Arthur D Innes

"Geoffrey Elton (1921-1994) was one of the great historians of the Tudor period. England Under the Tudors is his major work and an outstanding history of a crucial and turbulent period in British and European history. Revised several times since its first publication in 1955, England Under the Tudors charts a historical period that witnessed monumental changes in religion, monarchy, and government --and one that continued to shape British history long after. Spanning the commencement of Henry VII's reign to the death of Elizabeth I, Elton's magisterial account is populated by many colourful and influential characters, from Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell to Henry VIII and Mary Queen of Scots. Elton also examines aspects of the Tudor period that had been previously overlooked, such as empire and commonwealth, agriculture and industry, seapower and the role of the arts and literature. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Diarmaid MacCulloch."--Provided by publisher.

The purpose of this volume is not so much to present a biography of Cranmer as to give a sketch of that ecclesiastical period throughout which he remains a consistently prominent figure: a period during which he, more than any other single individual, left his personal impress upon a national institution. - Preface.