Description
Book SynopsisThis book shows how liberal education transformed the political and religious culture of early modern Britain. Rather than pursue vainglorious warfare, humanists taught monarchs, including Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, James VI, and Charles I, to wield their pens like swords to extend their imperial authority over church and state.
Trade Review'This highly original and beautifully written book explores the liberal education received by royal children in Tudor and Stuart Britain … It succeeds admirably in demonstrating the wider significance of princes' education by drawing connections between childhood learning and royal policies in later life during a stormy and eventful period. This rich and deeply textured book is certain to provoke interest and debate for many years to come.' Judges, 2016 Whitfield Prize, Royal Historical Society
Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. 'Thys boke is myne': how humanism changed the English royal schoolroom, 1422–1509; 2. Chivalry, ambition, and bonae litterae, 1509–33; 3. Erasmus' Christian prince and Henry VIII's royal supremacy; 4. Educating Edward VI: from Erasmus and godly kingship to Machiavelli; 5. Fortune's wheel and the education of early modern British queens; 6. Education and royal resistance: George Buchanan and James VI and I; 7. Britain's lost Renaissance? The Stuart princes; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index.
