The best history books of the summer chosen by The Sunday Times Culture Magazine include:
Elizabeth’s Bedfellows
by Anna Whitelock
‘This intimate look at the ladies of Elizabeth I’s court is dazzling and fresh.’
The Children of Henry VIII
by John Guy
‘Involving study of the bitter feuds of Henry VIII’s offspring.’
The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England
by Ian Mortimer
What life in 16th-century England was really like.’
p.32-33, The Culture, Sunday Times, 23 June 2013.
Helen Castor and Philippa Gregory discuss the women behind the Wars of the Roses on BBC 4’s Woman’s Hour.
30 May 2013 – The Tudor Rose: Princess Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s Sister by Jennifer Kewley Draskau
(c) The History Press
‘The beautiful sister of Henry VIII, the spoiled darling of the court, Princess Mary Rose Tudor was married off to the ailing King of France against her will, and, after his death, had to fight for the right to marry Henry’s favourite companion, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. After bearing him four children, Mary Rose died in the full flower of her beauty. Her adored husband, too busy to attend her funeral, soon married the 14-year-old fiancee of their only surviving son, who shortly thereafter died of TB. Her older daughter, Frances, was the mother of the ill-fated Jane Grey, the ‘Nine Days Queen.’ Her second daughter, Eleanor, was the grandmother of Fernando, 5th Earl of Derby, intended by Henry VIII to inherit the throne after Elizabeth. The Tudor Rose is the previously untold story of Mary Tudor and the role she and her descendants played in Tudor England.’
The Daily Telegraph reports on a talk by Dr John Guy at the Hay Festival 2013. During this talk, the author of the recently published, ‘The Children of Henry VIII’ mentioned some new evidence relating to Lady Jane Grey.
‘The historian said that new information was casting new light on some of the “doctored documents” of the 16th century about her.'(Martin Chilton, The Telegraph).
You can read the full report at:
I started a new series last weekend called ‘Events By Place.’ The first article is about Durham House, where the wedding of Lady Jane Grey was held on 25th May 1553.
More places will follow as we reach dates significant with the life and death of Lady Jane.
