Customer Reviews

Edward VI (The English Monarchs Series)

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Very well-researched, with a wealth of primary source material (perhaps too much!), this book is quite academic and dry. Rather than a traditional biography, the book is more a study of various aspects of the reign of Edward VI (e.g. policies on religion, economics, land use, etc.) first under the leadership of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and later, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. I did not feel that I really learned anything about these three figures as people. "Fans" of Tudor history, having read a biography or two of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, are likely to be disappointed in this book. It is much more geared to the historian with a serious, even professional, interest in the period.

After the author's early death; colleagues compiled this book from Ms. Loach's notes and computer files. Perhaps this fact explains the static writing; the two-dimensional representation of the main characters; and the excessive use of footnotes as filler. For students and researchers, this book is invaluable in terms of its extensive research on Edward VI and his reign and its scholarly annotation of the resource material; bur for others, like myself, who are looking for a three-dimensional biography that breathes life into the son of Henry VIII (as has been done for his two daughters)this book disappoints.

This book represents a comprehensive and conclusive study of an important Tudor figure. An academic study of a less well-known English monarch, this book is a fitting epitaph to a leading historian of our time.