I enjoyed this book precisely because it was a very unusual approach, and therefore revealed aspects of Henry VIII that I had previous either not known about or considered. It required and encyclopedic knowledge of the subject, and the ability to empathize with someone quite alien in many ways to oneself. I would not recommend this as a first or only biography of Henry VIII, but I would recommend it to anyone with a serious interest in the subject.

This is a psychological study, not in the sense of assigning specific diagnoses out of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but rather of how he saw himself, and how he was seen in his own time. Smith teases out some very interesting motivations and possible schemes of Henry. He argues, for example, that the unwieldy, and rapidly discarded Regency Council that he set up for his son was not a serious attempt to organize the government after his death. Smith suggests instead that Henry was controlling his courtiers at the end of life by threatening to rewrite his will and exclude them.

A person like Henry had such an eventful life that one tends to lose sight of him as a person. Books like this are very valuable for redressing the balance. I also strongly recommend the Teaching Companies recorded work The Age of Henry VIII by Dale Hoak; and 1536: the Year that Changed Henry VIII by Suzannah Lipscomb. ( )

http://shelfandstuff.blogspot.com/2008/06/henry-viii-mask-of-royalty-by-lacey.ht... ( )

I've read much on the Tudors and this is not my favorite biography of Henry VIII. It is well-done and the scholarship is superb. I also award L. Baldwin Smith credit for trying a different approach. But I greatly prefer a "standard" biographical method and do not want something clever or groundbreaking. I found myself thinking when reading this, that afterwards I would have to go read a real bio to fill in the blanks and find what "really" happened. His premise is interesting; I do not entirely disagree with it. ( )

I found it disappointing; too interested in psychological speculation ( )