Rule #1: Study the playbooks

To be a power player in Tudor England, you needed to study the playbooks. Potential senior advisors to the queen studied “courtesy books” and “mirrors for princes.” Books by Machiavelli, Castiglione, and others described the qualities, skills, and behaviors necessary to succeed at court. Printed in many editions and translations throughout western Europe, surviving copies are often marked up by their studious readers.

Bend the rules to get what you want

To be Machiavellian is to follow the unethical principles laid out in The Prince. “The end justifies the means,” “it is wiser to be feared than loved,” “capture and colonize,” and “appearances are everything” sum up Machiavelli’s philosophy. The book was banned after its 1532 publication in Italy; the title page of this 1584 copy claims it was printed in Palermo, but it was actually printed in London. The handwritten motto translates to “Faithful in fortune, good or bad.” 

Make your actions seem effortless

Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier was required reading for aspiring power players. The book introduced the concept of sprezzatura, or how to make hard things look easy—a sort of effortless grace in speech, writing, dress, manners, and actions. First published in Italy in 1528, it became a bestseller. A reader has copied out a poem about fame as well as a cautionary motto: “Pleasure procured with pain harms.”

Begin training at a young age

Thomas Elyot was the first English author to write a leadership manual. He recommended that parents instruct their children in Greek, Latin, music, art, and athletic pursuits such as hunting and swordsmanship. Elyot wanted his readers to start young, learning behaviors that he felt would serve them at court as adults. The title page inscriptions fittingly suggest that a father gifted this copy to his son.

Look in the mirror

A Mirror for Magistrates recounts the tragic downfalls of a long line of Britain’s mythical and historical kings, nobles, and politicians. These ghostly figures appear as in a mirror, lamenting their vices—ambition, pride, tyranny, corruption—and praising those who punished them. If aspiring power players recognized themselves in this dangerous mirror, then they could adjust their behavior accordingly.