' Borman approaches her topic with huge enthusiasm & a keen eye for entertainingthis is a very human story of a remarkable family full of vignettes that sit long in the mind' Dan Jones The Sunday Times' Tracy Borman's eye for detail is impressive; the book is packed with fascinating courtly minutiae this is a wonderful book' The Times' Borman is an authoritative & engaging writer good at prising out those humanising details that make the past alive to us' The Observer' Fascinating detailed account of the everyday reality of the royals This is a book of rich scholarship' Daily Mail' Tracy Borman's passion for the Tudor period shines forth from the pages of this fascinatingly detailed book which vividly illuminates what went on behind the scenes at the Tudor court' Alison Weir'I do not live in a corner A thousand eyes see all I do' Elizabeth IThe Tudor monarchs were constantly surrounded by an army of attendants courtiers & ministers Even in their most private moments they were accompanied by a servant specifically appointed for the task A groom of the stool would stand patiently by as Henry VIII performed his daily purges & when Elizabeth I retired for the evening one of her female servants would sleep at the end of her bed These attendants knew the truth behind the glamorous exterior They saw the tears shed by Henry VII upon the death of his son Arthur They knew the tragic secret behind ' Bloody' Mary's phantom pregnancies & they saw the 'crooked carcass' beneath Elizabeth I's carefully applied makeup gowns & accessories It is the accounts of these eyewitnesses as well as a rich array of other contemporary sources that historian Tracy Borman has examined more closely than ever before With new insights & discoveries & in the same way that she brilliantly illuminated the real Thomas Cromwell
- The Private Life of the Tudors will reveal previously unexamined details about the characters we think we know so well