Edward VI

Rating:
Summary: An authoratative study
Review: This book represents a comprehensive and conclusive study of an important Tudor figure. An academic study of a less well-known English monarch, this book is a fitting epitaph to a leading historian of our time.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the casual reader of popular history
Review: Very well-researched, with a wealth of primary source material (perhaps too much!), this book is quite academic and dry. Rather than a traditional biography, the book is more a study of various aspects of the reign of Edward VI (e.g. policies on religion, economics, land use, etc.) first under the leadership of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and later, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. I did not feel that I really learned anything about these three figures as people. "Fans" of Tudor history, having read a biography or two of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, are likely to be disappointed in this book. It is much more geared to the historian with a serious, even professional, interest in the period.