In the original dust jacket. Black board binding with red title plate and silver tiltle on the spine

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For conditions, please view our photographs. Fascinating book but the authors bias towards crude sensationalism, probably to increase sales, occasionally interferes. An example is to be seen, early on in the book,when he makes a lot of the child bride scenario regarding Frances Howard’s 1st titular marriage to Robert Devereaux. Frances wasn’t considered a ‘child bride’ by her society or her family, the age of consent had been set at 12 for females & 13 for males for millennia for the very good reason; observation showed females of that age not only were capable of sex but given the opportunity would be active. Males were some-what slower hence the extra year. Something else that is not developed, as it might have been, where the 1st marriage is concerned, is that it was not a marriage except in name, consummation, as the author points out, did not take place & the marriage was null & void because of it. Consummation is the key fact in marriage not churching, not the dowry & certainly not the financial arrangements arrived at. So why the churchmen took so long to come to a decision is a good question. Such 20thC perspectives as those above, occur throughout & are unfortunate in a book with so many wonderful small details. The lack of footnoting & referencing in regard to the delightful details is also unfortunate, & would help in tracing their origin. Overall a good thought provoking read that made this reader wonder what the Devereaux family knew that made them refuse consummation when they were well aware, as all such families were, that non consummation could explode in their face, as indeed it did.