The House of Tudor

[[ASIN:0750932406 The House of Tudor] This is a great book to read. Not too academic and not too vague. It is a very personal look into the lives of these glorious tudor monarchs.

Though it produced only five sovereigns, the Tudor dynasty had a disproportionate impact on English history. Founded as a family of some power and fortune by Ednyfed Fychan who served Llewellyn the Great in the early 13th century, the Tudors had nearly as much English and French blood as Welsh in their veins when Henry Tudor, a little-known political refugee, staked his future on a single coup d'etat -- and won. Henry VII descended from Edward III through his maternal line and wrapped up the Wars of the Roses by his marriage to the neice of the king he had defeated at Bosworth Field. This well-written volume supplies the context for England's break with the Church of Rome and its part in the Renaissance that followed.