Henry VIII and the Court:

Art, Politics and Performance

Co-edited with Prof. Thomas Betteridge

In 2009, Suzannah Lipscomb and Thomas Betteridge organized a major three-day international academic conference at Hampton Court Palace to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s accession. It attracted some excellent contributions from scholars, and the best of them – fully revised, edited, extended and updated – are included in this volume.

The book focuses on the cutting-edge areas of historical focus and debate, and is genuinely interdisciplinary, featuring art, architecture, material culture, drama, medicine, poetry, gender, and politics.

It includes essays by: Ruth Ahnert, GW Bernard, Susan Brigden, Brett Dolman, Eamon Duffy, Catherine Fletcher, Thomas S. Freeman, Steven Gunn, Peter Happé, Maria Hayward, Elizabeth Hurren, Suzannah Lipscomb, Kent Rawlinson, Glenn Richardson, Eleanor Rycroft, Tatiana C. String and Susan Wabuda.

Suzannah’s chapter is: ‘The fall of Anne Boleyn: a crisis of gender relations?’ It suggests that the events of Anne Boleyn’s fall can be better elucidated through an understanding of the gender and honour culture of the period, and specifically that it was a clash of gender expectations at the Tudor Court that resulted in the accusation and execution of the queen of England in 1536.

‘My book of the year was Henry VIII and the Court (Ashgate), an essay collection edited by Tom Betteridge and Suzannah Lipscomb. The 17 historians involved in the project are all working at the coalface of history, collaboratively changing our perception of the king and his world. This will be the stuff of popular history in the future: read it here first.’

Dr Lucy Worsley, The Daily Telegraph: Best Books of 2013

Henry VIII and His Court

What’s new about this book?

‘This volume provides a road map… for much of the exciting work now being conducted on the king, his court, and his reign. Anyone interested in this subject will need to have this book on the shelf … Scholars will find much here that delights…not a single essay falls flat. All contain fresh, compelling research … important new insight and have much to teach. These essays shape directions for the study of this subject that will be viable for many years to come’

Prof. Mark Rankin, Renaissance Quarterly

Buy Henry VIII and the Court

It is available from all good booksellers – support your high street! – and online from Amazon

What are people saying about the book?

‘a wonderfully eclectic group of essays by experts in Tudor court culture… By challenging canonical views of Henry, tapping new sources, and approaching familiar texts from new perspectives, these insightful and readable essays ask us to re-evaluate a king we thought we already knew’

Christopher Highley, Recusant History

‘the intellectual scope and vision of the collection are as refreshing as they are surprising… an engaging read … The collection gives an extremely entertaining, interdisciplinary overview … it extends the range of sources and paradigms through which the king and his court should be considered… it also appears not to have forgotten the all-important and oft-forgotten notion, to delight and instruct…

Suzannah Lipscomb’s essay ‘is compelling, well-researched, and intriguing… further(ing) our understanding of why, if not how, Anne was condemned, this is a must-read for anyone interested in Boleyn scholarship’

Tessa Marlou van Gendt, Journal of Northern Renaissance

‘valuable and varied interdisciplinary collection’

Peter Marshall, Church History

‘this volume provides a richly textured, and often arresting, account of Henry’

Lucy Wooding, Parliamentary History

‘genuinely interdisciplinary, drawing on literature, art history, architecture and drama to illuminate the court … this rich collection… adds depth and context to our otherwise somewhat over-politicised vision of Henry VIII’s court… excellent’

David Loades, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte

Other books by Suzannah Lipscomb