Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Reviews of Henry VIII

Henry VIII
Henry VIII
Author: J. J. Scarisbrick
ISBN-13: 9780520011304
ISBN-10: 0520011309
Publication Date: 10/1/1972
Pages: 561
Rating:
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
 1

3.5 stars, based on 1 rating
Publisher: University of California Press
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

hazeleyes avatar reviewed Henry VIII on + 331 more book reviews
Editorial Reviews
Review
First published in 1968
Written by a British academician, this first comprehensive life of Henry VIII to appear in sixty-five years presents a new viewpoint of the "bullock-like" monarch and his reign, based on modern thinking and present-day research. The author, presupposing a general knowledge of Henry on the part of his readers, deals in detail with the political, religious and international aspects of his reign rather than with the more lurid incidents of his personal life. The picture which emerges from this study is of a vacillating man, believing scurrilous rumors, and brutal to those he considered his enemies, but probably less bloodthirsty than history has painted him. Henry became king at the age of fifteen, on the death of his older brother Arthur. When he died, thirty-seven years later, England had endured and survived costly and futile wars with France, embroilments with Spain and Scotland, and an overwhelming political and religious revolution brought about by the split with the Papacy over his divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and his marriage to Ann Boleyn. The fortune he amassed through carnage went to wage useless wars, but out of the turmoil England gained a sense of national unity, and on Henry's death in 1547, he was "revered and in a strange way, even loved." This scholarly, well-written and copiously documented book is essential for all libraries of Tudor history and all students of the subject; it is not for bedside tables. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.