Gresham’s Law: The Life and World of Queen Elizabeth I’s Banker by John Guy

From The Guardian:

When the Anglican divine John William Burgon published his classic two-volume biography of Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-1579) in 1839, he introduced his readers to a character – government banker, founder of the Royal Exchange, putative proponent of “Gresham’s law” – who had lived a life of “unsullied honour and integrity”. 

For Burgon, Gresham was among the most illustrious ancestors “of which our metropolis can boast” – not just owing to “the skill with which he contrived to control the exchange with foreign countries”, thereby laying “the foundations of England’s commercial greatness”, but also because his qualities spoke of an upstanding friend, associate, husband, father. When Gresham died, he deserved to be remembered as a “true patriot, beloved in private life and honoured in his public station”.

Burgon’s remarks are emblematic of the 19th-century view of Gresham as an honourable and self-made man: Queen Victoria’s recorder considered him an “eminent citizen and chief benefactor of his kind”. And such depictions are not without merit. But as the historian John Guy argues in this assiduously researched new account of Gresham’s life: “Something subtler is needed.” Accordingly, Guy has consulted several “large caches of often entirely virgin sources” in order to offer a reassessment of Gresham’s professional undertakings and “a fuller investigation of Gresham’s private life than anything attempted before”. It is an enterprise from which he does not emerge well.

read more here @ The Guardian and Amazon

Review: The Children of Henry VIII

There are two works of the same name but by different authors - and I have read both.

The Children of Henry VIII by by Alison Weir

"At his death in 1547, King Henry VIII left four heirs to the English throne: his only son, the nine-year-old Prince Edward; the Lady Mary, the adult daughter of his first wife, Catherine of Aragon; the Lady Elizabeth, the daughter of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, and his young great-niece, the Lady Jane Grey. These are the players in a royal drama that ultimate led to Elizabeth's ascension to the throne--one of the most spectacularly successful reigns in English history."

Weir book focuses on Henry's three legitimate children, Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth I, and also Jane Grey - for continuity of reigns.  Its is certainly an extensively researched book, for those who would quite naturally gravitate towards this work, there is nothing outstandingly new presented.  The focus is on the relationships between the siblings rather than any in-depth political treatise, and finishes up with Elizabeth I on the throne.

The Children of Henry VIII by John Guy

"Behind the facade of politics and pageantry at the Tudor court, there was a family drama.  Nothing drove Henry VIII, England's wealthiest and most powerful king, more than producing a legitimate male heir and so perpetuating his dynasty. To that end, he married six wives, became the subject of the most notorious divorce case of the sixteenth century, and broke with the pope, all in an age of international competition and warfare, social unrest and growing religious intolerance and discord. "

Intriguing - yes.  This is not a standard biography of each of Henry's children, but more an intertwining history.  Into this mix is included the often over-looked Henry FitzRoy, which makes for a refreshing change, and was one of the main reasons I picked this up.  However, Guy does not paint a very flattering picture of either of Henry's daughters, not of his wives, which I found a little annoying.   This short tome would be considered more of an entree into the world of the Tudors than anything else.