The Rise of the Tudors: The Family That Changed English History

Publishers Weekly10/28/2013
British historian Skidmore retells the story of how the Tudor dynasty ascended from obscurity to the throne in late medieval England. It's an incredible tale, made all the more remarkable by the fact that Henry VII became king of England in 1485 as much by accident as by design. The narrative begins 60 years earlier, with the affair between Henry V's young widow, Catherine of Valois, and her servant, Owen Tudor, that produced Edmund Tudor, later the father of Henry VII. While Skidmore examines in depth the elites whose feuds and constantly shifting alliances shaped the course of history, his main emphasis is on Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet kings, whose remains were found beneath a Leicester car park in 2012.