From The Daily Mail:
Power, treason and the best legs in court
HOUSE OF TREASON BY ROBERT HUTCHINSON
What is treason? In Tudor times, as in Stalin’s, it is the charge by which anyone whom a tyrant fears as a rival can be permanently removed – by execution.
The Howards, Dukes of Norfolk, were not only rich and powerful, they were extremely vain. They called themselves ‘right high and mighty princes’. They built themselves palaces with tennis courts – the indoor sort.
And out of the four successive fathers and sons considered here, two were beheaded and two came within an ace of having their arrogant heads severed.
There were no more regular guests in the Tower of London than the high and mighty Howards.
Add to this that two of Henry VIII’s wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, beheaded for cuckolding him, were Howards – well, Anne’s mother was – and you have a full house of losers in the lethal game of musical chairs that was the Tudor court.
You might say they had it coming. But you might also say they were victims of Tudor paranoia – the Howards were powers behind the throne, so no wonder Henry and Elizabeth felt insecure.
Amazon links (of course… I always feel like I’m bashing you guys over the head with these things!)
