The Tudors, Richard Rex, Amberley, 2012, paperback, 256 pp., £9.99, ISBN 9781445607009; Margaret of York the Diabolical Duchess, Amberley Publishing, 2012, paperback, 256 pp., £10.99, ISBN 9781445608198; Thomas Cromwell. Henry VIII's Henchman, J. Patrick Coby, Amberley, 2012, hardback, 278 pp., £20.00, ISBN 97801445607757

Richard Rex's popular introductory survey of the Tudor dynasty, originally published in 2002, has been re-issued in a new edition by Amberley Publishing. The author insists in his preface that his book is neither a history of Tudor Britain nor even of Tudor England but rather ‘a series of essays in brief political biography' As such it presents a study of the public rather than the ‘private lives' of the Tudors which detracts somewhat from its cover billing as ‘an intimate history of England's most infamous royal family'. In placing its emphasis on the politics of personal monarchy, however, it seeks to ‘retell a familiar story in an unfamiliar way' through a narrative somewhat surprisingly dispensing with ‘the traditional array of footnotes and bibliographical references'. A critical selective guide to further reading goes some way to compensate for the absence of scholarly apparatus throughout the text and, on its own terms, the book succeeds admirably as an informed overview of a formative century in English history. Margaret of York, one of the more elusive figures in the Tudor narrative, whose story curiously attracted more attention in Belgium than in England until Christine Weightman completed her research in 1989. The intervening years have done little to change her portrait of ‘the diabolical duchess' who attempted to overthrow the Tudors, except perhaps Ann Wroe's more recent study of Perkin Warbeck. Christine Weightman's study, which appeared in a new edition with minor revisions in 2009 is now re-issued by Amberley. Apart from her involvement in conspiracy and rebellion this sistedr of Richard III and wife of the wealthiest ruler in western Europe, the Duke of Flanders, Margaret was also the patron of the printer William Caxton, who she commissioned to print his first book in English. The subject  of J. Patrick Coby's Thomas Cromwell. Henry VIII's Henchman has remained a controversial figure, attracting the attention of at least nine biographers since 1900. Most recently, however, following the success of Hilary Mantel's prize-winning fiction, Wolf Hall and its sequel Bring Up the Bodies, he is currently attracting greater popular interest than at any time since G.R. Elton's ‘aggressive promotion of Cromwell' placed him at the centre of an administrative revolution in Tudor government in the 1960s. Patrick Coby, writing primarily for college students and the general reader rather than experts in the field, provides accessible explanations of the historiographical twists and turns surrounding his subject, dispensing like Richard Rex with footnotes in favour of an appended bibliographical note. He concludes that Cromwell, whose role as chief architect of the English Reformation he reasserts, personifies ‘a Machiavellian Tudor statesman without equal'.