Eric Ives obituary

Eric Ives OBE, a leading Tudor historian and contributor to BBC History Magazine, has died. He was 81 years old.

Ives was emeritus professor of English history at the University of Birmingham and an expert on the Tudor period. He wrote a number of books across a long career, with perhaps his most famous work, Anne Boleyn, published in 1986. His most recent publication, The Reformation Experience, was released earlier this year.

Author and historian Suzannah Lipscomb said: “Professor Eric Ives’s death is a sudden and profound loss to the historical community. He was a brilliant historian and one of the leading lights of Tudor history: his work on Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey is unsurpassed (and I say this even as one who disagreed with him on some points of interpretation!). It is deeply sad that The Reformation Experience will be his last book. But, even more importantly, he was also an exceptionally warm, kind, generous and courteous man. He will be greatly missed.”