Written with complete access to the Queen Mother's personal letters and diaries, William Shawcross's riveting biography is the truly definitive account of this remarkable woman, whose life spanned the twentieth century. Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes Lyon, the youngest daughter of the Earl of Strathmore, was born on 4 August 1900. Drawing on her private correspondence and other unpublished material from the Royal Archives, William Shawcross vividly reveals the witty girl who endeared herself to soldiers convalescing at Glamis in the First World War; the assured young Duchess of York; the Queen, at last feeling able to look the East End in the face at the height of the Blitz; the Queen Mother, representing the nation at home and abroad throughout her long widowhood. 'This splendid biograpy captures something of the warm glow that she brought to every event and encounter. It also reveals a deeper and more interesting character, forged by good sense, love of country, duty, humour and an instinct for what is right. This is a wonderful book, authoritative, frank and entertaining' "Daily Telegraph"

Discover all the foul facts about the history of Old Blighty with history's most horrible headlines: English edition. The master of making history fun, Terry Deary, turns his attention to England. From which monk tried to pinch the devil's nose with a pair of tongs and why some people in the Middle Ages ate dove droppings to which English King was accused of being a werewolf. It's all in Horrible Histories: England: fully illustrated throughout and packed with hair-raising stories - with all the horribly hilarious bits included with a fresh take on the classic Horrible Histories style, perfect for fans old and new the perfect series for anyone looking for a fun and informative read Horrible Histories has been entertaining children and families for generations with books, TV, stage show, magazines, games and 2019's brilliantly funny Horrible Histories: the Movie - Rotten Romans. Get your history right here and collect the whole horrible lot. Read all about it!

'I get enormously impressed when she walks into a room,' Princess Margaret once said of her sister. 'It's a kind of magic.' Prince William recalled, 'As I learned growing up, you don't mess with your grandmother. What she says goes.' In the year of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, royal biographer Ian Lloyd reveals the woman behind the legend over 70 themed chapters. Drawing on interviews with relatives, friends and courtiers, he explores her relationship with seven generations of the royal family, from the children of Queen Victoria to Elizabeth's own great-grandchildren. He also sheds light on some lesser-known aspects of her character, such as her frugality and her gift for mimicry. In addition, we see her encounters with A-listers, from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna, and her adept handling of several of the twentieth century's most difficult leaders. Above all, Lloyd examines how the Queen has stayed true to the promise she made to the nation at the age of 21, 'that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service'.

The prequel to The Crown: the first truly candid portrait of George V and Mary, the Queen's grandparents and creators of the modern monarchy The lasting reputation of George V is for dullness. His biographer Harold Nicolson famously quipped that 'he did nothing at all but kill animals and stick in stamps'. But is that really all there was to King George, a monarch confronted by a series of crises thought to be the most testing faced by any twentieth-century British sovereign? As Tommy Lascelles, one of the most perceptive royal advisers, put it: 'He was dull, beyond dispute -- but my God, his reign never had a dull moment.' Throughout his reign, George V navigated a constitutional crisis, the First World War, the fall of thirteen European monarchies and the rise of Bolshevism. The suffragette Emily Davison threw herself under his horse at the Derby, he refused asylum to his cousin the Tsar Nicholas II and he facilitated the first Labour government. How this supposedly limited man steered the Crown through so many perils is a gripping tale. With unprecedented access to the archives, Jane Ridley has been able to reassess the many myths associated with this dramatic period for the first time. 'Superb . . . a perfectly candid portrait' Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph 'Riveting . . . Never a dull paragraph' Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Times

The book provides an overview and analysis of the witch trials in the Scottish Borders in the 17th century. The 17th century was a time of upheaval in Scottish and British history, with a civil war, the abolition of the monarchy, the plague and the reformation all influencing the social context at the time. This book explores the social, political, geographical, religious and legal structures that led to the increased amount of witch trials and executions in the Scottish Borders. As well as looking at specific trials the book also explores the role of women, both as accuser and as accused.

First published edition of documents and letters from a highly-significant incident within the nineteenth-century Catholic church. The row between Bishop Herbert Vaughan of Salford and the Jesuits became a cause celebre in the 1870s and was only settled eventually in Rome after the personal intervention of the pope. While the immediate issue was the provision of secondary education, at stake were key questions of authority that had troubled the English Catholic community for centuries; the solution played a major part in determining the relationship between the newly restored bishops and the Religious Orders. This volume brings together for the first time all the relevant English and foreign archival sources and enables the reader to take a balanced view of the whole issue. The documents and letters [including Vaughan's private diary] paint an intriguing and not always flattering picture of the principal combatants. Bishop Vaughan [later Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster] was a determined champion of his own and his fellow-bishops' rights as diocesan bishops. Against him stood the leaders of the Jesuit Order, jealous of their traditional privileges and heirs to centuries of service to the English Catholic community. By the 1870s that community wasbeginning to develop a commercial and professional middle class who demanded secondary education for their children. Many of them looked to the Jesuits to provide it and they claimed the right to do so, irrespective of the wishesand rights of the bishop. The source material is accompanied by an introduction placing them into their social and historical context, and explanatory notes. It forms an important addition to an understanding of the nineteenth-century English Catholic Church. Father Martin John Broadley is a priest in the Catholic diocese of Salford; he also lectures at the University of Manchester.

Anne Cholawo was a typical 80s career girl working in a busy London advertising agency, when in 1989, holidaying in Skye, she noticed an advert for a property on the Isle of Soay - 'Access by courtesy of fishing boat'. She had never heard of Soay before, let alone visited it, but something inexplicable drew her there. Within ten minutes of stepping off the said fishing boat, she had fallen under the spell of the island, and after a few months she moved there to live. She is still there. When she arrived on the remote west coast island there were only 17 inhabitants, among them the legendary Hebridean sharker Tex Geddes and his family. Today, including Anne and her husband Robert, there are only three. This book describes her extraordinary transition from a hectic urban lifestyle to one of rural isolation and self-sufficiency, without mains electricity, medical services, shops or any of the other modern amenities we take for granted. Anne describes the history of Soay and its unique wildlife, and as well as telling her own personal story introduces along the way some of the off-beat and colourful characters associated with the island, notably Tex's one-time associate, the celebrated writer and naturalist, Gavin Maxwell.

This anthology reproduces six plays based on stories of King Arthur from a variety of periods. Originally published in 1991, it offers a comprehensive discussion of Arthurian Drama in introduction and also provides an appendix listing printed scripts in English that address Arthurian legend.

Through a series of original interviews, specially commissioned photography and fascinating archive material, England Our England tells the personal stories of the black and Asian pioneers who crossed the waters to make Britain their home. Rich portraits and moving personal accounts show how they dealt bravely with the shock of rejection and cold weather, the difficulties of finding work and making connections with the British, but also how their achievements ultimately transcended both their own expectations and those of the country in which they came to live, creating the multicultural society that we know today and a rich legacy for future generations. The book includes interviews with Russell Henderson, co-founder of the Notting Hill Carnival, Yvonne Bailey-Smith, mother of novelist Zadie Smith, playwright Mustapha Matura, film director Horace Ove and Deloris Smith, mother of singer Beverley Knight.

From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: mankind's military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities. The war's new weaponry, from tanks to shrapnel, enabled slaughter on an industrial scale, and given the nature of trench warfare, thousands of soldiers sustained facial injuries. Medical advances meant that more survived their wounds than ever before, yet disfigured soldiers did not receive the hero's welcome they deserved. In The Facemaker, award-winning historian Lindsey Fitzharris tells the astonishing story of the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies, who dedicated himself to restoring the faces - and the identities - of a brutalized generation. Gillies, a Cambridge-educated New Zealander, became interested in the nascent field of plastic surgery after encountering the human wreckage on the front. Returning to Britain, he established one of the world's first hospitals dedicated entirely to facial reconstruction in Sidcup, south-east England. There, Gillies assembled a unique group of doctors, nurses and artists whose task was to recreate what had been torn apart. At a time when losing a limb made a soldier a hero, but losing a face made him a monster to a society largely intolerant of disfigurement, Gillies restored not just the faces of the wounded but also their spirits. Meticulously researched and grippingly told, The Facemaker places Gillies's ingenious surgical innovations alongside the poignant stories of soldiers whose lives were wrecked and repaired. The result is a vivid account of how medicine and art can merge, and of what courage and imagination can accomplish in the presence of relentless horror.

Originally published in 1996, the articles in this book are revised, expanded papers from a session at the 17th International Congress of the Arthurian Society held in 1993. The chapters cover Arthurian studies' directions at the time, showcasing analysis of varied aspects of visual representation and relation to literary themes. Close attention to the historical context is a key feature of this work, investigating the linkage between texts and images in the Middle Ages and beyond.

This revised edition of the classic text of the period provides both the student and the specialist with an informative account of post-Roman English society. After a general survey of the main developments from the fourth century to the eleventh, the book offers analysis of: * social organization * the changing character of kingship, of royal government and the influence of the church * the history of settlement * the making of the landscape * the growth of towns and trade * the consequences of the Norman Conquest. The author also considers the various influences; British, Frankish, Viking and Christian that helped shape English society and contributed to the making of a united kingdom.

Our ancestors developed a uniquely nature-focused society, centred on esteemed poets, seers, monks, healers and wise women who were deeply connected to the land. They used this connection to the cycles of the natural world - from which we are increasingly dissociated - as an animating force in their lives. In this illuminating new book, Manchan Magan sets out on a journey, through bogs, across rivers and over mountains, to trace these ancestor's footsteps. He uncovers the ancient myths that have shaped our national identity and are embedded in the strata of land that have endured through millennia - from ice ages through to famines and floods. Here, the River Shannon is a goddess, and trees and their life-sustaining root systems are hallowed. See the world in a new light in this magical exploration into the life-sustaining wisdom of what lies beneath us. 'We could do with a lot more characters like [Manchan] dotted about this world.' Irish Independent 'Manchan creates a gorgeous tapestry that lingers in the mind's eye.' Kerri Ni Dochartaigh 'Manchan['s] ... got some theories about the roots of the Irish language that are going to blow your head off ... an incredible storyteller.' Blindboy Boatclub Manchan's passion for Ireland's ecological and poetic heritage is more urgently relevant than ever.' Darach O Seaghdha

Discrete inquiries into 15 forms of the Arthurian legends produced over the last century explore how they have altered the tradition. They consider works from the US and Europe, and those aimed at popular and elite audiences. The overall conclusion is that the "Arthurian revival" is an ongoing event, and has become multivalent, multinational, and multimedia. Originally published in 1992.

The Children's Troupes and the Transformation of English Theater 1509-1608 uncovers the role of the children's companies in transforming perceptions of authorship and publishing, performance, playing spaces, patronage, actor training, and gender politics in the sixteenth century. Jeanne McCarthy challenges entrenched narratives about popular playing in an era of revolutionary changes, revealing the importance of the children's company tradition's connection with many early plays, as well as to the spread of literacy, classicism, and literate ideals of drama, plot, textual fidelity, characterization, and acting in a still largely oral popular culture. By addressing developments from the hyper-literate school tradition, and integrating discussion of the children's troupes into the critical conversation around popular playing practices, McCarthy offers a nuanced account of the play-centered, literary performance tradition that came to define professional theater in this period. Highlighting the significant role of the children's company tradition in sixteenth-century performance culture, this volume offers a bold new narrative of the emergence of the London theater.

This The Tudors: England 1485-1603 Revision Guide is part of the bestselling Oxford AQA History for A Level series. Written to match the new AQA specification, this series helps you deepen your historical knowledge and develop vital analytical and evaluation skills. This revision guide offers the clearly structured revision approach of Recap, Apply, and Review to prepare you for exam success. Step-by-step exam practice strategies for all AQA question types are provided (including Extract Analysis and essays linked to Key Questions), as well as well-researched, targeted guidance based on what we now know from the new AQA examiner's reports on The Tudors England. Our original author team is back, offering expert advice, AS and A Level exam-style questions and Examiner Tips. Contents checklists help monitor revision progress; example student answers and suggested activity answers help you review your own work. This guide is perfect for use alongside the Student Books or as a stand-alone resource for independent revision.

The records of the office-holding monks of Westminster Abbey are of major importance not only for life in the cloister, but also for that of society outside. Approx. 4000 items. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY: A masterpiece of scholarly research and writing... This superb collection of financial records is now rendered easily accessible to scholars by means of a practical guide. May [B.H.]'s achievement prove tobe the long awaited model that future scholars will follow to the benefit of us all. The obedientiaries - office-holding monks - of Benedictine monasteries in the middle ages led a life of more privilege and freedom than is usually associated with the profound understanding of the monastic life in the Rule of St Benedict. The records of the obedientiaries of Westminster Abbey are a source of major importance, not only for life in the cloister, but alsofor that of society outside. The typical obedientiary rendered his final account at Michaelmas (29 September) each year, and nearly 2,000 such accounts survive, but other documents were also produced throughout the year. The entire number surviving, approximately four thousand items, is listed here under the title of the appropriate obedientiary (including abbot and prior); an in troduction to each list describes the principal subject-matter of the records. BARBARA HARVEY is emeritus fellow of Somerville College, Oxford; her other work includes Living and Dying in England, 1100-1540: The Monastic Experience and The Estates of Westminster Abbey in the Middle Ages.

Women's Worlds in England presents a unique collection of source materials on women's lives in sixteenth and seventeenth century England. The book introduces a wonderfully diverse group of women and a series of voices that have rarely been heard in history, from Deborah Brackley, a poor Devon servant, to Katharine Whitstone, Oliver Cromwell's sister, and Queen Anne. Drawing on unpublished, archival materials, Women's Worlds explores the everyday lives of ordinary early modern women, including their: * experiences of work, sex, marriage and motherhood * beliefs and spirituality * political activities * relationships * mental worlds In a time when few women could write, this book reveals the multitude of ways in which their voices and experiences leave traces in the written record, and deepens and challenges our understanding of womens lives in the past.

Winston Churchill understood and wielded the power of words throughout his six decades in the public eye. His wartime writings and speeches revealed both his vision for the future and his own personal feelings, fascinating generation after generation with their powerful style and thoughtful reflection. In this book Churchill's official biographer, Martin Gilbert, has skilfully selected 200 extracts from his entire oeuvre of books, articles and speeches that reflect his life story, career and philosophy. From intimate memories of his childhood to his contributions to half a century of debates on war and social policy, we see how Churchill used words for different purposes: to argue for moral causes; to advocate action in the national and international spheres, and to tell of his own struggles, setbacks and achievements. Martin Gilbert's informed choice of extracts and his illuminating explanations linking them together create a compelling biography of Churchill as recounted in the great man's own inimitable words.

'Beguiling' The Times 'Compelling' Wall Street Journal 'A vivid portrait' Daily Mail Buried in the history of our most famous jail, a unique story of captivity, violence and race. British redcoats torch the White House and six thousand American sailors languish in the world's largest prisoner-of-war camp, Dartmoor. A myriad of races and backgrounds, with some prisoners as young as thirteen. Known as the 'hated cage', Dartmoor wasn't a place you'd expect to be full of life and invention. Yet prisoners taught each other foreign languages and science, put on plays and staged boxing matches. In daring efforts to escape they lived every prison-break cliche - how to hide the tunnel entrances, what to do with the earth... Drawing on meticulous research, The Hated Cage documents the extraordinary communities these men built within the prison - and the terrible massacre that destroyed these worlds. 'This is history as it ought to be - gripping, dynamic, vividly written' Marcus Rediker

'I read the book with enormous appreciation. Tessa Boase brings all these long-ago housekeepers so movingly to life and her excitement in the research is palpable.' Fay Weldon: Novelist, playwright - and housekeeper's daughter Revelatory, gripping and unexpectedly poignant, this is the story of the invisible women who ran the English country house. Working as a housekeeper was one of the most prestigious jobs a nineteenth and early twentieth century woman could want - and also one of the toughest. A far cry from the Downton Abbey fiction, the real life Mrs Hughes was up against capricious mistresses, low pay, no job security and gruelling physical labour. Until now, her story has never been told. Revealing the personal sacrifices, bitter disputes and driving ambition that shaped these women's careers, and delving into secret diaries, unpublished letters and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories of five working women who ran some of Britain's most prominent households. From Dorothy Doar, Regency housekeeper for the obscenely wealthy 1st Duke and Duchess of Sutherland at Trentham Hall, Staffordshire, to Sarah Wells, a deaf and elderly Victorian in charge of Uppark, West Sussex. From Ellen Penketh, Edwardian cook-housekeeper at the sociable but impecunious Erddig Hall in the Welsh borders to Hannah Mackenzie who runs Wrest Park in Bedfordshire - Britain's first country-house war hospital, bankrolled by playwright J. M. Barrie. And finally Grace Higgens, cook-housekeeper to the Bloomsbury set at Charleston farmhouse in East Sussex for half a century - an era defined by the Second World War. Normal0falsefalsefalseEN-GBX-NONEX-NONE

Fintan O'Toole was born in the year the revolution began. It was 1958, and the Irish government-in despair, because all the young people were leaving-opened the country to foreign investment and popular culture. So began a decades-long, ongoing experiment with Irish national identity. In We Don't Know Ourselves, O'Toole, one of the Anglophone world's most consummate stylists, weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary "backwater" to an almost totally open society-perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history. Born to a working-class family in the Dublin suburbs, O'Toole served as an altar boy and attended a Christian Brothers school, much as his forebears did. He was enthralled by American Westerns suddenly appearing on Irish television, which were not that far from his own experience, given that Ireland's main export was beef and it was still not unknown for herds of cattle to clatter down Dublin's streets. Yet the Westerns were a sign of what was to come. O'Toole narrates the once unthinkable collapse of the all-powerful Catholic Church, brought down by scandal and by the activism of ordinary Irish, women in particular. He relates the horrific violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which led most Irish to reject violent nationalism. In O'Toole's telling, America became a lodestar, from John F. Kennedy's 1963 visit, when the soon-to-be martyred American president was welcomed as a native son, to the emergence of the Irish technology sector in the late 1990s, driven by American corporations, which set Ireland on the path toward particular disaster during the 2008 financial crisis. A remarkably compassionate yet exacting observer, O'Toole in coruscating prose captures the peculiar Irish habit of "deliberate unknowing," which allowed myths of national greatness to persist even as the foundations were crumbling. Forty years in the making, We Don't Know Ourselves is a landmark work, a memoir and a national history that ultimately reveals how the two modes are entwined for all of us.