Side Quests: A Tudor Reading Guide

In honor of slow-reading Wolf Hall, here are my other favorite books—fiction and nonfiction—about Tudor England.

Welcome to Side Quests, a monthly newsletter series in which I share fun reading guides or go down reflective rabbit holes related to my reading life. No spoilers unless explicitly noted.

As I’ve shared in previous newsletters, this year I’m participating in several slow reading projects—some of my own making (as documented in my newsletter The Hero’s Journey), and some led by other readers and platforms. One of these is reading Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning Thomas Cromwell trilogy—Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, and The Mirror & the Light—via the “Wolf Crawl” led by Footnotes and Tangents. For anyone not familiar, these three novels follow Thomas Cromwell and his rise to power in the court of King Henry VIII. They are extremely literary; I’ve already become deeply immersed in the way Mantel brings the characters and details of this period to life, all through truly stunning sentence-level writing.

I am nothing if not an amateur Tudor nerd, ever since I was a tween and read fictional childhood favorite the Royal Diary of Elizabeth I. My love for this kind of royal court history directly ties into my love of fantasy, which so often features the same kinds of political intrigue, backstabbing, complex family trees, and survival games. It’s juicy, dramatic, scandalous, and tragic. This period was essentially A Game of Thrones minus the dragons.

Today, I am sharing a comprehensive list of books about the Tudor era, separated between historical fiction and nonfiction. Some of these I’ve read, some are still on my own to-read list. Yes, I am now dying to do a mass read-along through some of the series. Definitely let me know in the comments if this is something that would be of interest in the future.

Philippa Gregory, Queen of Royal Fiction

A crucial part of my own reading history as a teen was discovering author Philippa Gregory. She is one of the most recognizable names when it comes to Tudor-era historical fiction, shining a light on the various women involved—some well-known and some more peripheral. Filled with rich historical detail, her books bring the characters and events of Tudor England to life in a way that is also scintillating and unputdownable. Of course, Gregory’s books to blend fiction and fact, which is something to keep in mind while getting lost in the stories. A much less literary reading experience than Mantel, but nonetheless fun. I haven’t read these since I was a teen so would be very curious to revisit them now.

Her main body of work exists under one massive series which I’ve broken out into two halves:

The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels: The Wars of the Roses Era

These books follow the women who played critical roles during the Wars of the Roses, leading up to the House of Tudor taking the English throne. For anyone not familiar, the Wars of the Roses (also known as the Cousins’ Wars) were English civil wars in which two houses—the House of Lancaster (emblem a red rose) and the House of York (emblem a white rose)—were pitted against each other in a bloody battle for the throne. There were tons of political machinations and fickle alliances as everyone attempted to side with the winning party, which flip-flopped at the drop of a hat. These books were adapted as two fantastic limited series on Starz, The White Queen and The White Princess, starring Rebecca Ferguson and Jodie Comer respectively, that I highly recommend watching whether you read the books or not. They are definitely sexy but also impressively grounded in the history and politics of the time.

• The Lady of the Rivers (#1) follows Jacquetta of Luxembourg, mother of Elizabeth Woodville;

• The White Queen (#2) follows Elizabeth Woodville, grandmother of King Henry VIII;

• The Red Queen (#3) follows Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII and the other grandmother of Henry VIII;

• The Kingmaker’s Daughter (#4) follows Anne Neville, wife of Richard III;

• The White Princess (#5) follows Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII and mother of Henry VIII.

The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels: The Tudors

Then the series moves further into the Tudor period, most famous for King Henry VIII, his many unfortunate wives, and the establishment of the Church of England; as well as for his daughter, Elizabeth I, who never married and thus ended the House of Tudor. There was a movie adaptation of The Other Boleyn Girl starring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson, which I also highly recommend.

• The Constant Princess (#6) follows Katherine of Aragon, Spanish Princess and Henry VIII’s first wife;

• The King’s Curse (#7) follows Margaret Pole, cousin of Elizabeth of York and lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon;

• Three Sisters, Three Queens (#8) follows Katherine of Aragon Queen of England, Margaret Tudor Queen of Scots, and Mary Tudor Queen of France;

• The Other Boleyn Girl (#9) follows Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife and her sister Mary Boleyn;

• The Boleyn Inheritance (#10) follows Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII’s third wife;

• Boleyn Traitor (#11) follows Lady Rochford, aka Jane Boleyn, sister-in-law to Anne Boleyn;

• The Taming of the Queen (#12) follows Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s sixth (and last) wife;

• The Queen’s Fool (#13) follows the courts of Mary I (“Bloody Mary”) and her half-sister, the future Elizabeth I, through the eyes of fictional “fool” Hannah Green;

• The Virgin’s Lover (#14) follows Elizabeth I as she navigates threats from her cousin Mary Queen of Scots and the traitor Robert Dudley;

• The Last Tudor (#15) follows Lady Jane Grey and her two sisters;

• The Other Queen (#16) follows Mary, Queen of Scots.

Alison Weir, Bridging Fiction and Nonfiction

Another name synonymous with books about the Tudor era, Alison Weir has written both historical fiction as well as nonfiction about the time. As she is both a historian and a novelist, her fictional works are considered more historically accurate than Gregory’s novels. Below I share her fiction; I’ll save her nonfiction for the next section.

Weir’s “Six Tudor Queens” Novels

This is a historical fiction series of six books, each of which focuses on one of Henry VIII’s wives. Weir’s fiction is considered more historically accurate than the more sensational work of Philippa Gregory.

• Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen

• Anne Boleyn: A King’s Obsession

• Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen

• Anna of Kleve: Queen of Secrets (also subtitled, The Princess in the Portrait)

• Katheryn Howard: The Tainted Queen (also subtitled, The Scandalous Queen)

• Katharine Parr: The Sixth Wife

Weir’s Other Tudor Period Novels

More historical fiction, centering other key figures from the period:

• The Last White Rose: A Novel of Elizabeth of York (mother of Henry VIII)

• The Cardinal: A Novel of Love and Power (about Cardinal Wolsey)

• The King’s Pleasure: A Novel of Henry VIII

• The Passionate Tudor: A Novel of Queen Mary I (also titled Mary I, Queen of Sorrows) about “Bloody Mary,” eldest daughter of Henry VIII and half-sister to Elizabeth I

Janet Wertman’s The Seymour Saga

If Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s third wife, is your favorite, you’re in luck: Janet Wertman has a critically-acclaimed historical fiction trilogy all about Jane, her brother, and her son the young King Edward VI. These are for you if you enjoy the more literary aspects of Hilary Mantel’s novels.

• Jane the Quene, about Henry VIII’s third wife Jane Seymour

• The Path to Somerset, about Jane’s brother, Edward Seymour

• The Boy King, about Jane and Henry VIII’s son, Edward VI

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A Smattering of Nonfiction

I’ve broken out the below nonfiction books by subject matter, stretching from the Wars of the Roses through Tudor-era colonialism.

The Wars of the Roses (Nonfiction)

• The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors by Dan Jones (leans exciting and accessible)

• The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir (leans into storytelling, not overly academic)

• The Princes in the Tower: The Truth Behind History’s Greatest Cold Case by Philippa Langley (mystery-style historical investigation)

• The Princes in the Tower by Alison Weir (leans comprehensive but still narrative)

• Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World by Alison Weir

• Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn

Cromwell & Other Political Figures (Nonfiction)

• Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII’s Most Faithful Servant by Tracy Borman (leans readable)

• Thomas Cromwell: A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch (leans scholarly)

• The Cardinal: The Secret Life of Thomas Wolsey by Alison Weir

• The Stolen Crown: Treachery, Deceit, and the Death of the Tudor Dynasty by Tracy Borman

Henry VIII, His Wives, & Lovers (Nonfiction)

• Henry VIII: The King and His Court by Alison Weir (leans comprehensive biography with political context)

• Mary Boleyn: The Mistress of Kings by Alison Weir (focused on Anne Boleyn’s sister)

• The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir (leans historical drama)

• The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser (very balanced take)

• Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII by David Starkey (leans academic/scholarly)

• Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and the Marriage that Shook Europe by John Guy and Julia Fox (newer with fresh scholarship)

Henry VIII’s Children and Their Cousins (Nonfiction)

• The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir

• Elizabeth I: The Struggle for the Throne by David Starkey

• The Life of Elizabeth I by Alison Weir

• Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser

• The Lost Tudor Princess: The Life of Lady Margaret Douglas by Alison Weir

The World of Tudor England (Nonfiction)

• A Visitor’s Companion to Tudor England by Suzannah Lipscomb (blurbed by Hilary Mantel!)

• The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women: A Social History by Elizabeth Norton

• How to Be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Tudor Life by Ruth Goodman

• The Waiting Game: The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens by Nicola Clark

• The Story of Tudor Art: A History of Tudor England Through Its Art and Objects by Christina J. Faraday

Tudor-Era Colonialism (Nonfiction)

• A Golden World: How the Americas Transformed Tudor and Stuart England by Lauren Working

• England’s Other Countrymen: Black Tudor Society by Onyeka Nubia

• Black Tudors: The Untold Story by Miranda Kaufmann

• Big Chief Elizabeth: The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America by Giles Milton

• Travellers in the Golden Realm: How Mughal India Connected England to the World by Lubaaba Al-Azami

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That’s it for this month’s Side Quest! Be sure to subscribe to receive future editions of this newsletter plus my other regular publications: “The Town Crier,” a monthly newsletter sharing my most-anticipated new releases and other book news; and “The Hero’s Journey,” where I am reading through some of the biggest fantasy series and author projects on my TBR.

For day-to-day updates on my reading life, dynamic mood boards, reviews for everything I read, and bonus reading guides, follow me on Instagram @hollyslitmagic.

The Town Crier: Adventures in immortality and murder.

The Hero’s Journey: Intro to The Bone Season