Born to Isabel and Ferdinand, the Catholic Monarchs whose marriage united the realms of Castile and Aragon, Juana "the Mad" (1479-1555) is one of the most infamous but least studied monarchs of the Renaissance. Conventional accounts of Juana portray her as a sullen woman prone to depression, a jealous wife insanely in love with her husband, and an incompetent queen who was deemed by her father, husband, and son, unable to govern herself much less her kingdoms.

But was Juana truly mad or the victim of manipulative family members who desired to rule in her stead? Drawing upon recent scholarship and years of archival research, author Bethany Aram offers a new vision of Juana's life. After the deaths of three relatives directly in line for the throne, Juana became heir to her parents' realms. As queen, Juana worked tirelessly to assure the succession of her son Charles V to the throne and thereby to establish the Habsburg dynasty in the kingdoms that others managed to govern in her name.

In this part biography, part study of royal authority, Aram rightly asserts that Juana was more complicated than her contemporaries and biographers have portrayed her. Not the frail and unstable woman usually depicted, Juana employed pious practices to defend her own interests as well as those of her children. She emerges as a woman of immense importance in Spanish and European history.

Though written in popular style, this book is intended as the real verified history and complete biography of the Lost Little King, uncrowned Louis XVII, of France; the thrilling story of a real life, that seems almost unreal enough for a romance. It has been a sad tale of two continents for a century. Sample contents: The Prince is Born; Marie Antoinette Appears for the Last Time in Regal Magnificence; Storming of the Bastille; Wit and Wisdom of the Baby Dauphin. Handsomely illustrated with 25 plates.

1912. With photogravure frontispiece and 33 other illustrations in halftone mostly from original photographs by Otto Holbach. The author recounts the history of Richard the Lionhearted with the perspective of having literally traced the footsteps he took on his travels to the Holy Land. Renowned as a Crusader and gallant knight, he spent all but six months of his reign outside of England campaigning or in captivity. Battle leader of the Third Crusade, Richard was shipwrecked near Venice on his return in 1192 and imprisoned by Duke Leopold of Austria.

An account of the Empress of Russia who expanded her vast country's borders south to the Black Sea and west into Europe while continuing the Westernization begun by Peter the Great. Catherine's love affairs with different officers and politicians were widely publicized, though much of what was published was not true. Nevertheless, most of her lovers were promoted to the highest ranks and some of them proved to be extremely talented people (for instance prince Patiomkin, a very prominent general and politician). Contents: Catherine's Girlhood; The Grand Duchess; The Revolution of 1762; The Orlof Ascendancy; Patiomkin and the Minor Favorites; The Crimean Journey; The Death of Patiomkin; The Last Years; and Catherine the Great. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

CONTENTSThe King of Sweden's Visit to St. PetersburgCatherine II.Of the FavouritesAccession of PaulHas Paul Reason to Fear the Fate of Peter III.?Revolutions May Be ExpectedNational CharacterReligionOn Female GovernmentEducationSupplementAppendix

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

1927. The Reign, 22nd January 1901 to 6th May 1910. A biography of King Edward VII, by the English biographer and critic, Sir Sidney Lee, who is best-known for A Life of William Shakespeare. Edward VII was the eldest son of Queen Victoria. Victoria, true to the Hanoverian name, saw the worst in Edward. She and Albert imposed a strict regime upon Edward, who proved resistant and resentful throughout his youth. Victoria consistently denied her son any official governmental role. He rebelled by completely indulging himself in women, food, drink, gambling, sport and travel. His wife, Alexandra, turned a blind eye to his extramarital activities, which continued well into his sixties and found him implicated in several divorce cases. Despite Edward's colorful personal life and Victoria's perceptions of him as profligate, Edward ruled peacefully (aside from the Boer War of 1899-1902) and successfully during his short reign, which is remarkable considering the shifts in European power that occurred in the first decade of the twentieth century.

In this biography of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales it is the authors' aim to not add more gilt to the already glistening halo of romance which an entranced world has placed around the head of the heir to the British throne, nor to present His Royal Highness as a prince charming, but as a very human young man, not more perfect than his fellows or possessed of more than the average number of virtues to be found in any other clean living, sport loving young Englishman.

Pere de Latour, going further, wished to impose hard, not to say murderous, penances on me; I begged him to keep within bounds, and not to make me impatient. This Oratorian and his admirers have stated that I wore a hair shirt and shroud. Pious slanders, every word of them! I give many pensions and alms, that is to say, I do good to several families; the good that I bestow about me will be more agreeable to God than any harm I could do myself, and that I maintain.

CONTENTS Family - Birth - Education - Early Life General and Minister - Second Marriage - In Loyal Opposition The Protestant Revolution Sedition - Rebellion - War Alva - Terror - Defeat In Exile and Affliction - The Nassau Family Beggars of the Sea - Brill - St. Bartholomew - Defeat The Death Grapple - Negotiations - Abandonment Requesens - Leyden - Charlotte de Bourbon Don John - General Union - Apogee Discord - Ban - Apology United States - Anjou - Assassins Louise de Coligny - Death - Conclusion

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

The King's studies with his preceptor, Perefixe, had been of only a superficial sort, as, in accordance with the express order of the Queen- mother, this prelate had been mainly concerned about the health of his pupil, the Queen being, above all, desirous that he should have a good constitution. "The rest comes easily enough, if a prince have but nobility of soul and a sense of duty," as the Queen often used to say. Her words came true.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

On the very day after the commutation of the sentence had been announced, Sunday, the 3rd of July, the Queen was again fired at as she sat by the side of her uncle, King Leopold, on her way to the Chapel Royal, St. James's. The pistol missed fire, and the man who presented it, a hunchback, was seized by a boy of sixteen called Dasset. So ridiculous did the group seem, that the very policemen pushed away both captor and captive as actors in a bad practical joke. Then the boy Dasset, who retained the pistol, was in danger of being taken up as the real culprit, trying to throw the blame upon another.

In the year 1819 the family outlook of the British royal house was not a very bright one. The old king, George III., was lingering on in deep seclusion, a very pathetic figure, blind and imbecile. His son the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV., had not done honour to his position, nor brought happiness to any connected with him. Most of the other princes were elderly men and childless; and the Prince-Regent's only daughter, the Princess Charlotte, on whom the hopes of the nation had rested, and whose marriage had raised those hopes to enthusiasm, was newly laid in her premature grave.

If my father had loved me as well as I loved him he would never have sent me into a country so dangerous as this, to which I came through pure obedience and against my own inclination. Here duplicity passes for wit, and frankness is looked upon as folly. I am neither cunning nor mysterious. I am often told I lead too monotonous a life, and am asked why I do not take a part in certain affairs.

Author John L. Van der Heyden writes: "On the 14th of August 1996 I decided to start a Dutch-English family company 'Van der Heyden/Spencer' as from the day of Princess Diana's divorce - 28 August 1996 - under the name 'Instituto Cervantes'. As from that day I became Her personal advisor. I proposed a marriage to Her on 28 December 1996, starting on 28 September 1997. She was kidnapped in Paris exactly four weeks before."

1871. Margaret of Anjou was a heroine; not a heroine of romance and fiction, but of stern and terrible reality. Her life was a series of military exploits, attended with dangers, privations, sufferings, and wonderful vicissitudes of fortune, scarcely to be paralleled in the whole history of mankind. Contents: The Houses of York and Lancaster; Manners and Customs of the Time; King Henry VI; Margaret's Father and Mother; Royal Courtship; The Wedding; Reception in England; The Story of Lady Neville; Plottings; The Fall of Gloucester; The Fall of Suffolk; Birth of a Prince; Illness of the King; Anxiety and Trouble; Margaret A Fugitive; Margaret Triumphant; Margaret in Exile; A Royal Cousin; Return to England; Years of Exile; The Reconciliation with Warwick; Bitter Disappointment; and Childless, and a Widow. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing. Due to the age and scarcity of the original we reproduced, some pages may be spotty, faded or difficult to read.

Handsome, accomplished, and charming, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, staked his claim to the English throne by marrying Mary Stuart, who herself claimed to be the Queen of England. It was not long before Mary discovered that her new husband was interested only in securing sovereign power for himself. Then, on February 10, 1567, an explosion at his lodgings left Darnley dead; the intrigue thickened after it was discovered that he had apparently been suffocated before the blast. After an exhaustive reevaluation of the source material, Alison Weir has come up with a solution to this enduring mystery. Employing her gift for vivid characterization and gripping storytelling, Weir has written one of her most engaging excursions yet into Britain's bloodstained, power-obsessed past.

An in-depth biography of Joseph II which covers the partition of Poland, the suppression of the Jesuits, the Bavarian succession, his reforms, and foreign affairs. At the time of original publication in 1897, J. Franck Bright was Master of University College, Oxford.

For more than fifty years, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor -- who became Elizabeth II, Queen of England on February 6, 1952 -- has been loved and loathed, revered and feared, applauded and criticized by her people. Still she endures as a captivating figure in the world's most durable symbol of political authority: the British monarchy.

In Monarch, a meticulously detailed portrait of Elizabeth II as both a human being and an institution, bestselling author Robert Lacey brings the queen to life as never before: as baby "Lilibet" learning to wave to a crowd in the Royal Mews; as a child "ardently praying for a brother" so as to avoid her fate; as a young woman falling in love with and marrying her cousin Philip; and as the mother-in-law of the most complicated royal of all, Princess Diana.

Updated with new material to reflect the 2002 Golden Jubilee and the passing of the Queen Mum -- and featuring dozens of photographs, a family tree of the Hanoverian-Windsor-Mountbatten families, and a map that charts the location of royal castles -- Monarch is an engaging, critical, and celebratory account of Elizabeth's half-century reign that no reader of popular history should be without.

This work contains an authorized biography of King Albert I, the son of Philip, Count of Flanders. Albert succeeded his uncle, Leopold II, on the throne, and served in the army and Senate. King Albert reaffirmed the neutrality of Belgian and refused to allow the German troops free passage through his country. He led the Belgian army in the retreat to Flanders, as well as leading the Belgian and French troops in the final Allied offensive. King Albert is known for introducing a new monetary system to Belgium and his reconstruction after the war. Illustrated.

Based on the groundbreaking ITV/The Learning Channel documentary series, and drawn from years of research and dozens of interviews with friends and associates speaking on the record for the first time, Diana contains never-before-revealed information and stunning insights about the beloved -- and largely misunderstood -- Princess of Wales.

From claims that Diana was ready to leave Charles just weeks before the wedding to her lifelong battle against depression, from world-exclusive interviews with Diana's beau James Hewitt and her "surrogate mother-in-law" Shirley Hewitt to details about the unconventional "arrangements" in the royal household -- between Diana and James, Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles -- Diana is an honest, objective, and unparalleled biography.

With thirty-two photographs -- including several never before published -- Diana shows all facets of this fascinating woman: her magic, her manipulations, her dazzling public persona, and her place in her people's hearts and history.

At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the British government, alarmed at the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's association with the Nazis and the possibility that they would remove themselves to the United States to preach their pacifist (and slightly pro-German) credo, decided that a job had to be found for the ex-King Edward VIII. and his wife, the American, Wallis Simpson. He was appointed Governor of The Bahamas, one of the smallest and least important possessions of the British Empire, far away from the scene of battle.

Away from their sybaritic living in the south of France, the couple struggled unhappily with the very different lifestyle of minor colonial life. This story is of their successes and their failures during their last official service to The British--and of the only Royal Governor to have served in British colonial history.

Louis-Charles, Duc de Normandie, enjoyed a charmed early childhood in the gilded palace of Versailles. At the age of four, he became the dauphin, heir to the most powerful throne in Europe. Yet within five years he was to lose everything. Drawn into the horror of the French Revolution, his family was incarcerated and their fate thrust into the hands of the revolutionaries who wished to destroy the monarchy.

In 1793, when Marie Antoinette was beheaded at the guillotine, she left her adored eight-year-old son imprisoned in the Temple Tower. Far from inheriting a throne, the orphaned boy-king had to endure the hostility and abuse of a nation. Two years later, the revolutionary leaders declared Louis XVII dead. No grave was dug, no monument built to mark his passing.

Immediately, rumors spread that the prince had, in fact, escaped from prison and was still alive. Others believed that he had been murdered, his heart cut out and preserved as a relic. As with the tragedies of England's princes in the Tower and the Romanov archduchess Anastasia, countless "brothers" soon approached Louis-Charles's older sister, Marie-Therese, who survived the revolution. They claimed not only the dauphin's name, but also his inheritance. Several "princes" were plausible, but which, if any, was the real heir to the French throne?

The Lost King of France is a moving and dramatic tale that interweaves a pivotal moment in France's history with a compelling detective story that involves pretenders to the crown, royalist plots and palace intrigue, bizarre legal battles, and modern science. The quest for the truth continued into the twenty-first century, when, thanks to DNA testing, the strange odyssey of a stolen heart found within the royal tombs brought an exciting conclusion to the two-hundred-year-old mystery of the lost king of France.