The King's Glass: A Story of Tudor Power and Secret Art - Tapa blanda

"Fascinating... This is a splendid piece of art history. Carola Hicks writes beautifully" (Sunday Telegraph)

"By concentrating her gaze upon one of the outstanding buildings of England, Carola Hicks provides a history of an entire culture" (Peter Ackroyd The Times)

"A jewel of a book" (Independent)

"One of the great pleasures of this book is the skill with which it interweaves the political narratives of the 15th and 16th centuries with a detailed history of the art form. The windows become a dazzling kaleidoscope in which the stories of the Tudor line and the English Reformation gradually take shape" (Daily Telegraph)

Each year more than 250,000 people visit the Chapel of King's College, Cambridge, one of Europe's best-known buildings. This book tells the untold story of the Chapel's crowning glory, its stained glass windows, and of the people who created them - the triumphant culmination of a project completed despite wars, the death of kings and violent religious conflict.

The glass symbolises the power of the Tudors, and is a mirror of their souls. Planned by Henry VII and continued by Henry VIII, the windows are dynastic propaganda, simultaneously blatant and subtle. The windows show how Henry commemorated his wives in art, then airbrushed them out when they fell from favour, and how he recruited leading artists to make this England's response to the Sistine Chapel.

The great 'King's Glass' also flaunts the skills of its makers, many of them innovative immigrants. It is a tale of guilds and artisans as well as of the court. It is, too, a history of England, reflecting change, conflict and modernity in the sixteenth century.