I really enjoyed this, even though it's not the best-written history book. Bits of it are really dull, and it has an odd structure - the chapter names repeat - 'Economic and Social Development', 'The Arts', and so on several times to reflect changes over the period covered by the book. I realised as I read it that I still don't really know what happened between the Plantagenets and the Tudors - it's all very muddled in my head, though I now suspect that this is because it is in fact very muddly. School history tries to pretend that there is an unbroken hereditary line of succession in the English monarchy, but - particularly in this period - there are a lot of opportunistic seizures of the throne by those who might be called usurpers if that term really had any meaning.
Anyway, this is great background reading if you enjoyed Wolf Hall or Bring Up The Bodies - it makes it much clearer why so many people were prepared to put with Henry VIII's capriciousness and his efforts to ensure a legitimate unchallengeable heir - anything seemed better than a return to the wars for the throne.
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