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King John: And the Road to Magna Carta
By Stephen Church. 2015
King John has long been dubbed one of the "vilest” of English kings. He was brutish, untrustworthy, and ruled as…
a virtual tyrant--and yet his reign changed the course of English history. As renowned medieval historian Stephen Church argues, John’s importance has for too long been overshadowed by more heroic family members like Richard the Lionhearted and Eleanor of Aquitaine. John was a skilled political manipulator, but his traditional belief in the unchecked power of the sovereign became increasingly unpopular during his reign, leading to frequent confrontations between the king and his barons. In 1215, a group of barons rebelled in response to John’s repressive fiscal policies. The peace treaty that resulted was the Magna Carta, which enshrined the king’s obligation to rule within the framework of the law. King John offers an authoritative portrait of King John and the moment that signaled the end of the age of absolute monarchy and the dawn of constitutional law.The Shadow King: The Bizarre Afterlife of King Tut's Mummy
By Jo Marchant. 2013
More than 3,000 years ago, King Tutankhamun's desiccated body was lovingly wrapped and sent into the future as an immortal…
god. After resting undisturbed for more than three millennia, King Tut's mummy was suddenly awakened in 1922. Archaeologist Howard Carter had discovered the boy-king's tomb, and the soon-to-be famous mummy's story--even more dramatic than King Tut's life--began.The mummy's "afterlife" is a modern story, not an ancient one. Award-winning science writer Jo Marchant traces the mummy's story from its first brutal autopsy in 1925 to the most recent arguments over its DNA. From the glamorous treasure hunts of the 1920s to today's high-tech scans in volatile modern Egypt, Marchant introduces us to the brilliant and sometimes flawed people who have devoted their lives to revealing the mummy's secrets, unravels the truth behind the hyped-up TV documentaries, and explains what science can and can't tell us about King Tutankhamun.The Medicean Succession
By Gregory Murry. 2014
In 1537, Florentine Duke Alessandro dei Medici was murdered by his cousin and would-be successor, Lorenzino dei Medici. Lorenzino's treachery…
forced him into exile, however, and the Florentine senate accepted a compromise candidate, seventeen-year-old Cosimo dei Medici. The senate hoped Cosimo would act as figurehead, leaving the senate to manage political affairs. But Cosimo never acted as a puppet. Instead, by the time of his death in 1574, he had stabilized ducal finances, secured his borders while doubling his territory, attracted an array of scholars and artists to his court, academy, and universities, and, most importantly, dissipated the perennially fractious politics of Florentine life. Gregory Murry argues that these triumphs were far from a foregone conclusion. Drawing on a wide variety of archival and published sources, he examines how Cosimo and his propagandists successfully crafted an image of Cosimo as a legitimate sacral monarch. Murry posits that both the propaganda and practice of sacral monarchy in Cosimo's Florence channeled preexisting local religious assumptions as a way to establish continuities with the city's republican and renaissance past. In "The Medicean Succession," Murry elucidates the models of sacral monarchy that Cosimo chose to utilize as he deftly balanced his ambition with the political sensitivities arising from existing religious and secular traditions."A Mattress Maker's Daughter "richly illuminates the narrative of two people whose mutual affection shaped their own lives and in…
some ways their times. According to the Renaissance legend told and retold across the centuries, a woman of questionable reputation bamboozles a middle-aged warrior-prince into marrying her, and the family takes revenge. He is Don Giovanni de' Medici, son of the Florentine grand duke; she is Livia Vernazza, daughter of a Genoese artisan. They live in luxury for a while, far from Florence, and have a child. Then, Giovanni dies, the family pounces upon the inheritance, and Livia is forced to return from riches to rags. Documents, including long-lost love letters, reveal another story behind the legend, suppressed by the family and forgotten. Brendan Dooley investigates this largely untold story among the various settings where episodes occurred, including Florence, Genoa, and Venice. In the course of explaining their improbable liaison and its consequences, "A Mattress Maker's Daughter "explores early modern emotions, material culture, heredity, absolutism, and religious tensions at the crux of one of the great transformations in European culture, society, and statecraft. Giovanni and Livia exemplify changing concepts of love and romance, new standards of public and private conduct, and emerging attitudes toward property and legitimacy just as the age of Renaissance humanism gave way to the culture of Counter-Reformation and early modern Europe.Royal Weddings
By Emily Brand. 2011
From William the Conqueror to Prince William and Kate Middleton, A British Heritage Publisher Offers a Revealing Look at Bygone…
Royal Weddings With the impending nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton this April, Shire Publications offers Royal Weddings, the perfect primer on Britain's rich nigh-millennial history of kingly couplings and the ideal accompaniment to the aforementioned must-see event of the twenty-first century. Royal Weddings traces the evolution of matrimonial majesty from the politically charged, relatively austere, private affairs which dominate much of English history, to the grandiose extravaganza of Prince Charles's and Diana's union in 1981. Over time, British royal weddings have become the standard by which all other wedding ceremonies are compared. The book abounds with eye-opening details and interesting stories, such as how King Henry VIII's marital vows--"...to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part..."-- have been paradigmatic ever since; or the touching account of the 15th century monarch, Edward IV, who married beneath him and had to keep his marriage to a poor soldier's widow a secret. Even with nearly a thousand years of British royalty to cover, author Emily Brand deftly keeps from wallowing in a mire of historical pedantry. Instead, she has culled together exquisitely fascinating facts and anecdotes and presents her discoveries in a lively and inquisitive tone. Her account of the 1625 wedding of King Charles I--for which the monarch wasn't even present (he sent a surrogate for the lavish affair held at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris), reads as if she herself was present at the scurrilous event. Royal Weddings is a sleek 56 pages volume, generously enhanced with 60 full-color pieces of rare art and photos that go beyond traditional wedding pictures and add to the guilty, yet informative, pleasure of the book. There are examples of elaborate decorations, feasts and wedding cakes; ornate jewelry, commemorative medallions and other unique items; wedding dresses and evolving fashions; marriage certificates, announcements, menu cards and other juicy particulars; even the nullification document of King Henry VIII's short-lived marriage to Anne of Cleves, who Henry believed was misrepresented in the picture he was shown of her before agreeing to the coupling. Emily Brand is a writer and historian with a special interest in eighteenth and nineteenth-century England. She has written widely on domestic and family life for a number of history and genealogy magazines, including publications from BBC Magazines Bristol, the Jane Austen Centre in Bath and the National Archives. She is also an author for history society London Historians, of which she has been made an honorary member.From the Trade Paperback edition.The Last of the Duchess
By James Fox, Caroline Blackwood. 1995
Intriguing, suspenseful, and witty, this is the story of journalist and novelist Caroline Blackwood's search for the late Duchess of…
Windsor. It is also a provocative exploration of the often bizarre connection between heightened celebrity and approaching death--in Blackwood's words, "the fatal effects of myth." First serial to New York Times Magazine.The Escorial
By Henry Kamen. 2010
Few buildings have played so central a role in Spain's history as the monastery-palace of San Lorenzo del Escorial. Colossal…
in size and imposing--even forbidding--in appearance, the Escorial has invited and defied description for four centuries. Part palace, part monastery, part mausoleum, it has also served as a shrine, a school, a repository for thousands of relics, and one of the greatest libraries of its time. Constructed over the course of more than twenty years, the Escorial challenged and provoked, becoming for some a symbol of superstition and oppression, for others a "wonder of the world. " Now a World Heritage Site, it is visited by thousands of travelers every year. In this intriguing study, Henry Kamen looks at the circumstances that brought the young Philip II to commission construction of the Escorial in 1563. He explores Philip's motivation, the influence of his travels, the meaning of the design, and its place in Spanish culture. It represents a highly engaging narrative of the high point of Spanish imperial dominance, in which contemporary preoccupations with art, religion, and power are analyzed in the context of this remarkable building.King Stephen
By Edmund King. 2010
This compelling new biography provides the most authoritative picture yet of King Stephen, whose reign (1135-1154), with its "nineteen long…
winters" of civil war, made his name synonymous with failed leadership. After years of work on the sources, Edmund King shows with rare clarity the strengths and weaknesses of the monarch. Keeping Stephen at the forefront of his account, the author also chronicles the activities of key family members and associates whose loyal support sustained Stephen's kingship. In 1135 the popular Stephen was elected king against the claims of the empress Matilda and her sons. But by 1153, Stephen had lost control over Normandy and other important regions, England had lost prestige, and the weakened king was forced to cede his family's right to succession. A rich narrative covering the drama of a tumultuous reign, this book focuses well-deserved attention on a king who lost control of his destiny.Henry V
By Christopher Allmand. 1992
Thanks in part to Shakespeare, Henry V is one of England's best-known monarchs. The image of the king leading his…
army against the French, and the great victory at Agincourt, are part of English historical tradition. Yet, though indeed a soldier of exceptional skill, Henry V's reputation needs to be seen against a broader background of achievement. This sweepingly majestic book is based on the full range of primary sources and sets the reign in its full European context. Christopher Allmand shows that Henry V not only united the country in war but also provided domestic security, solid government, and a much needed sense of national pride. The book includes an updated foreword which takes stock of more recent publications in the field. "A far more rounded picture of Henry as a ruler than any previous study."--G.L. Harris, The TimesQueen Anne
By Edward Gregg. 2001
The reign of Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch, was a period of significant progress for the country: Britain became…
a major military power on land, the union of England and Scotland created a united kingdom of Great Britain, and the economic and political basis for the Golden Age of the eighteenth century was established. However, the queen herself has received little credit for these achievements and has long been pictured as a weak and ineffectual monarch dominated by her advisers. This landmark biography of Queen Anne shatters that image and establishes her as a personality of integrity and invincible stubbornness, the central figure of her age.Praise for the earlier edition:"A thoughtful and . . . authoritative study, easily the best thing we have on the Queen. Like Anne herself, it is eminently worthy."--Angus McInnes, History"With the appearance of this volume, a generation of revision in Queen Anne studies comes to fruition."--Henry Horowitz, American Historical Review"The best kind of biography, scholarly but sympathetic, as well as highly readable."--John Kenyon, The Observer"Bold . . . startling . . . imaginative and persuasive."--G.C. Gibbs, London Review of BooksEdward the Confessor
By Frank Barlow. 1970
Frank Barlow's magisterial biography, first published in 1970 and now reissued with new material, rescues Edward the Confessor from contemporary…
myth and subsequent bogus scholarship. Disentangling verifiable fact from saintly legend, he vividly re-creates the final years of the Anglo-Danish monarchy and examines England before the Norman Conquest with deep insight and great historical understanding."Deploying all the resources of formidable scholarship, [Barlow] has recovered the real Edward." -- SpectatorJames II
By John Miller. 2000
James II (1633-1701) lacked the charisma of his father, Charles I, but shared his tendency to dismiss the views of…
others when they differed from his own. Failing to understand his subjects, James was also misunderstood by them. In this highly-regarded biography, John Miller reassesses James II and his reign, drawing on a wide array of primary sources from France, Italy, and Ireland as well as England. Miller argues that the king had many laudable attributes--he was brave, loyal, honorable, and hard-working, and he was at least as benevolent toward his people as his father had been. Yet James's conversion to Catholicism fueled the distrust of his Protestant subjects who placed the worst possible construction on his actions and statements. Although James came to see the securing of religious freedom for Catholics in the wider context of freedom for all religious minorities, his people naturally doubted the sincerity of his commitment to toleration.The book explores James's relations with the state and society, focusing on the political, diplomatic, and religious issues that shaped his reign. Miller discusses the human failings, the gulf of understanding between the king and his subjects, and the sheer bad luck that led to James's downfall. He also considers the reasons for James's lack of interest in recovering his kingdom after his flight to France in 1688. This revised edition of the book includes a substantial new foreword assessing recent work on the reign."This is a first-class essay in historical biography. . . . It must displace all previous lives of James II."--J. P. Kenyon, ObserverThe Duchess Of Windsor: The Uncommon Life Of Wallis Simpson
By Greg King. 2011
A woman's life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compelling situation or challenge, and…
each marked off by some intense experience. It was the love story of the century--the king and the commoner. In December 1936, King Edward VII abdicated the throne to marry "the woman I love," Wallis Warfield Simpson, a twice-divorced American who quickly became one of the twentieth century's most famous personalities, a figure of intrigue and mystery, both admired and reviled. "Never explain, never complain." Wrongly blamed for the abdication crisis, Wallis suffered hostility from the Royal Family and much of the world. Yet interest in her story has remained constant, resulting in a small library of biographies that convey a thinly veiled animosity toward their subject. The truth, however, is infinitely more fascinating than the shallow, pathetic portrait that has often been painted. "For a gallant spirit, there can never be defeat." Using previously untapped sources, acclaimed biographer Greg King presents a complete and, for the first time, sympathetic portrait of the Duchess that sifts the decades of rumor and accusation to reveal the woman behind the legend. From her birth in Pennsylvania during the Gilded Age to her death in Paris in 1986, King takes the reader through a world of privilege, palaces, high society, and love with the accompaniment of hatreds, feuds, conspiracies, and lies. The cast of characters is vast: politicians and presidents, dictators and socialites. Twenty-four pages of photographs reveal the life of the Duchess in all its incomparable glamour and romance. Greg King's biographies The Last Empress, The Man Who Killed Rasputin, and The Mad King have been universally acclaimed and internationally published. He lives in Everett, Washington.Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life
By Sally Bedell Smith. 2017
From the New York Times bestselling author of Elizabeth the Queen comes the first major biography of Prince Charles in…
more than twenty years—perfect for fans of The Crown. Sally Bedell Smith returns once again to the British royal family to give us a new look at Prince Charles, the oldest heir to the throne in more than three hundred years. This vivid, eye-opening biography—the product of four years of research and hundreds of interviews with palace officials, former girlfriends, spiritual gurus, and more, some speaking on the record for the first time—is the first authoritative treatment of Charles’s life that sheds light on the death of Diana, his marriage to Camilla, and his preparations to take the throne one day. Prince Charles brings to life the real man, with all of his ambitions, insecurities, and convictions. It begins with his lonely childhood, in which he struggled to live up to his father’s expectations and sought companionship from the Queen Mother and his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten. It follows him through difficult years at school, his early love affairs, his intellectual quests, his entrepreneurial pursuits, and his intense search for spiritual meaning. It tells of the tragedy of his marriage to Diana; his eventual reunion with his true love, Camilla; and his relationships with William, Kate, Harry, and his grandchildren. Ranging from his glamorous palaces to his country homes, from his globe-trotting travels to his local initiatives, Smith shows how Prince Charles possesses a fiercely independent spirit and yet has spent more than six decades waiting for his destined role, living a life dictated by protocols he often struggles to obey. With keen insight and the discovery of unexpected new details, Smith lays bare the contradictions of a man who is more complicated, tragic, and compelling than we knew, until now.Advance praise for Prince Charles“Comprehensive and admirably fair . . . Until his accession to the throne, Smith’s portrait will stand as the definitive study.”—Booklist, starred review “Astute . . . a sympathetic psychological study . . . [Smith’s] portrait is enormously touching and supported by wide-ranging interviews and research. . . . A thorough, timely biography.”—Kirkus“Prince Charles is an eighteenth-century gentleman with a twenty-first-century mission. His love of tradition combines with an outlook that can be bracingly avant garde. Sally Bedell Smith captures his contradictions and his convictions in this fascinating book that is not just about a man who would be king, but also about the duties that come with privilege.”—Walter Isaacson“For all we know about Prince Charles, there is so much we didn’t know—until now. Sally Bedell Smith has given us a complete and compelling portrait of the man in the shadow of the throne. It’s all here, from the back stairs of the palaces to the front pages of the tabs. Read all about it!”—Tom BrokawBlood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses
By Sarah Gristwood. 2013
To contemporaries, the Wars of the Roses were known collectively as a ?cousinsOCO war. OCO The series of dynastic conflicts…
that tore apart the ruling Plantagenet family in fifteenth-century England was truly a domestic drama, as fraught and intimate as any family feud before or since. As acclaimed historian Sarah Gristwood reveals in "Blood Sisters," while the events of this turbulent time are usually described in terms of the male leads who fought and died seeking the throne, a handful of powerful women would prove just as decisive as their kinfolksOCO clashing armies. These mothers, wives, and daughters were locked in a web of loyalty and betrayal that would ultimately change the course of English history. In a captivating, multigenerational narrative, Gristwood traces the rise and rule of the seven most critical women in the wars: from Marguerite of Anjou, wife of the Lancastrian Henry VI, who steered the kingdom in her insane husbandOCOs stead; to Cecily Neville, matriarch of the rival Yorkist clan, whose son Edward IV murdered his own brother to maintain power; to Margaret Beaufort, who gave up her own claim to the throne in favor of her son, a man who would become the first of a new line of Tudor kings. A richly drawn, absorbing epic, "Blood Sisters" is a tale of hopeful births alongside bloody deaths, of romance as well as brutal pragmatism. It is a story of how women, and the power that women could wield, helped to end the Wars of the Roses, paving the way for the Tudor age?and the creation of modern England. "Amazing & Extraordinary Facts: Kings & Queens (Amazing & Extraordinary)
By Malcolm Day. 2011
"Amazing & Extraordinary Facts about Kings and Queens" unearths a wealth of fascinating truths about British monarchs from pre-Roman times…
to the present day. Discover revealing stories about the lives and personalities of each monarch and how they have shaped history. Tales of wickedness, greed, adultery and madness make this guide to Britain's kings and queens utterly compelling. "The Amazing and Extraordinary Facts series" presents interesting, surprising and little-known facts and stories about a wide range of topics which are guaranteed to inform, absorb and entertain in equal measure. Brief, accessible and entertaining pieces on a wide variety of subjects make them the perfect books to dip in to.Who Was Henry VIII? (Who was?)
By Ellen Labrecque, Who Hq, Jake Murray. 2018
Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Travel to the age of the Renaissance and learn why Henry VIII is one of the…
most famous kings in English history.Mainly remembered for his six marriages and his self-appointment as the "Supreme Head of the Church of England," Henry VIII was also attractive, educated, and athletic. When Henry Tudor ascended to the English thrown at the age of 17, his reign looked promising. But by the time of his death in 1547, King Henry VIII was characterized as an extremely egotistical, harsh, and insecure king. Though Henry VIII's legacy isn't free from scandal, his monarchy thrived due to the achievements of his daughter Queen Elizabeth I.The King's Assassin: The Secret Plot to Murder King James I
By Benjamin Woolley. 2017
An absorbing account of the conspiracy to kill King James I by his handsome lover, the Duke of Buckingham, an…
historical crime that has remained hidden for 400 years.The rise of George Villiers from minor gentry to royal power seemed to defy gravity. Becoming gentleman of the royal bedchamber in 1615, the young gallant enraptured James, Britain’s first Stuart king, royal adoration reaching such an intensity that the king declared he wanted the courtier to become his ‘wife’. For a decade, Villiers was at the king’s side – at court, on state occasions, and in bed, right up to James’s death in March 1625.Almost immediately, Villiers’ many enemies accused him of poisoning the king. A parliamentary investigation was launched, and scurrilous pamphlets and ballads circulated London’s streets. But the charges came to nothing, and were relegated to a historical footnote. Now, new research suggests that a deadly combination of hubris and vulnerability did indeed drive Villiers to kill the man who made him. It may have been by accident – the application of a quack remedy while the king was weakened by a malarial attack. But there is compelling evidence that Villiers, overcome by ambition and frustrated by James’s passive approach to government, poisoned him.In The King’s Assassin, acclaimed author Benjamin Woolley examines this remarkable, even tragic story. Combining vivid characterization and a strong narrative with historical scholarship and forensic investigation, Woolley tells the story of King James’s death, and of the captivating figure at its center.So Great a Prince: England In 1509 (Great Lives Ser.)
By Lauren Johnson. 2016
A vivid and original portrait of the year the young Henry VIII assumes the throne, revealing a kingdom at a…
crossroads between two dynamic monarchs and two ages of history. England, 1509. Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch, is dead; his successor, the seventeen-year-old Henry VIII, offers hope of renewal and reconciliation after the corruption and repression of the last years of his father's reign. The kingdom Henry inherits is not the familiar Tudor England of Protestantism and playwrights. It is still more than two decades away from the English Reformation, and ancient traditions persist: boy bishops, pilgrimages, Corpus Christi pageants, the jewel-decked shrine at Canterbury. So Great a Prince offers a fascinating portrait of a country at a crossroads between two powerful monarchs and between the worlds of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Historian Lauren Johnson tells the story of 1509 not just from the perspective of the young king and his court, but from the point of view of merchants, ploughmen, apprentices, laundresses, and foreign workers. She looks at these early Tudor lives through the rhythms of annual rituals, juxtaposing political events in Westminster and the palaces of southeast England with the religious, agrarian, and social events that punctuated the lives of the people of young Henry VIII's England.The History of England from the Accession of James II, Volume 1
By Thomas Babington Macaulay.