Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics

By (author): "David Starkey"
Publish Date: January 1st 1985
Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics
ISBN0099445107
ISBN139780099445104
AsinReign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics
CharactersAnne Boleyn, Catherine of Aragon, Jane Seymour, Catherine Howard, Anne
Original titleThe Reign of Henry VIII
Henry VIII was almost never alone. He was surrounded, twenty four hours a day, by the small group of intimates and personal attendants who made up the staff of his Privy Chamber. They organised his daily life, kept him amused and acted as the landline between the king and the formal machinery of government. These men, intermarried, interbred and close knit even in their mutual feuding, were supremely well placed to rig politics and patronage for their own benefit. Their influence was important and sometimes decisive: factions in the Privy Chamber destroyed Anne Boleyn, they frustrated the Catholic reaction of the 1540s, and, by doctoring Henry's will, prepared the way for the full blooded Protestantism of his son's reign. The Reign of Henry VIII is not so much a book about Henry VIII. It is about the great game of politics over which he presided.