The English People at War in the Age of Henry VIII
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:4th Jan '18
Should be back in stock very soon
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£23.49(9780198864219)
Shortlisted for the Gilder Lehrman Prize
War should be recognised as one of the defining features of life in the England of Henry VIII. Henry fought many wars throughout his reign, and this book explores how this came to dominate English culture and shape attitudes to the king and to national history, with people talking and reading about war, and spending money on weaponry and defence.Henry VIII fought many wars, against the French and Scots, against rebels in England and the Gaelic lords of Ireland, even against his traditional allies in the Low Countries. But how much did these wars really affect his subjects? And what role did Henry's reign play in the long-term transformation of England's military capabilities? The English People at War in the Age of Henry VIII searches for the answers to these questions in parish and borough account books, wills and memoirs, buildings and paintings, letters from Henry's captains, and the notes readers wrote in their printed history books. It looks back from Henry's reign to that of his grandfather, Edward IV, who in 1475 invaded France in the afterglow of the Hundred Years War, and forwards to that of Henry's daughter Elizabeth, who was trying by the 1570s to shape a trained militia and a powerful navy to defend England in a Europe increasingly polarised by religion. War, it shows, marked Henry's England at every turn: in the news and prophecies people discussed, in the money towns and villages spent on armour, guns, fortifications, and warning beacons, in the way noblemen used their power. War disturbed economic life, made men buy weapons and learn how to use them, and shaped people's attitudes to the king and to national history. War mobilised a high proportion of the English population and conditioned their relationships with the French and Scots, the Welsh and the Irish. War should be recognised as one of the defining features of life in the England of Henry VIII.
A book of extraordinary range and depth, based on an astonishing wealth of archival research and argued with subtlety and conviction. * Lucy Wooding, Times Literary Supplement *
Gunn's book is a social history of war, and what a fascinating social history it is... essential reading for anyone hoping to understand not just Tudor warfare, but Tudor society as a whole. It is not conventional military history at all, and it is much the better for it. * Jonathan Healey, Literary Review *
Gunn displays a remarkable breadth and depth of scholarship. The book, which has its origins in the author's Ford Lectures of 2014-2015, is based on extensive research in almost 70 archives in the United Kingdom, the United States, Belgium, and France. It is an essential volume for all those interested in Henry VIII's reign and it will remain the key work on English warfare during this period for some time. * Neil Murphy, War in History *
Readers will find this book an excellent primer on England and war in the century centred around the reign of Henry VIII... a book which scholars of Tudor government and politics would do well to ponder and absorb. * Paul E.J. Hammer, University of Colorado Boulder, English Historical Review *
The value of this book is twofold. Professor Gunn's knowledge of the topic is broad and deep. His forceful argument is written with such stylistic agility that its massive supporting material does not overwhelm it. But the very number of examples, drawn from so many different sources, provides a second value. No student of the Tudor world, or of the early modern military, will be unable to find some new, intriguing fact at every turning of the page. * Eric Klingelhofer, H-War *
This book uncouples the study of war from the linear, and sometimes exclusive, patterns of military history and instead integrates Henry's wars into the macrocosm of early modern history at large. * Mark Charles Fissel, American Historical Review *
Henry's wars, as Gunn makes very clear in this superb study, also generated their fair share of human and financial costs. Readers will find the eight compact chapters filled with fascinating stories and vignettes that reveal the extent to which war touched the lives of men and women from all orders of English society. * David R. Lawrence, Renaissance Quarterly *
This book, like the lectures, is a triumph. * Rory Rapple, Journal of British Studies *
I can think of no better example of the very best military history ... Without doubt one of the stand out academic publications of the year in question, it illuminates the crucial transition from a quasi-feudal to a national defence system in England. Lucidly written by one of our leading early modernist historians of war and based on the Ford lectures delivered at Oxford in 2015, it breaks entirely new ground. * Ian F.W. Beckett, The Society for Army Historical Research Annual Booklist, 2019-2020 *
- Winner of Shortlisted for the Gilder Lehrman Prize.
ISBN: 9780198802860
Dimensions: 241mm x 163mm x 26mm
Weight: 638g
312 pages