Mary Tudor: A Life

"Loades manages the difficult feat of being both a sensitive portrait of a woman treated abominably by her father, and a cool estimation of the religious persecutions she initiated as a result. A sad but not unsympathetic book." (The Week, January 2009)

"An excellent and sensitive biography." (Observer)

"A weighty achievement." (Times Educational Supplement)

"A stimulating and scholarly reappraisal of Mary's career ... Without resurrecting the black legend, he illuminates the shortcomings of an historical figure who was 'a good woman, but an ill Queen'." (Spectator)

"Loades has written by far the best biography of the queen to date. He has created a deeply moving and penetrating human story in which the lesser characters retain their verity and are gracefully integrated into a drama that is, as the author says, 'pure tragedy'." (American Historical Review)

"David Loades's brisk and unsentimental account is therefore welcome." (The English Historical Review)