John Matusiak: 7 books

A compelling and groundbreaking study of Henry VIII as a deeply flawed individual, this book vigorously challenges old assumptions and new interpretations alikeTudor historian John Matusiak paints an absorbingly intimate portrait of a man wholly unfit for power: his personality, his beliefs, his...

Henry V of England, the princely hero of Shakespeare’s play, who successfully defeated the French at the Battle of Agincourt and came close to becoming crowned King of France, is one of the best known and most compelling monarchs in English history. This new biography takes a fresh look at his entire...

Few kings have been more savagely caricatured or grossly misunderstood than England's first Stuart. Yet, as this new biography demonstrates, the modern tendency to downplay his defects and minimize the longer term consequences of his reign has gone too far. For, in spite of genuine idealism and flashes...

Wolsey is, arguably, the first comprehensive book to explore the many contrasting layers of Thomas Wolsey's life and career, and represents the first genuinely popular biography of the much-maligned cardinal to appear in more than 30 years. Making no assumptions, it looks at the real person in the...

After more than half a century of comparative neglect, the crucial period encompassing Charles I's captivity after his surrender to the Scots at Newark in 1646 is ripe for re-examination—with new perspectives and insights based on up-to-date research. The months before his trial were a critical...

The Tudors in 100 Objects sets out to examine the material remains of a seminal period in English history and thereby explore the values, hopes, achievements, fears, and habits of the men and women who helped to make it what it was. The result is a compelling journey into a far-off world where limited...

‘War,’ wrote Cardinal Richelieu, ‘is one of the scourges with which it has pleased God to afflict men’. Yet the prelate’s mournful observation scarcely begins to encapsulate the full complexity and unspeakable horror of the greatest man-made calamity to befall Europe before the twentieth...