As a youth, Henry VIII was a magnificent specimen of manhood, and in age a gargantuan wreck, but even in his prime he was never the 'ladies man' which legend, and his own imagination, created. Sexual insecurity undermined him, and gave his will that irascible edge which proved fatal to Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell alike. Henry VIII dominated England during his lifetime and for many years thereafter, as a warrior, as a renaissance Prince, and as Supreme Head of the Church, but his personality is as controversial today as it was then. Professor David Loades has spent most of his life investigating the remains, literary, archival and archaeological, of Henry VIII, and this monumental new biography book is the result. His portrait of Henry is distinctive, he was neither a genius nor a tyrant, but a man 'like any other', except for the extraordinary circumstances in which he found himself.

David Loades was Emeritus Professor of the University of Wales and an Honorary Member of the University of Oxford, History Faculty. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, Vice-President of the Navy Record Society and former President of the Ecclesiastical History Society. He was the author of over thirty books on the sixteenth century, specializing in the Tudors. Sadly he has passed away.