Houses of Power

An absorbing account of the lives of these royal houses. It is a journey not just from palace to hunting lodge to castle, but into the small and poignant details of domestic existence. * Times Literary Supplement * This is a landmark book. Nobody interested in Tudor England can afford not to own a copy of this gateway into a lost world compulsively readable. -- Sir Roy Strong * Country Life * Unrivalled architectural expertise... Superb writing...A triumph: a masterly collective biography of [Tudor Royal] buildings, replete with insights into their owners private lives and into politics, diplomacy and court etiquette. * Literary Review * [Simon Thurley] certainly loves his subject. An enthusiasm that steadily bubbles forth from Houses of Power....Thurleys reconstruction of these rooms is fascinating, but even more so is his description of what went on in them ... A suitably opulent book -- Gerard DeGrout * The Times * Excellent... Fresh, learned, readable and full of life, [Houses of Power] is the Tudors At Home, as you've never seen them before. -- Dan Jones * Mail on Sunday *

Dr Simon Thurley is a leading architectural historian, a regular broadcaster on television and radio, and was until 2015 the Chief Executive of English Heritage, the governments principal advisor on the historic environment in England. Previous posts have included Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces and Director of the Museum of London. Simon is the author of a number of books on architectural history, including The Royal Palaces of Tudor England; Whitehall Palace and Hampton Court. In 2013 he published a major history of English architecture for HarperCollins, The Building of England. Simon is married to the historian Anna Keay and lives in Norfolk.