Description
Book Synopsis'Excellent . . . Fresh, learned, readable and full of life' Dan Jones, Mail on Sunday
Houses of Power is the result of Simon Thurley's thirty years of research, picking through architectural digs, and examining financial accounts, original plans and drawings to reconstruct the great Tudor houses and understand how these monarchs shaped their lives.
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What was it like to live as a royal Tudor?
Why were their residences built as they were and what went on inside their walls?
Who slept where and with who?
Who chose the furnishings?
And what were their passions?
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The Tudors ruled through the day, throughout the night, in the bath, in bed and in the saddle. Their palaces were genuine power houses - the nerve-centre of military operations, the boardroom for all executive decisions and the core of international politics.
Far more than simply an architectural history - a study of private life as well as politics, diplomacy and court - it gives an entirely new and remarkable insight into the Tudor world.
Trade ReviewAn
absorbing account of the lives of these royal houses. It is a journey not just from palace to hunting lodge to castle, but into the small and poignant details of domestic existence. * Times Literary Supplement *
This is a landmark book. Nobody interested in Tudor England can afford not to own a copy of this gateway into a lost world … compulsively readable. -- Sir Roy Strong * Country Life *
Unrivalled architectural expertise... Superb writing...A triumph: a masterly collective biography of [Tudor Royal] buildings, replete with insights into their owners’ private lives and into politics, diplomacy and court etiquette. * Literary Review *
[Simon Thurley] certainly loves his subject. An enthusiasm that steadily bubbles forth from
Houses of Power....Thurley’s reconstruction of these rooms is
fascinating, but even more so is his description of what went on in them
... A
suitably opulent book -- Gerard DeGrout * The Times *
Excellent...
Fresh, learned, readable and full of life, [
Houses of Power] is the Tudors At Home, as you've never seen them before. -- Dan Jones * Mail on Sunday *
