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Recommended by Dr. Natalie Mears, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Durham

 

general on the Tudors | specific monarchs | specialised studies | The Reformation | coffee-table

 

General books on the Tudors:

 

• John Guy, The Tudors: a very short introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
Written by one of the world’s leading Henrician and Elizabethan historians (and winner of the Whitbread History Prize), John Guy, this is a great introduction for students and general readers – all in less than 100 pages!

 

Studies of specific monarchs:

 

• Diarmaid MacCulloch, Tudor Church Militant: Edward VI and the protestant Reformation (London: Penguin, 1999) – also published under the title: The boy king (Yale University Press, 2001)
Not a full biography, but addresses key issues about the Reformation and chapter 1 is also very good on the general politics of the reign and the roles of Somerset, Northumberland and Edward himself.
• Wallace MacCaffrey, Elizabeth I (London: Edward Arnold, 1993).
From one of the 20th century’s best Elizabethan historians, this biography draws on Professor MacCaffrey’s important 3 volume survey of the reign. No longer fully up-to-date, especially regarding the importance of Elizabeth’s gender, it is nevertheless a better volume than more recent populist studies.
• Christopher Haigh, Elizabeth I (London, 1988 and further editions, inc illustrated editions).
A typically iconoclastic book from Haigh, who really doesn’t seem to like Good Queen Bess. Views of the queen have refined, but this is still a good read and important in the continuing reassessment of Elizabeth.
• Leah S. Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary bath Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: collected works (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). A very scholarly edition of Elizabeth’s letters, speeches, poems etc. For a more accessible volume, try Maria Perry’s The word of a prince: a life of Elizabeth I from contemporary documents (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1990). It was also issued in a lovely edition by the Folio Society.

Specialised studies:

 

• S.J. Gunn, Early Tudor Government, 1485-1558 (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1995)
An excellent book, designed for students, that examines early Tudor government, including landed estates, taxation and the law.
J. Gwyndfor Jones, Early Modern Wales, c.1525-1640 (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1994).
In the same series as Early Tudor Government, this is an excellent student text on Wales under the Tudors, covering religion, government and the law.
• Steven G Ellis, Ireland in the age of the Tudors, 1447-1603 (Harlow: Longman, 1998).
An updated version of Ellis’s Ireland under the Tudors, this is a dense text-book but a good one dealing with Ireland in detail and providing a clear path through its increasingly torturous history in the 16th century.
• Susan Doran and Glenn Richardson (eds.), Tudor England and its neighbours (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005).
A collection of essays by some of the leading historians in the field, exploring England’s relationship with Scotland, Ireland, France, the Netherlands and Spain.

On the Reformation

 

• Christopher Haigh, The English Reformations: religion, politics and society under the Tudors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)
A long-standing (and deservedly so) survey of the Reformation by the historian who revolutionised our understanding in the 1970s and 1980s. It is especially good for all the details/examples of the impact of the Reformation on the ground.
• Felicity Heal, Reformation in Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)
A hefty textbook (over 500pp) but, unlike English Reformations pays attention to the independent realm of Scotland, as well as issues like the importance of the printed text.
• Eamon Duffy, The stripping of the altars: traditional religion in England, 1400-1580 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992).
Winner of the Longman-History Today Book of the Year prize, this has become a classic text by one of the world’s leading Reformation historians. At its best on pre-Reformation religion, it paints a detailed – yet eminently readable – picture of religious life in the sixteenth-century.
• Eamon Duffy, The voices of Morebath: Reformation and rebellion in an English village (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001)
Using the detailed churchwardens’ accounts of the village of Morebath, Devon, Professor Duffy constructs a wonderful narrative showing how these villagers and their priest faced the massive religious changes during much of the 16th century.

A coffee-table book

 

• Susan Watkins, In Public and in private: Elizabeth I and her world (London: Thames and Hudson, 1998).
Nice text, focusing mainly on the great Elizabethan houses, but the main draw of this book is the fantastic photography by Mark Fiennes.