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\"Travel to the age of the Renaissance and learn why Henry VIII is one of the most famous kings in English history\"--Amazon.com.

In this groundbreaking new biography, G. W. Bernard offers a fresh portrait of one of England's most captivating queens. Through a wide-ranging forensic examination of sixteenth-century sources, Bernard reconsiders Boleyn's girlhood, her experience at the French court, the nature of her relationship with Henry, and the authenticity of her evangelical sympathies. He depicts Anne Boleyn as a captivating, intelligent, and highly sexual woman whose attractions Henry resisted for years until marriage could ensure legitimacy for their offspring. He shows that it was Henry, not Anne, who developed the ideas that led to the break with Rome. And, most radically, he argues that the allegations of adultery that led to Anne's execution in the Tower could be close to the truth.

Thomas More is a complex and controversial figure who has been regarded as both saint and persecutor, leading humanist and a representative of late medieval culture. His religious writings, with their stark and at times violent attacks on what More regarded as heresy, have been hotly debated. In Writing Faith and Telling Tales , Thomas Betteridge sets More's writings in a broad cultural and chronological context, compares them to important works of late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century vernacular theology, and makes a compelling argument for the revision of existing histories of Thomas More and his legacy. Betteridge focuses on four areas of More's writings: politics, philosophy, theology, and devotion. He examines More's History of King Richard III as a work of both history and political theory. He discusses Utopia and the ways in which its treatment of reason reflects More's Christian humanism. By exploring three of More's lesser known works, The Supplication of Souls , The Confutation , and The Apology , Betteridge demonstrates that More positioned his understanding of heresy within and against a long tradition of English anti-heretical writing, as represented in the works of Hoccleve, Lydgate, and Love. Finally, Betteridge focuses on two key concepts for understanding More's late devotional works: prayer and the book of Christ. In both cases, Betteridge claims, More seeks to develop a distinctive position that combines late medieval devotionalism with an Augustinian emphasis on the ethics of writing and reading. Writing Faith and Telling Tales poses important questions concerning periodization and confessionalization and will influence future work on the English Reformation and humanist writing in England.

Hal, a young man of extraordinary talents--skill on the battlefield, sharp intelligence, and virtue--believes he's destined for greatness but, haunted by his family's violent past, embarks on a journey that leads to absolute power and brings him face to face with his demons as he grows to become Henry VIII.

Henry VIII remains the most iconic and controversial of all English Kings. For over four-hundred years he has been lauded, reviled and mocked, but rarely ignored. In his many guises - model Renaissance prince, Defender of the Faith, rapacious plunderer of the Church, obese Bluebeard-- he has featured in numerous works of fact and faction, in books, magazines, paintings, theatre, film and television. Yet despite this perennial fascination with Henry the man and monarch, there has been little comprehensive exploration of his historiographic legacy. Therefore scholars will welcome this collection, which provides a systematic survey of Henry's reputation from his own age through to the present. Divided into three sections, the volume begins with an examination of Henry's reputation in the period between his death and the outbreak of the English Civil War, a time that was to create many of the tropes that would dominate his historical legacy. The second section deals with the further evolution of his reputation, from the Restoration to Edwardian era, a time when Catholic commentators and women writers began moving into the mainstream of English print culture. The final section covers the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which witnessed an explosion of representations of Henry, both in print and on screen. Taken together these studies, by a distinguished group of international scholars, offer a lively and engaging overview of how Henry's reputation has been used, abused and manipulated in both academia and popular culture since the sixteenth century. They provide intriguing insights into how he has been reinvented at different times to reflect the cultural, political and religious demands of the moment; sometimes as hero, sometimes as villain, but always as an unmistakable and iconic figure in the historical landscape. Contents: Introduction: all is true - Henry VIII in and out of history, Thomas Betteridge and Thomas S. Freeman; Harry's peregrinations: an Italianate defence of Henry VIII, Brett Foster; From perfect prince to 'wise and pollitike' king: Henry VIII in Edward Hall's chronicle, Scott Lucas; 'It is perilous stryvinge withe princes': Henry VIII in works by Pole, Roper and Harpsfield, Carolyn Colbert; Hands defiled with blood: Henry VIII in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Thomas S. Freeman; Fallen Prince and Pretender of the Faith: Henry VIII as seen by Sander and Persons, Victor Houliston; 'It is unpossible to draw his picture well who hath severall countenances': Lord Herbert of Cherbury and The Life and Reign of King Henry VIII, Christine Jackson; Henry VIII in history: Gilbert Burnet's History of the Reformation (v.1), 1679, Andrew Starkie; 'Unblushing falsehood': the Strickland sisters and the domestic history of Henry VIII, Judith M. Richards; Ford Madox Ford's Fifth Queen and the modernity of Henry VIII, Anthony Monta and Susannah Brietz Monta; The 'sexual everyman'? Maxwell Anderson's Henry VIII, Glenn Richardson; Drama king: the portrayal of Henry VIII in Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons, Ruth Ahnert; 'Anne taught him how to be cruel': Henry VIII in modern historical fiction, Megan L. Hickerson; Booby, baby or classical monster? Henry VIII in the writings of G.R. Elton and J.J. Scarisbrick, Dale Hoak; Through the eyes of a fool: Henry VIII and Margaret George’s 1986 novel The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers, Kristen Post Walton; Index. Thomas Betteridge, Oxford Brookes University, UK and Thomas S. Freeman, University of Essex, UK

This book, based on a wide variety of contemporary sources, re-examines the little-studied late war between Henry VIII and Francis I in order to assess its impact on both countries and its influence on strategies and tactics for waging war and making peace in the 1540s.

What were the real life stories and legacies of the six women who married Henry VIII? Discover these extraordinary queens through the court culture that recorded and shaped their often tempestuous lives: their letters, heraldic devices, books, love tokens and, of course, their portraits.

This source book brings together texts by and about Thomas More - poet, scholar, statesman, family man, educational reformer, philospher, historian and saint. In addition to serving as an introduction to More's life and writings for the general reader, this collection is a companion to the study of 16th-century history, literature, philosophy or politics. The writings focus upon More's views of education, political theory, church-state relations, love and friendship, practical politics and the vexing issue of conscience. They shed light on the distinctive Christian humanism that More expresses and embodied. Also included in the book are three famous 16th-century accounts of More's life by Erasmus, Roper and a team of London playwrights including William Shakespeare.