This chapter discusses Tudorism in popular historical culture during the nineteenth century. First, it briefly delineates the apparent streamlining of the Tudor era into a broadly Whig and liberal-radical culture of progress and improvement and the confident interpretation of history. It then focuses on the evolution of popular Tudorism with its emphasis upon, and uses of, horror and its relations to modernity and urbanisation: what Dickens described as the ‘attraction of repulsion’ in horror. It traces developments in representations, meanings, and uses of Tudor horror, mainly by...

This chapter discusses Tudorism in popular historical culture during the nineteenth century. First, it briefly delineates the apparent streamlining of the Tudor era into a broadly Whig and liberal-radical culture of progress and improvement and the confident interpretation of history. It then focuses on the evolution of popular Tudorism with its emphasis upon, and uses of, horror and its relations to modernity and urbanisation: what Dickens described as the ‘attraction of repulsion’ in horror. It traces developments in representations, meanings, and uses of Tudor horror, mainly by concentrating on the Tower of London, which during the nineteenth century evolved into an embodiment of the history of England, and the site of continuous debate and contest over access to, and ownership of, the Tudors.