Prepare for the most uproariously grim tour of Tudor England ever recorded! Gilbert Abbott A'Beckett's classic satire skewers the so-called "golden age" of English monarchy, revealing the Tudors as they truly were: a parade of tyrants, schemers, and royal disasters who treated their subjects like pawns in a deadly game of power.
Witness history's worst monarchs at their terrible best:
- Henry VII - The paranoid accountant-king who taxed England into submission while pretending to unite the realm. His reign ran on spies, forged claims, and enough gold to make a dragon jealous!
- Henry VIII - The original wife-disposer, whose marital musical chairs left two ex-wives headless and a nation bankrupt from his ego. His break with Rome? Just history's most expensive midlife crisis!
- Edward VI - The sickly boy-king whose advisors turned England into a Puritan playground where fun went to die (along with most of the treasury).
- Bloody Mary - The original firestarter, who turned heresy trials into London's hottest (literally) public spectacles. Her Spanish marriage? The Tudor equivalent of a disastrous Tinder date!
- Elizabeth I - The Virgin Queen (or so she claimed) who ruled with an iron ruff, executed her cousin for fun, and bankrupted England fighting wars while pretending to be immortal.
From the War of the Roses' messy aftermath to Elizabeth's dying delusions of grandeur, this book proves the Tudors were less a noble dynasty and more a reality show with better costumes and worse consequences.
A'Beckett's razor-sharp wit transforms historical atrocities into dark comedy gold, exposing how royal marriages were just preludes to executions, every royal proclamation hid a hidden tax or trap and the only thing growing faster than Henry VIII's waistline was his kill count.
Perfect for fans of Horrible Histories., with dark humor, historical atrocities, severed heads, royal tantrums, and exactly zero apologies for mocking the monarchy.