Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England's Most Notorious Royal Family

by Leanda de Lisle

The Tudors are England's most dramatic royal family-Henry VIII notoriously divorced his queen and broke with the church of Rome, and Elizabeth I became the greatest English queen in history. But they are a dynasty still more extraordinary than the one we thought we knew.

In an epic narrative sweeping from 1437 to the first decade of the seventeenth century, Tudor traces the rise and rule of the dynasty. Brutal political instability dominated England, and Leanda de Lisle reveals the personalities, passions, and obsessions of the men and women at its epicenter.

This groundbreaking story opens at the unlikely beginning of the Tudor dynasty-with Owen Tudor, a handsome Welsh commoner who, with a pirouette and a trip, landed squarely in the lap of the English Monarchy. The struggle of Owen's grandson Henry VII and his heirs to secure the line of succession-and the hopes, loves, and losses of the claimants-are the focus of this book. The universal appeal of the Tudors also lies in the family stories: of a mother's love for her son, of the husband who kills his wives, of siblings who betray one another, of reckless love affairs, of rival cousins, of an old spinster whose heirs hope to hurry her to her end.

Thrilling to read and bristling with religious and political intrigue, Tudor tells the true story behind the myths, throwing a fresh, new light on this perennially fascinating era.

Genres: Nonfiction

578 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 8, 2013

About the author

Leanda de Lisle is the author of bestselling Tudor and Stuart history praised for meticulous research as well as strong narratives. She has a Masters degree in history from Oxford University. TUDOR, her biography of the Tudor family 1437-1603, was a top ten Sunday Times best seller, BBC History book of the year, Daily Telegraph book of the year, and History Today book of the year. THE SISTERS WHO WOULD BE QUEEN; THE TRAGEDY OF MARY, KATHERINE AND LADY JANE GREY, was a New York Times best seller and is the inspiration for Phillippa Gregory's 2017 novel THE LAST TUDOR. Her latest book WHITE KING,, a biography of the doomed Charles I, is her most dramatic yet and is the winner of the 2018 Historical Writers Association non-fiction crown.

Leanda does a monthly podcast on itunes Ten Minute Tudors, it uncovers the true Tudors and Stuarts behind the myths.

Reviews

[marinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched ✅
Well written ✅
I love non-boring non fiction

I learned sooo much about the people who came before Henry VIII, as well as a lot of underrated key political figures. Elizabeth and Mary were propaganda final bosses as well.

[Cody Keeble · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned about this book from a TikTok in the last few years- it was on the shelves in some girls videos and I think she suggested it as a good intro to history of the Tudor time period. Either way I’ve been searching thrift stores and used book stores since, along the way I ended up collecting three shelves worth of Tudor biographies from Margaret Beaufort to Margaret Douglas. If nothing else reading this book will have pushed me into reading these books on specific people.

I have a special love of the Tudors as they were the first historical figures of England I came to (through the show naturally) and my first ever narrative history was on Mary I who I just felt was robbed of the life she should have lived. Mary, Elizabeth, Mary QoS and Catherine de Medici were the first ‘cluster’ of women rulers I found and I’ve been on the hunt ever since, typically working backwards in medieval history to find the next cluster of powerful women to read about.

In working backwards since the book on Mary Tudor it’s been a long time since I’ve read any non fiction about the Tudors (the last year I’ve been stuck between Anglo-Saxon England, the Merovingians and most lately the Hindred years war). But I was excited to have finally found the elusive Tudor earlier this month and straight away set to reading it.

All the time and search for it may have raised my expectations of the book. Pretty quickly into it i set down my pen and highlighter realizing I didn’t really need to annotate the book, which does take part of the fun out of reading history for me. Besides knowing much of the history it just didn’t read as a very factual work, the authors opinion very much taking the lead. While it didn’t come across as teaching me much, it was extremely easy to read and therefore would no doubt be accessible for anyone wanting to get a broad overview of the major figures in the Tudor period.

Aside from pushing me to reading individual biographies on Tudor figures, I did learn more about some of the later relatives alive during Elizabeth’s reign. It drew new connections for me of the Brandon-Grey line from Queen Mary of France and the Stuart-Douglas-Lennox line from Queen Margaret of Scotland. Above all I believe i come away with a new interest and respect for Margaret Douglas- no doubt picked up on from the authors interest in her, as she states in one of the many appendices- who I’m lucky enough to have a book about by Alison Weir.

Overall the book was a fun summer read that went by quickly. It may just not have been the academic tome on the Tudors I expected going into it.