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Thomas Cromwell

A one-hour taster into the career of Henry VIII’s second right-hand man, Thomas Cromwell.

Thomas Cromwell’s life has gripped millions through Hilary Mantel’s bestselling tomes.

If you’re looking for a shorter summary that reviews the life, loves, and legacy of the man who changed the political and religious shape of England forever, this is the book for you.

Born a lowly brewer’s boy, Cromwell, rose swiftly through the ranks to become Henry VIII’s right-hand man, taking the place of the fellow commoner, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.

One of the most influential figures in Tudor history, he was the architect of England’s break with the Roman Catholic Church and the dissolution of the monasteries. He helped usher in Anne Boleyn and engineered her execution.

He used his principles, ingenuity and covert skills to extract England from a millennium of remote Roman rule. He fanned the flames of religious revolution to root out corruption and laid out the foundations for England’s constitutional, rather than absolute, monarchy.

He reshaped England’s history for good. He was not just a thug, not just a zealous Protestant, he was Thomas Cromwell remaker of this realm.

In this book, you will learn:

His early life
His time on the Italian peninsula and the Low Countries
His involvement with Wolsey’s legacy project
The dissolution of the monasteries
The relationship with Anne Boleyn
The relationship with Henry VIII
His role in the English Reformation
His negotiations with the papacy and Catholic church<
His dealings with Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer
Arranging the marriage to Anne of Cleves
His influence of economic policy and alms for the poor
His role in government as Henry’s chief minister

Instead of scrolling on social media, why not feed your mind for an hour.

Follow our author name to find more books in the Hooked-on History series.

This short read is perfect for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

Elizabeth I Alliances

A one-hour taster into the early life of Queen Elizabeth I before her accession to the throne.

A fun one-hour look into the biggest question that everyone was asking – who should Queen Elizabeth I marry?

In these early months of her reign, the court buzzed with suitors eager for the queen’s hand in marriage.

European ambassadors tried to boost the chances of their masters or their relatives. By 1558, Elizabeth was the most sought-after bride in Europe.

She received overseas offers of marriage from kings and princes and earls and knights of the realm at home.

Despite her reputation as one of England’s longest-serving monarchs, Elizabeth’s reign was a turbulent one. She was the target of an almost endless series of rebellions, conspiracies and assassination plots designed to drive her from the throne.

In this book, you will learn:

England at her succession
Strengthening a weakened realm
The dazzling Robert Dudley
The suitors raise their hands
Elizabeth’s religious challenges
The romantic scandal and the death of Amy Dudley
The coma at Hampton Court
Mary Queen of Scots moves to France
The succession petition on 1563
Mary and Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley
The murder of David Rizzio
The death of Darnley
Bothwell and the ‘casket letters’
The midnight of the Rising of the North
The Ridolfi Assassination Plot of 1571

The key political issue of the time was the legitimacy of the sovereign. The Tudor dynasty had a weak right to rule. Its founder, Henry VII, was a usurper with only a dubious claim to the throne. Blue-blooded aristocrats and religious challengers waited in the wings as they engineered her death.

How would Elizabeth deal with the problem?

Rather than scroll on social media, why not spend an enjoyable hour thinking about these royal conundrums.

Prepare to be entertained and educated with this short-read history.

Also available in the Tudor series
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Elizabeth I The Princess: The First Twenty-Five Years
Henry VIII’s Court: Ambition, Betrayal and Death in Tudor England
Thomas Cromwell: The Rise and Fall of Henry VIIIs fixer

This short read is perfect for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

Elizabeth I The Princess

A one-hour taster into the early life of Queen Elizabeth I before her accession to the throne.

Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth I, was anointed monarch over England and Ireland in the first month of 1559.

Until her death in 1603, the fifth and final Tudor to hold the throne, she was a brilliant queen who impressed both the English and the rest of the world.

Most stellar performers of this calibre quickly burn out, but Elizabeth still shines brightly almost five centu-ries later, and it’s not a mystery why.

She ruled for four and a half decades over a kingdom that had been beset by years of troubles, bringing a more pragmatic and steadying hand to the helm.

Her English navy humiliated the Spanish Armada and explored the four corners of the globe. During the Elizabethan era, William Shakespeare penned many of his famous plays and poet Edmund Spencer scribbled epic, fantastical verse about ‘The Faerie Queene’.

In a position of incredible power, she was courted by a string of princes and nobleman, but Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen had only one true love—the people of England.

This book covers

Princess Elizabeth arrives
The King’s Disappointment
The downfall of her mother
The arrival of Jane Seymour
The death of Henry VIII
Thomas Seymour’s pursuit of Elizabeth
Elizabeth’s valuable lesson
Lady Jane Grey, the nine-day queen
Mary I is proclaimed queen
The Wyatt Rebellion
Elizabeth’s imprisonment and house arrest
Mary’s religious persecutions
Mary’s phantom pregnancy
Elizabeth’s succession

Why not spend an hour to educate and entertain yourself in the splendour and horror of the Tudor Dynasty.

This short read is perfect for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

Nikola Tesla

A one-hour taster into the magical world of the Nikola Tesla, the man of science and science fiction.

Nikola Tesla. Was he the maestro or mad man of electrical wizardry? Often though of far behind Thomas Edison and Guglielmo Marconi, with a name more associated with cars than a scientist, what do you know about Tesla?

Noted for his staggering intellect, off-the-wall thoughts, and groundbreaking developments that changed the world, Tesla had a flair for science and the arts. He could also vaporise an investor’s sizeable capital injection in months, with nothing profitable to show for the often considerable outlay.

Credited with revolutionising the supply of electricity with his technical talent, he also left his hotel windows open so he could nurture pigeons on his sills.

In this book, you’ll learn about:

Tesla the man – an overview
The early years
Education from elementary school to university
Tesla’s early working life in Europe
Working with Edison in America
The War of the Currents and how it links to the execution of murderer William Kemmler and Topsy the circus elephant
The Columbian Exposition in Chicago
The Niagara project to light New York
Experiments at East Houston Street
Demonstrating the remote control boat
The move to Colorado Springs
The creation and collapse of the Wardenclyffe facility
Why Tesla ended up penniless, talking to pigeons
The pain of the Nobel prizes
The final years
Teleforce and the death ray
His work at the Hotel New Yorker
The death of Nikola Tesla
Tesla’s legacy

Tesla was an artist, working with his dreams, using electricity as his medium, not paint or clay. Like Leonardo, his charm was being a scientist with an artistic nature, and many scientists are still inspired by that.

Find out all this and more in just one hour.

Oliver Cromwell

A one-hour taster into Cromwell’s route from lowly puritan to Lord Protector

Dividing popular opinion between fierce admiration or vehement loathing, Oliver Cromwell, the lowly East Anglian farmer went on to be offered the title of the King.

After his religious rebirth in the early 1630s, Cromwell went on to be guided by his Puritan religious beliefs convincing him he was enacting the will of God. That belief fuelled his propulsion to the head of the New Model Army and influential parliamentarian.

Focusing on Cromwell’s views and actions, you’ll read about his :

difficult start to life, becoming head of his father’s household at just eighteen
attempt to cure his melancholia fuelled his religious beliefs
rise to become an English Member of Parliament (MP)
thinking about King Charles I recalling parliament after eleven years of personal rule
part in the start of the First English Civil War
actions at the pivotal Battle of Marston Moor
response to the question of what to do with the king
anger about the Second English Civil War
involvement in the trial of Charles I
control of parliament after the king’s execution
struggles with conflicts between the army and parliament
rise to become Lord Protector of England, Ireland and Scotland
military campaign at Drogheda
the aftermath of his death and the restoration of the monarchy

From a nervous, novice MP, to a proven military leader, Cromwell, the ‘King Killer’ who went on to have many of the trappings of monarchy bestowed reluctantly upon him, remains a leading name in British history.

Find out all this and more in just one hour.

Henry VIII’s Court

A one-hour taster into the precarious world of the courtier in the reign of King Henry VIII

Henry has gained notoriety since his death in 1547.

Famed for his six wives, brutal outbursts, separating from the Roman Catholic Church and his dissolution of the monasteries, but what about the men who made up his court.

How did the interplay between Henry and his courtly factions shape those events?

Why did Henry choose the advisors he did?
How did commoners and aristocrats benefit from Henry’s erratic behaviour?
Why did his aides frequently outlive their usefulness?

Inside you will read about…

Day-to-day life as a courtier
Why the monarch needed a court
Henry’s ascent to the throne over a nation still feeling divisions from the Wars of the Roses
Anne Boleyn’s ambition to be supreme at court
The courtly alliances formed and shattered as each queen came and went
The rise and fall of Wolsey and Cromwell
How the dissolution brought about rapid social mobility for the time (and what happened to all the money it raised)
Henry’s war-mongering desires and alliances on the continent
How King Henry VIII died and the aftermath of his reign

Henry’s belief in his supremacy as head of the English Church and his desperate need for a male heir led to some perilous choices in his lifetime, and to question or disagree with those choices fuelled his craving for executions to maintain his control as monarch.

Unyielding, gallant, tyrannical, paranoid, trusting, inspired, it is plausible that King Henry VIII was all of these things and yet however you view his place in the Tudor Dynasty and British History, his reign was, quite simply, breathtaking.

Find out all this and more in just one hour.