95 books like The Tudor Revolution in Government

Although I had become interested in Roman history at a very early age, this was the first full ancient text that, at about fourteen years old, I read about the Roman emperors. I was immediately taken by Tacitus’ serious tone and the immediacy of his narrative.

His near-contemporary account of (at least part of) the reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero sounded, for all that it was written almost two thousand years before, very modern. After reading it, I bought as many of the (purple) Latin and (brown) Greek Penguin translations of classical literature–history, poetry, and drama–as were available.

As the Annals opened my eyes to Roman history, Highet’s book opened them to Latin poetry and the Italian countryside. Still at school, still doing only basic Latin, not Classics, and still to travel outside the U.K., but very interested in English poetry, Highet’s introduction to Catullus, Virgil, Propertius, Horace, Tibullus, Ovid, and Juvenal revealed a whole new world to me.

Highet’s autobiographical interpretation of their works is now very much out of date, but profusely illustrated with fine photographs, his book presented them to me as real people living in and influenced by real landscapes. I was also taken by Highet’s efforts to catch the feel of Latin verses in his translations. Horace’s ‘Hail, Bandusian spring, clearer than crystal pure’ is still fixed in my memory.

Laslett’s book taught me the value of comparative material in studying Ancient History. Another part of the Medieval and Modern History syllabus was seventeenth-century England. Teaching was dominated by the Civil War, emphasizing its socio-economic aspects.

This book had just appeared, and I drew on it enthusiastically for my essays. It dealt with the only period of English pre-industrial history for which original documentation allows some meaningful, detailed study of ordinary life. This is not possible for Roman history, even through archaeology, but the experience of later times can be considered in studying Roman society.

For example, Laslett explored precisely how upper-class and merchant families were not nuclear but made up of a large number of near and distant relatives, servants, employees and apprentices: not unlike the traditional Roman familia, except that the latter included slaves.

When I was finally allowed to specialize in Ancient History in the third year of my BA degree, this included a survey of Ancient Greece, supervised by no less a figure than Professor (later Sir) Moses Finley.

One of his recommendations for reading was Adkins' book, listed here, a key point of which is that virtue is not absolute but depends on a society's socio-economic development level. In Archaic Greece, the "good" man was not the one whom later Greeks, and ourselves, would call "good" by virtue of moral rectitude but the one who could, by brute force if necessary, protect his family and community in troubled times: a telling corrective to historical "presentism."

This is the second Matthew Shardlake adventure from the pen of a master craftsman, set at the time of Henry VIII.

I was embroiled in danger alongside the lawyer as he fights to save a girl accused of murder from the hangman’s noose and recover a long-lost ancient secret. I learned that the intriguing machinations going on in a Tudor court of law are as shifty and tangled as those at the royal court in Whitehall.

I visited many a seedy London tavern with side-kick Barak during that searing hot summer of 1540, smelling the sour stink of sweaty humanity as the body count increased and met Shardlake’s nemesis, Richard Rich. Brilliant stuff!    

Another lesser-known figure, Elizabeth is the wife of Thomas Cromwell. She has very little mention in the historical record but the author draws on what we do know of her husband, Thomas. Elizabeth Cromwell’s character is convincing and likable. I particularly enjoyed glimpsing another side of Thomas Cromwell, a more human side and I loved the descriptions of their imagined daily life together. The author doesn’t over describe but the sights, sounds, and smells of the city are touched on just enough to provide a sense of place. It was also refreshing to see a woman involved in business in her own right, the cloth trade is described with enough detail to engage the reader but never becomes tedious.

I was surprised by how much I loved this book about England in the 1500s. The story of Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII has been told and retold, but even when I thought I knew what was coming (it is history, after all), I didn’t!

I laughed, cried, and found myself rooting for Cromwell. Yes, Cromwell! Such is the power of Hilary Mantle; there is no better historical fiction writer.

Though I did enjoy the earlier Wolf Hall I found Bring Up the Bodies more readable and compelling.

Hilary Mantel paints intimate word pictures of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, and especially Thomas Cromwell, struggling to make his way through the minefield of political intrigue at Henry’s court. Though it is against almost every principle he holds dear, Cromwell charts a course which one step at a time ultimately brings Anne Boleyn down.

Finding himself in an almost impossible situation, he agonizes over every decision, looking at it from many sides: legal, political, ethical, spiritual, and religious. Meanwhile not far in the background we see the Church’s Pope Clement trying desperately, like Oz’s man behind the curtain, to control events.

Mantel’s genius was her ability to transform dry history into compelling, character-driven stories.

When you turn the pages of this book, you feel you can see, smell, and hear the dark streets and alleys of Tudor London. This book inspired me to place my books in Tudor England and start The Tudor Rose Murders Series.

It is Tudor Crime at its best. I was so captivated by the characters, the detail, the pace, and the plotting that I could not put it down and felt wretched when I turned the last page. 

This book provides a different angle on Jane Seymour. I’ve never particularly ‘liked’ fictional Janes because they are usually so one-dimensional but this author delves more deeply. Jane’s character is subtle. On the surface she seems meek but beneath the façade she is quite determined to get what she wants. Often, the modern ideal of strong women doesn’t sit well on historical figures but J. Wertman has understood that subterfuge was often the only way for a female, even a queen, to get her own way. Janet Wertman has written other engaging Tudor books but this is my favourite.