The Private Lives of the Tudors

November 7, 2016
Borman (Thomas Cromwell), a senior curator of Britain’s Historic Royal Palaces organization, eschews the oft-told tabloid tales that emphasize the Tudor family’s colorful public personas to focus instead upon their private lives and daily rituals. The larger-than-life personalities and romantic misadventures of the Tudor dynasty, which ruled England from 1485 to 1603, have been thoroughly mined in print and on film; readers hoping for yet another sensationalist and titillating history are going to be disappointed. Borman doesn’t do much to further popular understanding of the period, and the amount of detail about the rarefied world that the Tudors inhabited can be overwhelming, but she does unearth some obscure and intriguing tidbits that have been overlooked by other historians. Among the details included here are accounts that Henry VIII so liked the puddings made by the only woman who worked in his kitchens that he bought her a house, and that Elizabeth I liked to wear a perfume that she herself had invented. Though all five Tudor monarchs made even their most private moments into courtly spectacles, including their bathroom customs and childbirth travails, Borman’s fine book goes far toward humanizing them. Recommended for serious devotees of the period. Illus.

October 15, 2016
Amusing, well-researched biographies of rulers from Henry VII to Elizabeth I, focused on how they were born, dressed, ate, washed, slept, played, and died.For readers anticipating salacious surprises, Borman (The Story of the Tower of London, 2015, etc.), joint chief curator of the Historic Royal Palaces and chief executive of the Heritage Education Trust, explains that they were rarely alone, so tales of clandestine royal trysts that have come down were mostly fictional, but she does not ignore them. Privacy, a later concept, barely touched the Tudors. "Even in their most private moments," writes the author, "they were accompanied by a servant specifically appointed for the task." Entering a typical palace, one passed through a public great chamber into a presence chamber (throne room), where the ruler dined in state, received visitors, and chaired council meetings, and then to the privy chamber, which was both lodging and the name of the organization that governed them. It was not very private, and every royal activity, from dining to preparing the royal bed to dressing the royal person in the morning, was subject to formal ceremony. Thus, Tudor monarchs did not go to the bathroom; the bathroom came to them, led by the groom of the stool, who managed a portable privy and attended his master when he used it. An important official, he supervised the other grooms and oversaw items in daily use such as jewels, plates, linens, and the Privy Purse. Borman delivers plenty of similar tidbits on 16th-century diet, hygiene, medicine, and sport a la Ian Mortimer's A Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England (2013). She also includes familiar (perhaps too-familiar) details of royal private lives--e.g., Henry VIII's pursuit of wives, Elizabeth's nonpursuit of husbands. A mostly entertaining mixture of esoteric social history and well-known details of the personal lives of Tudor monarchs.

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October 15, 2016

Borman (joint chief curator, Historic Royal Palaces; Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant) chronicles one of the most memorable periods in British history: the years from the accession of Henry VII in 1485 to the unexpected reign of Elizabeth I, beginning in 1558, after the death of Mary, Queen of Scots. Using extensive contemporary and modern sources, the author artfully crafts a thorough reimagining of life at the Tudor court, while also providing a look at the humanity of these larger-than-life figures. Readers may find certain details too exhaustive, but these pale in comparison to the drama and intrigue featured heavily throughout the book. While there are many volumes dedicated to the Tudor dynasty and the players involved, such as Peter Ackroyd's Tudors: The History of England from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, this work uniquely focuses on the minutiae of court life and the personal, behind-the-scenes details of Tudor royals. VERDICT Readers interested in the subject are sure to recognize some of the stories covered within these pages, but Borman's history expands well beyond public knowledge to the definite delight of Tudor fans.--Katie McGaha, County of Los Angeles P.L.

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