Henry VIII's Last Victim: The Life and Times of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

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Macmillan, 10/12/2007 - 391 páginas

A pioneering poet whose verse had a profound impact on Shakespeare and the English Renaissance, Surrey was nevertheless branded by one contemporary as “the most foolish proud boy that is in England.” He was the heir of England’s premier nobleman, first cousin to two of Henry VIII’s wives---Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard---and best friend and brother-in-law to the King’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy.

Celebrated for his chivalrous deeds both on and off the battlefield, Surrey became, at only twenty-eight, the King’s Lieutenant General in France. He had his portrait painted more often than any other Tudor courtier, but his confident exterior masked insecurity and loneliness. A man of intriguing contradictions, Surrey was both law enforcer and law breaker, political conservative and religious reformer. The self-styled guardian of the traditional nobility, he was recklessly outspoken against the “new erected men” of the court. Cromwell was a “foul churl,” Paget a “mean creature,” and the problems that beset Henry VIII’s realm were, Surrey hinted, “the bitter fruit of false concupiscence.”

He witnessed and was inextricably caught up in all the major events of the reign: the break with Rome, the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Reformation, the executions of his two cousins, Henry’s French wars, and the brutal power struggle at the end of the reign to which he fell victim. His life, replete with drunken escapades, battlefield heroics, conspiracy, and courtroom drama, sheds new light on the opulence and artifice of a dazzling, but deadly, age.

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Índice

Prologue I
1
Only Virtue Unconquered
9
Henry Howard
17
Earl of Surrey
35
With a Kings Son
47
A Frenchman at Heart
66
Bloody Days
87
So Cruel Prison
109
In Every Mans Eye
221
Loss of Reputation
237
My Foolish Sons Demeanour
252
Unbridled Tongues
269
Condemned for Such Trifles
292
Epilogue
313
Notes
319
Manuscript Sources
364

En Famille
127
Chevalier sans Reproche
139
Noble Heart
203

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Acerca do autor (2007)

Jessie Childs, born in England in 1976, was educated at Oxford and has worked in television as a researcher for historical documentaries. Henry VIII’s Last Victim is her first book. It won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography 2007. She lives in London, England. Visit her online at www.jessiechilds.co.uk.

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