The Children of Henry VIII

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Authors: John Guy

THE CHILDREN OF HENRY VIII

Books by the same author include

Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel, Victim.

A 900-Year-Old Story Retold

A Daughter’s Love: Thomas and Margaret More

‘My Heart is My Own’: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots

The Tudors: A Very Short Introduction

The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade

The Tudor Monarchy

Tudor England

Contributor to

The Oxford History of Britain

The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain

The Short Oxford History of the British Isles:

The Sixteenth Century

The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor and Stuart Britain

THE CHILDREN OF HENRY VIII

JOHN GUY

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford,
OX
2 6
DP
,
United Kingdom

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First Edition published in 2013

Impression: 1

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available

ISBN 978–0–19–284090–5

Printed in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

Praise for
My Heart is My Own
:

‘Guy’s scholarly biography, as enthralling as a detective story, provides a wider vision of Tudor history and shows with stunning clarity how the historical narrative was shaped.’

The New York Times

‘Rarely have first-class scholarship and first-class story-telling been so effectively combined.’

John Adamson,
Sunday Telegraph

‘A biography that reads as thrillingly as a detective story, and is rich in details and authoritative in its analysis.’

Miranda Seymour,
Sunday Times

‘Will be the definitive biography of Mary Stuart for many years to come.’

The Washington Post

‘An absorbing biography … meticulously researched … scholarly and intriguing.’

Peter Ackroyd,
The Times

‘Seldom does one encounter a book so perfect: a serious academic study written with the lyrical quality of a good novel.’

Scotland on Sunday

Praise for
A Daughter’s Love
:

‘An outstanding talent for stop-the-reader-dead-in-their-tracks storytelling … it has restored my faith in biography’.

Lisa Jardine,
Sunday Times

‘Absorbing and profoundly moving. Guy’s subtle portrait depends on his own refusal to accept the received wisdom of historical tradition.’

Helen Castor,
Sunday Telegraph

‘John Guy has written an admirable account … the result is a minor masterpiece.’

Jonathan Sumption,
The Spectator

‘[Guy’s] absorbing, thoroughly researched book does justice to two exemplary women—and reminds us that history is full of ironies.’

Claire Tomalin,
The New York Times

‘Compelling … Guy’s scholarship is irreproachable.’

The Independent on Sunday

‘Carries its learning lightly … this warm and vivid portrait of the most attractive father and daughter relationship in English history will reward the specialist as well as the general reader.’

Eamon Duffy,
The Independent

Praise for
Thomas Becket
:

‘It is to Guy’s immense credit that he has written such a lively, effortlessly readable biography—a book that not only corrects many historical errors and uncertainties, but merits reading more than once, for the sheer joy of its superb storytelling.’

The Times

‘… breathes new life into an oft-told tale of throne and altar antagonism, with its complex undercurrents of money, politics, religion and shocking violence. However well you think you know the story, it is well worth the read.’

Financial Times

‘Guy deftly sets a timeless and all-too-familiar emotional tussle … against the less familiar social and political landscape of medieval Europe.’

The New York Times

‘A compelling read … [Guy] knows how to take the familiar and shape it into a narrative that both improves our historical knowledge and is entertainingly astute, and in places positively moving.’

Peter Stanford,
The Independent

‘Guy wears his learning lightly, and this is undoubtedly the most accessible Life of Thomas Becket to be published in recent years.’

Katherine Harvey,
Times Literary Supplement

‘Magnificently successful … John Guy deserves both our thanks and our admiration.’

Nicholas Vincent,
The Tablet

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I gladly acknowledge the generosity and kindness of the many archivists and librarians who have helped to smooth my path, chiefly at the British Library, the National Archives at Kew, the Fellows’ Library at Clare College, the Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and especially the London Library. The genealogical tables were drawn and digitized by Richard Guy of Orang-Utan Productions from my rough drafts.

I’ve nothing but thanks and admiration for Peter Robinson, my agent, for his constant encouragement and for giving helpful advice on the manuscript. I owe an immense debt to Luciana O’Flaherty at Oxford University Press, whose idea the book was, and who edited it with astonishing speed and efficiency. She was ably assisted by Matthew Cotton, whom I thank especially for his tact when the manuscript arrived a few weeks later than I had predicted. Alan Bryson was generous with advice and suggestions and I am indebted to him for showing me some newly discovered letters of the young Elizabeth that he is currently co-editing for publication. I express heartfelt thanks to my students at Cambridge, especially those from Clare and Gonville and Caius Colleges, whose supervisions on the Tudors unaccountably strayed on several occasions into territory discussed in this book. Julia, as ever, was a tower of strength and read the complete manuscript several times, making a number of invaluable suggestions.
I also warmly thank David and Frances Waters, whose astonishing talent for booking opera tickets ensured that Julia and I were able to go to Bayreuth immediately after I had done the final revisions to the book.

London
August 2012

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

List of Colour Plates

Note on Units of Currency

Genealogical Tables