HENRY VIII: The Evolution of A Reputation

'This light-hearted survey of the historiography of Henry VIII was originally penned in 2010 as the introductory section of a never completed biography of the second Tudor king.' Thankfully the wonderful publisher Alan Sutton picked it up, and this 96 page softback with 111 colour illustrations is the result. Henry VIII is remembered in particular as the formidable and arrogant regal figure portrayed by Hans Holbein the Younger, the early Tudor stud who clocked up np fewer than six wives, and the proto-nationalist/imperialist ruler who sent the Pope packing and inaugurated the English Reformation. Nor is it easy to avoid contrasting the handsome, athletic and affable teenage prince who ascended the throne in 1509 with the bloated, physically decrepit and irritable elderly king he had become by the time of his death in 1547. The humanist Erasmus first met Henry VIII in 1499 when as a nine year old child he detected in him 'A certain royal demeaner, a dignity of mind combined with a remarkable courtesy.' Of the 111 magnificent portraits they include Thomas Cromwell, John Fisher, Elizabeth Woodville and illustrations such as George Cavendish's manuscript of the biography of Wolsey and images of famous historians like A. P. Pollard and even television's Blackadder. 96pp, colour, paperback.