Young Henry

Set during the same years of Henry VIII's life as The Tudors, this biography charts his rise as a magnificent and ruthless monarch up to the late 1520s.

"Anyone with a passing interest in Tudor history will catch up quickly and delight in a detailed profile of one of England's most famous—and infamous—monarchs." ―Shelf Awareness

Immortalized as a domineering king, notorious philanderer, and the unlikely benefactor of a new church, Henry VIII became a legend during his own reign. Who, though, was the young royal who would grow up to become England's most infamous ruler? Robert Hutchinson's Young Henry examines Henry Tudor's childhood beginnings and subsequent rise to power in the most intimate retelling of his early life to date.

While Henry's elder brother Arthur was scrupulously groomed for the crown by their autocratic father, the ten-year-old "spare heir" enjoyed a more carefree childhood, given prestige and power without the looming pressures of the throne. Everything changed for the young prince, though, when his brother died. Henry was nine weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday when he inherited both his brother's widow and the crown.

As King, Henry preferred magnificence and merriment to his royal responsibilities, sweeping away the musty cobwebs of his father's court with feasting, dancing, and sport. Frustrated, too, by the seeming inability of his wife, Katherine of Aragon, to produce an heir, Henry turned his attention to a prospective second queen whose name would endure as long as his: Anne Boleyn. With the king still lacking a successor by the age of thirty-five, however, the time for youthful frolic had come to an end.

Divorcing his wife and the Catholic Church, executing his lover and his violent will, Henry charged forward on a scandalous path of terrifying self-indulgence from which there was no turning back. Young Henry is an illuminating portrait of this tyrannical yet groundbreaking king—before he transformed his country, and the face of the monarchy, irrevocably.

"Hutchinson complements his biography of the old king (The Last Days of Henry VIII, 2005) with this portrait of the young monarch. . . . Pulling quotations from the archives that convey Henry's pious yet imperious personality, Hutchinson ably meets history fans' unflagging fascination with Henry VIII." ―Booklist