Age of Absolutism 2: Tudor England, 1485-1603

We follow the five Tudor monarchs’ struggle to consolidate power in royal hands and forestall a collapse back into the civil wars that ravaged England in the 1400s. Beyond the soap operas of Henry VIII’s marriages or Elizabeth’s love affairs, we consider the real workings of power, money, and propaganda as England rises from a European backwater to a commercial powerhouse and leader of the Protestant world, especially as seen from the viewpoint of the Dudleys, the longest-surviving family of royal consiglieri operating behind the Tudor throne. Sign up as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures: https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632 Alternatively, non-patrons may purchase the entire playlist on English royal & dynastic history, including the lecture on “Anglo-Saxon England and the Vikings,” for one low flat fee: https://www.patreon.com/collection/2181996?view=condensed Image: Painting from Belvoir Castle showing Henry VII conferring with his ministers, mostly likely Richard Empson & Edmund Dudley