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A vivid and original portrait of a year that stands at a crossroads between two great monarchs and two ages of English history.
About the author
Lauren Johnson is a historian and costumed interpreter with a first-class degree from Oxford University. She is the author of a novel, The Arrow of Sherwood (2013) and So Great a Prince (2016), a study of the accession of King Henry VIII. www.lauren-johnson.com
Summary
The King is dead: long live the King. In 1509, Henry VII was succeeded by his son Henry VIII, second monarch of the house of Tudor. But this is not the familiar Tudor world of Protestantism and playwrights. Decades before the Reformation, ancient traditions persist: boy bishops, pilgrimage, Corpus Christi pageants, the jewel-decked shrine at Canterbury.
So Great a Prince offers a fascinating glimpse of a country and people that at first appear alien – in calendar and clothing, in counting the hours by bell toll – but which on closer examination are recognisably and understandably human. Lauren Johnson tells the story of 1509 not just from the perspective of king and court, but of merchant and ploughman; apprentice and laundress; husbandman and foreign worker. She looks at these early Tudor lives through the rhythms of the ritual year, juxtaposing political events in Westminster and the palaces of southeast England with the liturgical and agricultural events that punctuated the year for the ordinary people of England.
Additional text
It is refreshing to read a book that not only focuses on the upper echelons of society but also goes to lengths to describe the lives of 'ordinary' people ... [Johnson's] authoritative tone and passion for the subject made for a very enjoyable read' History of Royals.
