An Accidental History of Tudor England cover art

An Accidental History of Tudor England

From Daily Life to Sudden Death

Pre-order free with Premium Plus
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

An Accidental History of Tudor England

By: Steven Gunn, Tomasz Gromelski
Pre-order free with Premium Plus

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Pre-order for $26.99

Pre-order for $26.99

Confirm Pre-order
Pay using voucher balance (if applicable) then card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Privacy Notice and authorise Audible to charge your designated credit card or another available credit card on file.
Cancel

About this listen

A unique new window onto Tudor life, told through ordinary people's untimely deaths.

How did ordinary people live in Tudor England? This unique history unearths the ways they died to find out.

Uncovering thousands of coroners' reports, An Accidental History of Tudor England explores the history of everyday life, and everyday death, in a world far from the intrigues of Hampton Court Palace, Shakespeare's plots and the Spanish Armada. Here, farming, building and travel were dangerous. Fruit trees killed more people than guns, and sheep killed about the same number as coalmines. Men stabbed themselves playing football and women drowned in hundreds fetching water. Going to church had its dangers, especially when it came to bell-ringing, archery practice was perilous and haystacks claimed numerous victims. Restless animals roamed the roads which contained some potholes so deep men could drown, and drown they did.

From bear attacks in north Oxford to a bowls-on-ice-incident on the Thames, this book uses a remarkable trove of sources and stories to put common folk back into the big picture of Tudor England, bringing the reality of their world to life as never before.©2025 Steven Gunn, Tomasz Gromelski (P)2025 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Death & Dying Europe Great Britain Medieval Sociology

Critic Reviews

With remarkable imagination and ingenuity, the authors conjure a vivid history of everyday death, and life, in Tudor England . . . Every variety of misadventure that humans suffered, and still suffer, is revealed here. Gunn and Gromelski cast a brilliant light into a lost world (Susan Brigden, historian)
I love this book. The fascinating - and ill-fated - cast of characters it contains are not kings and queens, nobles or diplomats, but the ordinary people who lived and died in the England of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and their ilk. By exploring Tudor England from the bottom up, it gives us a completely different and endlessly surprising perspective (Tracy Borman, author of THOMAS CROMWELL)
Brilliant, unpredictable and endlessly fascinating. Many of us think of social history as showing us different ways of living in the sixteenth century but this extraordinary study shows there were just as many different ways of dying. In so doing, it does what all great history books do: it reminds us of what we have in common with our Tudor ancestors as well as what makes us different, and thereby causes us to reflect on life itself - and dying - in all ages (Ian Mortimer, author of THE TIME TRAVELLER'S GUIDE TO MEDIEVAL ENGLAND)

What listeners say about An Accidental History of Tudor England

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.