Rich in detail & atmosphere & told in vivid prose Tudors recounts the transformation of England from a settled Catholic country to a Protestant superpower. It is the story of Henry VIIIs cataclysmic break with Rome & his relentless pursuit of both the perfect wife & the perfect heir; of how the brief reign of the teenage king Edward VI gave way to the violent reimposition of Catholicism & the stench of bonfires under Bloody Mary. It tells too of the long reign of Elizabeth I which though marked by civil strife plots against the queen & even an invasion force finally brought stability. Above all however it is the story of the English Reformation & the making of the Anglican Church. At the beginning of the sixteenth century England was still largely feudal & looked to Rome for direction; at its end it was a country where good governance was the duty of the state not the church & where men & women began to look to themselves for answers rather than to those who ruled them.