Winter King, Thomas Penn
Winter King, Thomas Penn
List: $29.95 | Sale: $20.97
Club: $14.97

Winter King
The Dawn of Tudor England

Author: Thomas Penn

Narrator: Simon Vance

Unabridged: 14 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/06/2012

Synopsis

A fresh look at the endlessly fascinating Tudorsthe dramatic and overlooked story of Henry VII and his founding of the Tudor Dynastyfilled with spies, plots, counterplots, and an uneasy royal succession to Henry VIII Near the turn of the sixteenth century, England had been ravaged for decades by conspiracy and civil war. Henry Tudor clambered to the top of the heap, a fugitive with a flimsy claim to Englands crown who managed to win the throne and stay on it for twentyfour years. Although he built palaces, hosted magnificent jousts, and sent ambassadors across Europe, for many Henry VII remained a false king. But he had a crucial asset: his familythe queen and their children, the living embodiment of his hopedfor dynasty. Now, in what would be the crowning glory of his reign, his elder son would marry a great Spanish princess. Thomas Penn recreates an England that is both familiar and very strangea country medieval yet modern, in which honor and chivalry mingle with espionage, realpolitik, high finance, and corruption. It is the story of the transformation of a young, vulnerable boy, Prince Henry, into the aggressive teenager who would become Henry VIII, and of Catherine of Aragon, his future queen, as well as of Henry VIIcontrolling, avaricious, paranoid, with Machiavellian charm and will to power. Rich with incident and drama, filled with wonderfully drawn characters,Winter Kingis an unforgettable account of pageantry, intrigue, the thirst for glory, and the fraught, unstable birth of Tudor England.

About Thomas Penn

Thomas Penn has a PhD in early Tudor history from Clare College, Cambridge.

Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by trekfann on 2015-02-28 21:01:38

Despite my interest in the subject matter, this book just didnt grab my interest.

Goodreads review by Mara on January 26, 2015

After reading Thomas Penn's Tudor England oeuvre (aka this book), I am now substantially less impressed by the imagination of George R.R. Martin because *Holy Toledo Batman* this stuff like really happened! Having been MIA from the Land of Reads and Reviews for a while, I'm admittedly not writi......more

Goodreads review by Rick on August 13, 2017

I found this really interesting, but I’m a history nut. After Wolf Hall, I wanted to find out about Henry VII, the lesser-studied father of Henry VIII, who founded the Tudor Dynasty. The author does a good job drawing on his sources and bringing the characters to life while staying true to the histo......more

Goodreads review by Leanda on June 27, 2013

Thomas Penn’s Winter King in a brilliant mash-up of gothic horror and political biography. David Starkey once declared Henry VII ‘boring’. But in writing his magnus opus on the supposedly more interesting Henry VIII he got so caught up in the drama of Henry VII’s court that Henry VIII is now largely......more

Goodreads review by David on August 01, 2017

Shakespeare Lied 1 August 2017 Everywhere where this book is concerned there are statements about how it won all these awards, and how wonderful it is as a history book, yet I found it on the clearance table at a bookshop I was exploring in inner city Sydney. Normally I wouldn't have purchased it, bu......more

Goodreads review by Nemo ☠️ (pagesandprozac) on May 29, 2017

this was well-written and i love henry vii for how he managed to a) get the throne of england and b) keep it and make the crown so solvent after the devastating years of the Wars of the Roses, but i can't help but think that a lot of this was... rather dry. of course, a large proportion of my opinio......more

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