Customer Reviews
Revisionist but blinkered - By: Mr. P. D. Beauchamp, 27 Feb 2005 
Gwyn has undertaken the monumental task of revising out opinions of one of the most controversial & often misunderstood charactersin English history. On the whole his re-anaylsis is a sucessful, scholarly & persuasive affair, featuring some excellent insight into Wolsey's relationship with the nobility & Henry himself, challenging the faction driven interpretaion currently fashionable with the likes of David Starkey. Having said that one does get the feeling that Gwyn is often so anxious to see Wolseyin the most positive of lights that his interpretation seems somewhat blinkered & onesided, the most obvious example of which is the chapter on the Amicable Grant. However, overall the work represents a valuable & often courageous reinterpretation of an age old charaterisation for which Gwyn deserves full praise.
'Magisterial' indeed - By: , 11 Apr 2003 I think Wolsey was definitely a person whose motives, motivation, etc, may well have been misunderstood or misinterpreted by many, both his contemporaries & writers of more recent times. This biography attempts to get behind the scandal, & the ambassador's letters of the times, & really analyse legal, formal documentation,in the context not only of Henry's divorce & marriage to Anne Boleyn, & not only the break with the Catholic Pope, but alsoin the context of the powerplay within France, & the Empire, & Europe as a whole, and, possibly more importantly, attempts to analyse such things within the framework of the time & the people who livedin that time, not with the viewpoint that we as 'moderns' tend to allow to slant our interpretations of past events.
The interpretations are sometimes controversial & defy what could be considered 'the accepted' view, but they clarify elements of Wolsey's character that I believe have been glossed over by past historians, & open him up to our view as a complex statesman, dedicated church figure, & man of his times.
