Obituary: Penry Williams
Gordon Marsden appreciates the long and brilliant career of the great historian of Tudor Britain.
Penry Williams, who has died aged 88 in Oxford, was one of the great Tudor historians of the past half century. His teaching career spanned four decades, at Manchester University (1951-64) and then New College Oxford (1964-92), and his publications more than five.
They range from the magisterial monograph he published in his early thirties, The Council in the Marches of Wales under Elizabeth, through to a final glorious book, Sir Walter Raleigh In Life and Legend. Co-authored with Mark Nicholls, it was published just two years ago and praised for its fresh interdisciplinary insights. The Atlantic magazine remarked: ‘A great subject for a great biography. Here it is!’
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