A Murderous Midsummer

We’re obsessed with the Tudors, but the ordinary people of sixteenth-century England are all too often left out of the picture.

Mark Stoyle’s book invites us to reconsider a dimly remembered moment in time when commoners demanded to be heard. In the summer of 1549, a large popular rebellion against the religious changes of the Reformation erupted in Devon and Cornwall and threatened to shake the foundations of the state.

It is a compelling and tragic story, which ended with slaughter and retribution on an immense scale. Stoyle’s telling of it is a triumphant demonstration that meticulously researched historical scholarship… show more.