San Antonio College Library

A look at the early life of King Henry VIII, beginning after his assumption of the British throne at the age of 19.

Assuming the power recently lost by the disgraced Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell counsels a mercurial Henry VIII on the latter's efforts to marry Anne Boleyn against the wishes of Rome, a successful endeavor that comes with a dangerous price. Employing a vast array of historical characters, and a story overflowing with incident, the author turns Tudor England into a compelling piece of fiction. Mantel re-creates an era when the personal and political...

Profiles Henry VII as an enigmatic and ruthless king of a country ravaged by decades of conspiracy and civil war, discussing the costs of establishing a Tudor monarchy and the ways he set the stage for Henry VIII's reign.

"From ... acclaimed historian Alison Weir comes the first biography of Lady Mary Douglas, the beautiful, cunning niece of Henry VIII of England, who used her sharp intelligence and covert power to influence the Tudor succession after the death of Elizabeth I."-- Lady Mary Douglas, the beautiful, cunning niece of Henry VIII of England, used her sharp intelligence and covert power to influence the Tudor succession after the death of Elizabeth I. From...

"A black porter publicly whips a white Englishman in the hall of a Gloucestershire manor house. A Moroccan woman is baptised in a London church. Henry VIII dispatches a Mauritanian diver to salvage lost treasures from the Mary Rose. From long-forgotten records emerge the remarkable stories of Africans who lived free in Tudor England ... They were present at some of the defining moments of the age. They were christened, married and buried by the Church....

"In 1880, John Hay, the humorist and statesman, had four copies printed, without a name attached (only one copy of this version is known to exist). Amazingly, the first book edition was printed in 1882 at West Point, by a friend of Clemens and Twichell, in an edition of 50 copies on handmade paper soaked in coffee, with special punches for the Old English spelling required ... Further editions were printed during Twain's lifetime, although Twain did...

"In this new biography, Harry Kelsey shatters the familiar image of Sir Francis Drake. The Drake of legend was a pious, brave, and just seaman who initiated the move to make England a great naval power and whose acts of piracy against his country's enemies earned him a knighthood for patriotism. Kelsey paints a different and far more interesting picture of Drake as an amoral privateer at least as interested in lining his pockets with Spanish booty...