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Great Harry: The Extravagant Life of Henry VIII
Great Harry The Extravagant Life of Henry VIII Author:Carolly Erickson Includes 28 contemporaneous illustrations and a detailed index. — from the Preface: Even more than his exalted rank, his towering height, powerful physique and extraordinary handsome- — ness set Henry apart from his contemporaries. A phenomenal athlette, he seemed to draw on superhuman energies as he outrode, outdanced and outfought friends and r... more »ivals both in England and abroad. These physical gifts were balanced by unfailing warmth and charm, chivalrous delicacy of feeling, and perceptive mental endowments that enabled Henry to share fully in the intellectual life of the humanists at his court and to win their respect. Beyond these personal attributes Henry possessed the indefinable quality of majesty, the ensorceling aura of kingly command and fatherly authority that overawed his subjects and gave his enemies pause....
Yet in his last years Henry rose above the limitations of his age and bulk to personally undertake the conquest of France, and displayed again the matchless vitality that all his life made him the envy of younger men. And it was that vitality, which fueled both his hearty bonhomie and his raging irritability, that made Henry the object of helpless fascination. He seemed to know everything, to be everywhere at once....
This is a retelling of Henry's personal story, and as such it is more the life of a man than of a king. As popular history, it makes no attempt to arrive at a fresh assessment of the reign, nor to detail the political accomplishments of Henry or his ministers....« less