fascinating and beautifully judged . . . I think that, for the first time, a writer has made me feel what contemporaries felt as Henry VII's reign drew to an end; the relief, the hope, the sudden buoyancy. - Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall.
"Succeeds brilliantly. A finely drawn portrait . . . Penn's deft turn of phrase superbly re-creates the drama and personalities of the court." - Tracy Borman, Sunday Times.
The Author
Thomas Penn is an English historian, author and editor. He is best known for his 2011 biography of King Henry VII of England, Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England, for which he won the HW Fisher Best First Biography prize and which was the subject of a 2013 BBC documentary that he presented.