EDWARD VI, THE YOUNG KING - The Protectorship of the Duke of Somerset by Jordan, W.K

Cambridge, 1971, Harvard, 2nd US printing, hard bound in dust jacket, 6 x 8 1/2, FINE/FINE CONDITION ( dj is price clipped), 544 pages, notes w/ bibliog, index................................................................................. This work is intended as a full-scale study of the reign (1547-1553) of Edward VI. This relatively short period, dominated by the Duke of Somerset, as Lord Protector, and then by a matchless conspirator, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, has been long neglected by historians, principally because the reign of the young, precocious, and short-lived Edward was caught, as it were, between the overweening personality and accomplishments of his father, Henry VIII, and the long and truly illustrious reign of his sister, Elizabeth..........................................................................Mr. Jordan's history is based on an exhaustive study of the available sources, both manuscript and printed. In form and content it is a narrative history, in which, however, certain topics requiring careful attention have been treated with monographic thoroughness. Together with the second volume, the work may well stand for many years as the standard history of the reign.....................................................................Edward VI: The Young King deals with the full range of Edwardian history, with special attention to the political, diplomatic, religious, and social history of the reign. The years with which the present volume is concerned were those in which Somerset enjoyed his supremacy, and to his character, achievements, and weaknesses a full and somewhat poignant attention is lent. In describing the general structure of the study, the author has written: "This work has .. . a probably old-fashioned quality, of which, however, we are so far unashamed that we have indulged ourselves even with battles, broils, and death-bed or . . . scaffold scenes." But the work is far more than that; it deals generously with one of the most interesting and decisive periods in English history.