Book Review: The Private Lives of the Tudors

The Private Lives of the Tudors

Uncovering the secrets of Britain's greatest dynasty

Tracy Borman

(Hodder, 2016)

Books about the Tudors are a bit like buses they come along
in threes and all tend to go to the same places.  This isn't a problem since our fascination with
all things ruff related seems to be limitless.

Finding something original to say about people and events
that have been written about so extensively is somewhat more challenging task.
One Tracy Borman rises to admirably in this book.

She does so by showing us the human beings behind the pomp
and circumstance; through the small, but meaningful details of their private
lives. The Tudor court she presents is a huge intricate machine designed to
project an image of power and magnificence.

At the centre of the whole performance the five monarchs
making up the dynasty, for nine of whom the crown ever sat securely; despite
all outward appearances. Having the power to set heads rolling with a single
command, it turns out, is a fertile breeding ground for paranoia.

Borman takes her readers behind the gilded tapestries into
the privy chambers where the Tudors were able to be something close to human
men and women instead of national icons

The picture that emerges is one of power and vulnerability;
triumphant statecraft and petty personal failings. It is impossible not to be
touched, for example, by the boy king Edward VI dressed in the robes of majesty
whilst looking for all the world like a child in fancy dress, or Elizabeth I
hiding her advancing years under layers of pan-stick and haunted by her cruel
treatment of Mary Queen of Scots.

This is the sort of book that gives popular history the
good name it richly deserved. Borman's scholarship is faultless, as is her
commitment to unpicking the complex weave of British history.