August 22, 1485: the Battle of Bosworth, an exile returns
An Excess of Good Fortune: 1485-1532
The luck of Henry Tudor: the king who had (almost) everything
The King's great matter: his pursuit of an annulment and of Anne Boleyn
Frustration and embarrassment: Queen Catherine resists, and finds support
Radical departures: moving the line between church and state
Another way devised: a policy of winning by intimidation and terror
A revolution in the making: Henry raises the stakes
A thunderbolt falls: the royal ultimatum
Submission: the archbishop of Canterbury surrenders
Consummation: the king beds, then weds, Anne Boleyn
First blood: the destruction of the nun of Kent
Supremacy: Parliament acknowledges the king's new powers
"We will all die" : destructuion of the charterhouse monks, and of John Fisher
"Preserve my friends from such favors" : trial and execution of Thomas More; the monastic visits
All but Godlike: Anne Boleyn is replaced; the smaller monasteries destroyed
Rebellion and betrayal: explosion, the pilgrimage of Grace; King Henry gets his son
The last of Henry: three more wives, money trouble, a final torrent of killings
A King too Soon and a Queen too Late: 1547-1558
A new beginning: evangelicals triumph; Edward Seymour assumes command
England's second reformation: Henry VIII's church dismantled; the fall of Seymour
A revolution and a coup: the rise of John Dudley, the death of Edward VI, the brief reign of Jane Grey
Another new beginning: Mary I and the restoration of the old religion
And another early end: dreams turn to dust
Yet another new beginning: the return to Protestantism
The succession, again: Robert Dudley and the hope for an heir
A torrent of miseries: religion, the succession, and Mary, Queen of Scots
Actions, reactions, provocations: trouble in France, trouble with Spain; rebellion in the Netherlands
A horrific tangle and war at last: years of meddling produce war in the Netherlands
The last favorite: the rise of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex
A seat at the table: the rivalry of Essex and Robert Cecil
The last act: the fall of Essex; the dismal final decade of the Tudor Age.
