Treason In Tudor England

Oct 26, 2024 3:18 AM

Author:Lacey Baldwin Smith

Tudor England abounded with traitors great and small, whose ill-timed, self-defeating and irrational antics guaranteed their failure. Yet from the inept and calamitous intrigues of 'Sweet-Lips' Gregory Botolf in 1540 and Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour during the reign of Edward VI, to the bungling efforts at a palace coup by Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, during the final years of Elizabeth's reign, treason didn't prosper. Modern historians tend to dismiss the wave of political disasters as the works of men of unsound mind. Here, Lacey Baldwin Smith re-evaluates this mania for conspiracy in the light of psychological and social impulses peculiar to the age.

Tudor England accepted unquestioningly the conspiracy theory of history; it assumed the existence of evil; and it instinctively believed that a greater and usually malicious reality lay behind outward appearance. Sensible men were for ever on guard against their Iago, dedicated to evil for its own sake, who lurked under the guise of a trusted friend or servant. Father's advised their sons, 'Love no man: trust no man'; contemporary literature and drama reflected and reinforced this belief, as did the essentials of Tudor education which taught students how to dissemble convincingly upon a public stage.

By looking at the behaviour of the flamboyant Robert Devereux (who bore all the hallmarks of paranoia) as a case study in political hysteria, Lacey Baldwin Smith examines the ways in which insecurity in the midst of political and religious revolution was obsessive and self-perpetuating, and produced throughout the kingdom a state of hysteria that was unique to the sixteenth century.

Reviews

'A stimulating and at times exciting study...Professor Baldwin Smith undoubtedly produces some excellent material.'

—— Antonia Fraser , Guardian

'The paranoia which Professor Baldwin Smith describes was above all the product of guilt...it has many fascinating nuggets of information about the period.'

—— Auberon Waugh , Daily Mail

'Any new book by Lacey Baldwin Smith is an event, and to me [Treason in Tudor England] is particularly welcome.'

—— John Kenyon , Observer

'Lacey Baldwin Smith's subject in this book is a richly rewarding one...well-structured and well-written.'

—— R C Richardson , Times Educational Supplement

'A stunning evocation of a brutal age from one of our finest historians.'

—— Alison Weir

Ruth Harris' minutely detailed examination of the rich mulch from which the Dreyfus case sprouted its fleurs du mal, adds a new level of learning to the affair that defined 20th-century France

—— Nigel Jones , Telegraph

a highly imaginative, deeply-researched inquiry into the battle over Dreyfus which revels in paradox and complexity.

—— Michael Marrus , TLS

"Harris is a first-rate narrative historian... What marks Harris's contribution is her formidable research skills, her exceptionally wide general and historical reading, and her always interesting eye for the revealing anecdote or pen portrait."

—— Carmen Callil , The Guardian

"Scrupulous and well-written... Harris is to be thanked for the care and measure of her sifting and weighing, and for the deep historical perspective that she brings to the undertaking."

—— Christopher Hitchens , The Weekly Standard

Cruickshank brilliantly sketches the wild whirligig of drunkenness, debauchery, theft, exploitation, merriness, subversion, corruption, lust, fantasy, violence, disease, starvation and early death

—— Telegraph

Witty, elegantly written and memorable

—— Architectural Review

It is the small revelations about the character of Blair that make this book worthwhile

—— Ross Clark , The Express

It's a gripping insight into the ex-PM's ten years of power . . . It will take a lot for many people to read his own take on the rise and fall of New Labour, but those that do might be reminded of the charm and vision that swept him to power

—— News of the World

I have read many a prime ministerial memoir and none of the other authors has been as self-deprecating, as willing to admit mistakes and to tell jokes against themselves

—— Mary Ann Sieghart , The Independent

Paints a candid picture of his friend and rival, Gordon Brown, and of their relationship

—— Patrick Hennessy , The Sunday Telegraph

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