My purpose in writing Stories from the Darker Side of Love is to show the real life situations of previously unnoticed people whose stories from the darker side of love are revealed by light from the archives of England’s early modern equity courts. Archival material has shown us ordinary people brought to center stage by circumstance, and the stories such as those that comprise this book offer an effective way of looking at Tudor history from the bottom up. More importantly, they are good stories in their own right, and I am confident that you will enjoy reading them.