Eamon Duffy provides a controversial and fascinating introduction to a major historical work. This series is intended to attract a new generation of readers to some of the greatest narrative history ever written. Each volume will include substantial extracts from a major work of history, prefaced by a major new introduction by a modern authority. Attractively designed, the series will hope to demonstrate the extraordinary tradition that exists of great history writing in the English language. The books are directed to a general as well as a student readership. Eamon Duffy has restored the late medieval period as a subject of serious research through his revolutionary book "The Stripping of the Altars" (Yale University Press). In recent years, he has turned his attention to the reign of Mary Tudor and in his recent Birkbeck Lectures (University of Cambridge), he has fought back against the false interpretations of historians like David Starkey. J.A. Froude was one of the finest English literary stylists of the Victorian age. But he was highly critical of Mary Tudor, whose reign he viewed as something of a disaster. Eamon Duffy takes a very different view and so this book will spark off even more controversy about this most maligned of English monarchs.