The House of Dudley

A New History of Tudor England. A TIMES Book of the Year 2022

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Was the House of Dudley out to steal the throne?

This was the question on the mind of Elizabeth I's courtiers when a forbidden book accused generations of the Dudley family of poisonings, plottings, murders, treason, incitement and other 'evil stratagems.'

For decades, the Dudleys had been close to the throne, rising from nobodies to the land's highest offices. Under Henrys VII and VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and, finally, Elizabeth, they risked execution and imprisonment as they audaciously stole, murdered and swindled in the name of the monarch.

But were they loyally protecting the crown, or did they secretly covet it for themselves?

A tour-de-force of Tudor history, as seen through the eyes of a family with a front-row view of almost every major political event in sixteenth-century England. Remarkable
Dan Jones, Sunday Times bestselling author of Powers and Thrones

About Joanne Paul

Joanne Paul is a writer, broadcaster, consultant, and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Intellectual History at the University of Sussex. A BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker, her research focuses on the intellectual and cultural history of the Renaissance and Early Modern periods. She has written for the Cambridge University Press 'Ideas in Context' series, and has been widely praised for her work on Thomas More, William Shakespeare, Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. Her current academic project is an edition of Thomas More’s Utopia for the Oxford University Press.

Her first book for the trade, The House of Dudley was published in 2022. Thomas More: A Life is publishing Spring 2025.

Details

Imprint: Penguin
Published: 04/05/2023
ISBN: 9781405937191
Length: 608 pages
Dimensions: 197mm x 37mm x 129mm
Weight: 415g
Price: £12.99

All editions

The House of Dudley

A New History of Tudor England. A TIMES Book of the Year 2022

Format:

Buy the book from:

A tour-de-force of Tudor history, as seen through the eyes of a family with a front-row view of almost every major political event in sixteenth-century England. Remarkable

Exciting and immersive. An immensely entertaining history, capturing in full Tudor brilliance the cut-throat glamour of the English throne and the most audacious family to play its game

House of Dudley is a full-blooded affair, as good on the horrors of war as it is on the soft power of the Dudley women, and written in a lively, episodic style that presents each Dudley as a foil to the monarch they served

Breathes new life into an old and familiar Tudor story. [She] negotiates the labyrinth of Tudor politics with skill, producing a book much more comprehensible and illuminating than others I've read . . . It's delightful, a joy to read

I am hugely impressed by The House of Dudley and by the depths of research.
This is a pacy narrative, vividly written, that makes you want to read on and on.
Joanne Paul is a major new talent in the field and I eagerly await her next book

This is riveting stuff: death, desire, power and scandal. Paul has made the most of it, producing a well written and historically grounded page-turner . . . Game of Thrones looks tame compared with the real-life machinations of the Dudleys and the Tudors

A twist on the Tudors . . . Enormously entertaining - a sheer joy to read

A hugely entertaining history of three generations of the Dudley family, who dominated the Tudor court

A thrilling and deeply researched study of power and conspiracy: the rise and fall of the other Tudor dynasty. The House of Dudley illuminates the fascinating men and women who almost became kings and queens in their own right

Vivid, innovative and authoritative. I **could not recommend The House of Dudley more highly. It's a real lesson in how to revitalise the writing of Tudor history**

About Joanne Paul

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