Alison Weir is a warhorse of English historical biography: she's done the Plantagenets, the Wars of the Roses, The Princes in the Tower, as well as her core business, the Tudors. Golly, she's done the Tudors. This book, covering the 11 years between the death of Henry VIII and the acession of his best-established successor Elizabeth I, fills the space between her 2 books on Henry VIII, King and Court and The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and her several works on the reign of Elizabeth I.

It's not the best known period of English history - at least, I didn't know much about it - but the story is dramatic. In 11 years there were 4 successors to the bloated monster Henry VIII: 3 half-siblings (by different mothers, the first 3 of the famous 6 wives) and their young cousin. Each one was a potentially deadly rival to the others, each one had a different religious affiliation, and each one was likely to be used as a pawn in the political and religious manoueverings of the time. Only one of them was an adult at the time of his death.

It was never likely to be happy (Royal) families. The two Princesses, Mary and Elizabeth, half-sisters and the daughters of rival queens, had each at some point been declared illegitimate and banished from the court. Mary was never again allowed to see her mother, who died shortly after of cancer, while Elizabeth's mother went to the block when she was not yet 3. Their younger half-brother, Edward VI, king at 9 and dead of consumption at 16, had his last illness agonisingly prolonged by doses of arsenic administered by his uncle, the Lord Protector, who needed extra time to fiddle the boy-king's will in favour of someone more devoutly Protestant, and more easy for the Lord Protector to control.

It's hard for me to feel enormous sympathy for Edward, who comes across as a horribly pious little boy, not to mention his enthusiasm for burning people whose religious views differed from his own. Alison Weir's ability to use the telling detail does bring his peculiar childhood to life though. His tutors were appalled when, not long after his coronation, the child began blaspheming, because his schoolmate had told him that "a King should swear thunderous oaths". Perhaps I have more sympathy for his best friend, though. Being a consecrated monarch, Edward could not be beaten, yet corporal punishment was the cornerstone of Tudor education. So the companion he liked best was chosen to be the "whipping boy" and was beaten, in front of him, for his offences.

The cruelty to children of adults of the period, whether calculated or casual, is best shown in the story of poor Lady Jane Grey, the royal children's cousin. Her parents were already in a class of their own when it came to beating and "tormenting", as she put it, their shy, undersized, scholarly little daughter. The Lord Protector bought the rights to her from her parents, forced her to marry his own son and then (probably) forged the moribund Edward's will, disinheriting the royal sisters in her favour. When he informed her that she must be queen, Jane was horrified, knowing perfectly well that she had no right to the crown and that she would certainly be executed for accepting. She fell into a faint - and was left lying at her parents' and father-in-law's feet. Not a soul bothered to help her. Later, when her 9-day puppet reign was over and it was obvious the jig was up, her parents sneaked off back to their country estates, leaving her to face Mary's army alone. It's not surprising that, when Mary was finally prevailed upon to have her executed as a focus for further rebellions, that Jane Grey said she went to the block willingly and gladly. She was barely 16.

One thing that perhaps slows down the book, although it may appeal to some, is that Alison Weir has an incrediblly detailed knowledge of the minutiae of Tudor royal clothing, what jewels they wore on which occasion, what food and household items were bought or presented to the Royal households and how much every barrel of oysters, brace of hares, or pair of scented gloves cost. I suppose this is from research into household inventories and accounts of the time, as many of them survive. To me, this can edge close to writing about set-dressing and shopping. But she does at least show how the jewels and the gestures, the clothing and the cookery, carried meanings in Tudor times. At the Catholic court of Queen Mary (another enthusiast for burning non-believers), for instance, young Elizabeth was under increasing pressure to attend Mass. When she could no longer get out of it by throwing strategic sickies she attended, but dressed in sober black and white, and carrying a tiny jewelled book at her belt - not a Catholic missal, but the death-bed prayer of her fanatically Protestant half-brother Edward.