In the Lion's Court: Power, Ambition, and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Derek A. Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 31, 2002

The story of Henry VIII and his six wives is a well-known example of the caprice and violence that dominated that king's reign. Now Derek Wilson examines a set of relationships that more vividly illustrate just how dangerous life was in the court of the Tudor lion. He tells the interlocking stories of six men-all, curiously enough, called Thomas-whose ambitions and principles brought them face to face with violent death, as recorded in a simple mnemonic:

'Died, beheaded, beheaded,
Self-slaughtered, burned, survived.'

Thomas Wolsey was an accused traitor on his way to the block when a kinder death intervened. Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, whose convictions and policies could scarcely have been more different, both perished beneath the headman's axe. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, would have met the same end had the king's own death not brought him an eleventh hour reprieve. Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, though outliving the monarch, perished as a result of that war of ambitions and ideologies which rumbled on after 1547. Wriothesley succumbed to poison of either body or mind in the aftermath of a failed coup. Cranmer went to the stake as a heretic at the insistence of Mary Tudor, who was very much the daughter of the father she hated.

In the Lion's Court is an illuminating examination of the careers of the six Thomases, whose lives are described in parallel-their family and social origins, their pathways to the royal Council chamber, their occupancy of the Siege Perilous, and the tragedies that, one by one, overwhelmed them. By showing how events shaped and were shaped by relationships and personal destinies, Derek Wilson offers a fresh approach to the political narrative of a tumultuous reign.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Biographer and novelist Wilson (The Tower of London) focuses his study on six Tudor men whose fates in the court of Henry VIII vividly echo those of the Tudor lion's six wives: "Divorced, beheaded, died,/ Divorced, beheaded, survived." Wilson proposes that the fates of Henry VIII's "six Thomases" Wolsey, More, Cromwell, Howard, Wriothesley, and Cranmer can be remembered by a similar rubric: "Died, beheaded, beheaded,/ Self-slaughtered, burned, survived." The promise of the subtitle is amply fulfilled in Wilson's six-part study, chronologically arranged and framed by a useful introduction and a valedictory epilog. The study contains a brilliant series of parallel portraits a fresh look at each Thomas's family and social origins, his education, his entry into "the lion's den" of the royal Council chamber, and his exit therefrom. The value of these portraits to today's reader is that, as Wilson promises, we can begin to understand what it was like to live through that time of great upheaval "when we draw alongside the people who did just that." Recommended for all libraries. Robert C. Jones, formerly with Central Missouri State Univ., Warrensburg
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

From the Magna Carta to the American Bill of Rights, there has been a steady, irreversible, Anglo-American trend toward the guarantee of individual rights against the coercive power of the state. But Wilson shows that the trend had some rather gigantic deviations. In his depiction of the capricious and dangerous atmosphere at the court of Henry VIII, Wilson avoids the more sensational victims of Henry's wrath, particularly his wives. Instead, he illustrates the broader nature of the tyranny by focusing on the fates of six men, all called Thomas, who suffered ignominious fates, including Thomas More, who was appointed chancellor by Henry but lost his head because he would not bless Henry's marriage. In this milieu of persecution and betrayal, paranoia seemed the safest course. This revealing and disturbing book is a valuable reminder that our liberties are never fully secure, and require vigilance and sometimes courage to be maintained. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 580 pages
• ISBN-10: 0312286961
• ASIN: B0000W70BA
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,030,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars messy and biased, April 21, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Lion's Court: Power, Ambition, and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII (Hardcover)

Derek Wilson's book is a messy summary of the familiar events and personalities of Henry VIII's reign. If you're not familiar with the main characters -- Sir Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Howard (Duke of Norfolk), Thomas Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury) and Thomas Wriothesely (Earl of Southampton), you'll get little more than a quick tour of their lives and accomplishments. There's little new here, and the research and scholarship are worryingly pedestrian: a quick glance at the footnotes shows that most of Wilson's primary quotes are cribbed from other secondary sources, and he uses biased contemporary sources by Protestant apologists like John Foxe with little or no warning as to their prejudices. Many questionable events and quotes are not footnoted. Moreover, Wilson's viewpoint is decidedly "progressive" -- he views the Reformation as the logical and necessary "freeing" of the English people from the "tyranny" of the Renaissance Catholic Church.

What's really shocking, however, is how bad the writing is. Wilson's book seems not to have been edited at all, and the awkward sentences run on with commas seemingly randomly interspersed. Together with a strange obsession with certain words that crop up with amazing frequency ("rumbustious," "scotched," "roistering"), an annoying habit to draw strained 20th century parallels (such as comparing pre-Reformation England with Eastern Europe of the 1980s), and an unfortunate tendency to pepper the text with inappropriate quotes from Shakespeare, Chaucer, and even Gershwin (?!), the style makes this book a most frustrating and disappointing read.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lost Focus, April 29, 2002

By 

Stephanie A. Mann (Wichita, Kansas United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Lion's Court: Power, Ambition, and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII (Hardcover)

Derek Wilson needed an editor to remind him of his thesis: that life in the court of Henry VIII was dangerous for those who sought to share their sovereign's power and ambition. Much of the material in this book does not support that thesis, and the narrative that does support the thesis could have been summarized with far less detail.
Addtionally, I found the writing dull and the scholarship sloppy. I do not think that this book added to my knowledge of the Tudor era; I had hoped for new insights from the stated angle of the book, but found only repetition and redundancy.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Different Perspectives, June 27, 2002

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In the Lion's Court: Power, Ambition, and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII (Hardcover)

England's King Henry VIII has already been extensively discussed in various books as well as portrayed in a number of plays and films. Why another book? In his Introduction, Wilson acknowledges that much attention has been devoted to Henry's six wives (Three Catherines, two Annes, and a Jane) and shares this mnemonic:

"Divorced, beheaded, died,
Divorced, beheaded, survived."

and then observes: "I propose a different set of relationships which I believe offers a more illuminating approach to the court and government of Henry VIII. Specifically, Wilson focuses his primary attention on six Thomases: Wolsey, More, Cromwell, Howard, Wriothesley, and Cramner. "I can even suggest an alternative mortuary mnemonic, although one admittedly not so trippingly off the tongue.

Died, beheaded, beheaded,
Self-slaughtered, burned, survived."

Henry's VIII's relationships with all six serve as the basis of Wilson's narrative. There were lions in London at that time ("the King's Beasts") housed in the Tower menagerie and a major tourist attraction. More once compared the king's court to a lion pit "in which the magnificent and deadly king of beasts held sway."

Of the six, More interests me the most. One of my favorite plays and films is A Man for All Seasons. (In the film, More is brilliantly portrayed by Paul Scofield.) In both, Robert Bolt focuses on More's rectitude which threatens and infuriates Henry and eventually results in More's execution. Thus presented, More is a tragic but noble political victim and religious martyr, later canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. He is no less admirable as portrayed by Wilson but, in my opinion, is much more complicated than Bolt and others suggest. For years, More skillfully navigated his way through a court ("a lion pit") characterized by what Wilson refers to as its "seamy realities": "The royal entourage was a vicious, squirming world of competing ambitions and petty feuds, guilty secrets and salacious prudery,. Courtiers, vulnerable to threats and bribes, could be induced to perjure themselves, to exaggerate amorous incidents which were innocent in the context of stylised chivalric convention, to indulge personal vendettas....Over all these momentous happenings looms the larger-than-life figure of Henry VIII, powerful and capricious yet always an enigma."

In certain respects, this book reads as if it were a novel. It has a compelling narrative, dozens of unique characters, all manner of conflicts and intrigues which create great tension throughout, and a number of themes such as power, ambition, loyalty, betrayal, piety, terror, and (for most of the main characters) ignominious death. Wilson draws upon a wealth of primary sources to ensure the validity of his historical facts. However, some readers may question his interpretation of those facts. (A non-historian, I consider myself unqualified to do so.) Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Alison Weir's Henry VIII as well as The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Karen Lindsey's Divorced, Beheaded, Survived, and David M. Loades's Henry VIII and His Queens.