Uncovering the Intimate Details of the Tudors: A Book by Tracy Borman

Lin: I found this book riveting, took it on holiday, normally leave paperback books behind but not this one.
Tudor lives - the nitty gritty

United Kingdom on Nov 13, 2023

Kindle Customer: I loved this book! This is the second book I've read by Tracy Borman. Lots of "juicy" info on their every day lives.

United States on Sep 19, 2023

Jennifer Billings: I'm love this book. Tracy Borman is a great author. I'm enjoying this book and with be getting more of her works.

United States on Sep 05, 2023

Millicent K Chaplinski: Have not yet read this. Love Tracy Borman on YouTube, this will be an interesting read.

United States on Aug 24, 2023

NH6017: This appears to be a well researched book and it is fascinating to learn about how life must have been like for the Tudor monarchs. I question some of its accuracy when there are typos in the text. One glaring one was a date for Henry VIII that was 1590 which would have had him alive during Elizabeth I’s reign. The date should have been 1509. Minor detail but it made me wonder what else was missed among the facts presented.

United States on Jul 26, 2023

TD: Kings and queens had MANY castles. Part of the reason was to move everybody on after they literally stunk up one castle and/or cleaned out the surrounding territory of all food! Up to 1,000 people trooped along, because for every noble, there were scores of servants doing laundry, cooking, and cleaning. One servant's entire job was keeping up with the queen's jewels. Can you imagine that the stink in the castle got so bad, everyone had to leave it? Then servants remained to wash floors and walls thoroughly. People used to actually urinate on the walls! In an effort to STOP this, urinals were placed in the courtyard and crossed were attached to the walls where people used to pee, in hopes these Christian nobles would NOT pee on religious crosses! Incredible stories you thought you knew, you did NOT! Did you know that Wallis Simpson was born a male? She had Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. Up to 5 per 100,000 babies are born with this each year! Can you imagine you don't even know you're not a girl until puberty?! With ultrasound, CAT scans, and MRI's today, you can probably catch this early. Did you know that Queen Elizabeth 1st had an astrologer named John Dee whom she persuaded...

United States on Jul 07, 2023

Stewart: A compelling read, delving into the private lives of the Tudor monarchs, revealing details about how they conducted their private everyday lives that rarely appear in books that tell the story of the Tudor Dynasty. Tracy Borman 's books are always absorbing, colourful, & easily read, & this is no exception. The chapter relating to Mary I, the first Sovereign Queen of England, is one of the best I have read, even though no mention is made of 'Bloody Mary,' but then this book is about the private lives of the Tudor monarchs, not a history of their reigns. Acknowledging that fact, the author can be forgiven for the limited mention of Lady Jane Grey (the 'Nine-Day Queen'), whom the English people never accepted as their rightful queen. More information of her private life & a better understanding of her temperament would, for me, make this excellent story even more complete.

United Kingdom on Jan 19, 2021

JanbieJanbie: Like other reviewers, I thought that I knew most things about the Tudor period, having read many other books on the subject, but this book gave me many new fascinating insights into the lives of the Tudor royals. I found the details on the day to day practical aspects especially interesting, such as what the duties of the personal attendants were, what the royals wore and how they kept themselves clean, even down to how they went to the toilet. Imagine being Henry VIII's Groom of the Stool - not a job you would think anyone would want but it was actually a sought after and highly regarded role! I also enjoyed reading about Elizabeth and the different ways she attempted to disguise the visible signs of her ageing, although it painted a rather sad and pathetic picture of an old woman in her 70s wanting to appear as a twenty year old. Also interesting was the ongoing rivalry between Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots, not to mention Mary's pretty gruesome ending, her corpse then laying neglected and unburied for months.
As usual, Tracy Borman has really done her research and then made this into a book that's not only fascinating but really well written. I highly recommend it.

United Kingdom on Jan 02, 2021

Rani: Even if the Tudors are one British royal family, I already knew a lot about before picking up this book, this was a super fun read for me – I’ve always been a bit of a history buff so this was perfect for me. It’s amazing how much of my knowledge of the Tudors has in recent years been muddled by popular culture depictions of them – this book reinforced how much poetic licence is taken by for example Hollywood when it comes to the films, televised biographies focusing on the Tudors.

I thought there would be a lot of realities of women’s lives even within the Royal household and society that I would despise, and there were, but I must say in some ways I was delightfully surprised. For example:

Given the vital importance of producing an heir, Henry may have bedded Elizabeth early because he believed she would be more likely to conceive then than on the wedding day itself. According to late fifteenth-century wisdom, a woman must reach orgasm in order to conceive. She would then emit a ‘seed’ to mix with that of her partner. This view was still pervasive in the seventeenth century, when the influential herbalist Nicholas Culpeper advised that a woman would...

United Kingdom on Aug 13, 2019

mimday: I always tend to think that I know everything about the Tudors and there's never going to be anything new - that sounds really conceited doesn't it and that's not the aim. It's just that it's history that we're taught from a relatively young age and so it feels like common knowledge (Ok, we know about Henry VIII and his six wives but I guess that that's a start). I think that the reason I always enjoy Tudor history is that there's a large amount of social history that is the main core of history - back again to Henry VIII and his wives - and that interests me more than the wars. This book was just amazing Seemed very accurately sourced but really guided the reader through the time of personalities of the monarchs from Henry VIII through to the death of Elizabeth I and then the massive changes by new house of Stuart. It explained the whole 'show' that was the House of Tudor, the way they dressed (there were rules about who could wear certain colours of cloth to show importance), how long it took them to dress, smells, ablutions, moving around court, roles of people within court, number of people attending to each monarch, childbirth, the game of marriage and ageing and death. I...

United Kingdom on Jul 18, 2017