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The House of Dudley

The House of Dudley

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

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Told for the very first time is the true story of the secret royal family.


Each Tudor monarch made their name with a Dudley by their side - or by crushing one beneath their feet. The Dudleys thrived at the court of Henry VII, but were sacrificed to the popularity of Henry VIII. Rising to prominence in the reign of Edward VI, the Dudleys lost it all by advancing Jane Grey to the throne over Mary I. Under Elizabeth I, the family were once again at the centre of power, and would do anything to remain there . . .

With three generations of felled favourites, what was it that caused this family to keep rising so high and falling so low? Here, for the first time, is the story of England's Borgias, a noble house competing for proximity to the throne through cunning, adultery and sheer audacity, revealing some of the period's most talented, intelligent and cunning individuals.

© Joanne Paul 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Reviews

  • 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 the author

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.
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