Hibbert's masterful biography introduces a new generation of readers to perhaps the greatest monarch in history. A genius, beauty, manipulator, and leader, Elizabeth I has fascinated history buffs, anglophiles, and feminists for centuries. Black-and-white and color inserts.

*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* Tudor tells a family story like no other. The Tudors are a national obsession, undoubtedly British history's most notorious family. But beyond the well-worn headlines is a family still more extraordinary than the one we thought we knew. The Tudor canon typically starts with the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, before speeding on to Henry VIII and the Reformation. But this leaves out the family's obscure Welsh origins; it passes by the courage of the pregnant thirteen-year-old girl who would help found the Tudor dynasty; and the childhood and painful exile of her son, the future Henry VII. It ignores the fact that the Tudors were shaped by their past - those parts they wished to remember and those they wished to forget. With this background, Leanda de Lisle enables us to see the Tudors in their own terms and presents new perspectives and revelations on key figures and events, from the princes in the Tower to the Tudor Queens. 'A lively history of the ambitious Tudor family... It casts plenty of light on the strong women in the dynasty' The Times **A Telegraph, History Today and BBC History Magazine Book of the Year**

Discover the inspiring story of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch in British history, in this fascinating kids' biography. At just 25 years of age, Princess Elizabeth succeeded King George VI to the British throne. This compelling book looks at Elizabeth's life, both as a public and private figure. It traces her early years as a princess, her experiences in the women's army during World War II, her coronation, her life as Queen both at home and in the public eye, her death at Balmoral and the events of her funeral. Learn how Elizabeth worked alongside 15 British prime ministers, met leaders from around the world, and remained a stable presence as head of the British royal family. DK Life Stories goes beyond the basic facts to tell the true life stories of history's most inspiring people. Full-colour photographs and hand-drawn illustrations complement age-appropriate, narrative text. Definition boxes, information sidebars, and inspiring quotes add depth, while a handy reference section at the back makes DK Life Stories the one biography series everyone will want to collect.

Anne Boleyn is one of the most divisive figures in British history. Her love-match with Henry VIII and her subsequent execution at the Tower of London after only three years of marriage have made her the subject of heated debate and speculation.Everyone wants to know how she really felt and how and why she became queen: was she a ruthless schemer or was her death simply a tragic consequence of court politics?Unbiased descriptions of Anne are difficult to find: most were written after her death. Anne was effectively written out of history for the rest of Henry VIII's reign, and that of his son, Edward VI. Her name was literally chiselled out of the fabric of Hampton Court, her badges and heraldry replaced by those of Jane Seymour.Historians continue to battle over her reputation today and the fascination with the life and death of Anne Boleyn lives on. This objective and informative book brings clarity to our view of Anne Boleyn, perhaps the most influential and important queen consort England ever had.

A magnificent tribute to the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II, and a celebration of the British royal family. This book is a stunning visual guide to the world's most famous royals, from Queen Elizabeth's Norman predecessors to her great-grandchildren. It features events such as the Queens' coronation and the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, and profiles on key people such as Princess Diana and Prince Harry. This new edition is revised to include the most recent events and milestones, such as the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, the birth of Lilibet and other new family members, the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, and her death on 8th September 2022. A special 16-page photographic essay is dedicated to her funeral and the accession of King Charles III. This book examines the Queen's life in detail from her childhood to the end of her reign, but also goes back through more than 1,000 years of history to tell the story of the House of Windsor and the entire succession of kings and queens of England and Scotland. With dazzling galleries of royal artefacts and photographic tours of sumptuous royal residences, this is the perfect book for fans of the Queen and royal family or anyone interested in the history of the British monarchy.

No other biography, before or since, gives as delightful and comprehensive an account of Queen Victoria and her reign. Here is the full panorama of Victoria's life--her childhood, her marriage to Albert, and her majestic domination of a colorful court circle--told with the author's now-famous flair for throwing 'a sudden revealing searchlight into the obscure recesses, hitherto undivined.'Hailed by critics as a brilliant new kind of biography, Queen Victoria stands as one of the literary landmarks of this century.

An abused child, yet confident of her destiny to reign, a woman in a man's world, passionately sexual yet, she said, a virgin, famed as England's most successful ruler yet actually doing very little, Elizabeth I is a bundle of contradictions. Starting with Elizabeth's own speeches and writings, Starkey lays novel emphasis on two things: her faith made her see religion as a purely personal relationship between the individual conscience and God, yet her sophisticated education led her to a smoke-and-mirrors view of politics, in which clever image-making and speech-writing could solve or postpone real problems. The result was a surprisingly contemporary approach to some very modern questions, like civil strife in Scotland and Ireland and the risk of England's absorption into a European super-state.

This new approach to the enigma of the Queen's character is presented within a lively and readable retelling of her reign; her love for Robert Dudley, the tragi-comedy of her favourites and suitors, her epic struggles with Mary Queen of Scots and Philip II of Spain, and the final, humiliating debacle of her relationship with Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.

He is one of the most reviled English kings in history. He drove his kingdom to the brink of civil war a dozen times in less than twenty years. He allowed his male lovers to rule the kingdom. He led a great army to the most ignominious military defeat in English history. His wife took a lover and invaded his kingdom, and he ended his reign wandering around Wales with a handful of followers, pursued by an army. He was the first king of England forced to abdicate his throne. Popular legend has it that he died screaming impaled on a red-hot poker, but in fact the time and place of his death are shrouded in mystery. His life reads like an Elizabethan tragedy, full of passionate doomed love, bloody revenge, jealousy, hatred, vindictiveness and obsession. He was Edward II, and this book tells his story. Using almost exclusively fourteenth-century sources and Edward's own letters and speeches wherever possible, Kathryn Warner strips away the myths which have been created about him over the centuries, and provides a far more accurate and vivid picture of him than has previously been seen.

Britain's foremost female historian reveals the true story of this key figure in the Wars of the Roses and the Tudor dynasty who began life a princess, spent her youth as a bastard fugitive, but who finally married the first Tudor king and was the mother of Henry VIII.
Elizabeth of York would have ruled England, but for the fact that she was a woman. The eldest daughter of Edward IV, at seventeen she was relegated from pampered princess to bastard fugitive, but the probable murders of her brothers, the Princes in the Tower, left Elizabeth heiress to the royal House of York, and in 1486, Henry VII, first sovereign of the House of Tudor, married her, thus uniting the red and white roses of Lancaster and York.
Elizabeth is an enigma. She had schemed to marry Richard III, the man who had deposed and probably killed her brothers, and it is likely that she then intrigued to put Henry Tudor on the throne. Yet after marriage, a picture emerges of a model consort, mild, pious, generous and fruitful. It has been said that Elizabeth was distrusted and kept in subjection by Henry VII and her formidable mother-in-law, Margaret Beaufort, but contemporary evidence shows that Elizabeth was, in fact, influential, and may have been involved at the highest level in one of the most controversial mysteries of the age.
Alison Weir builds an intriguing portrait of this beloved queen, placing her in the context of the magnificent, ceremonious, often brutal, world she inhabited, and revealing the woman behind the myth, showing that differing historical perceptions of Elizabeth can be reconciled.

Between James' accession in February 1685 and flight in December 1688 the British Armies increased four fold (the English, Scots and Irish Armies were still separate institutions and were to remain so until the early 18th Century, in the case of the Scots, and the early 19th Century in the case of the Irish); from a small force of little more than ceremonial and policing use to a fully-fledged Army with all of its necessary supporting arms and services. Respected historian Correlli Barnett wrote: "It might well be said that if the British royal standing army was in fact founded at one given time, it was between 1685 and 1688, and that James II was the army's creator." James himself said his Army had "...the reputation of being the best paid, the best equipped and the most sightly troops of any in Europe." At the time there were political complaints about illegality of a "new standing Army" with a "new Cromwellian military dictatorship" (and on a point of law a standing army was still illegal), in 1689 the new King, William III, kept James' Army in being and within a few years it was to become the Army which led the victories at Blenheim and elsewhere of the Great Duke of Marlborough, who had himself been a General in James' Army. It has been said that amongst William's reasons for accepting the British Crowns was a fear that the British Army would serve in alliance with Louis XIV against him. Despite this, James' part in the creation of the British Army is often deliberately overlooked or ignored. The political aspects of James' reign, and thus of the Army, are well covered in numerous works but this book looks at the creation of the enlarged Armies of England, Scotland and Ireland - their uniforms and flags, organization and weapons, their drill and their strength, their pay and their Staff. Researched primarily from contemporary documents and manuscripts, including those in the rarely accessed Royal Library at Royal Archives at Windsor, it will go a long way to restoring these years, and the last Stuart King, to their true importance in the creation of the British Army.

WITH AN EXCLUSIVE NEW CHAPTER FOR THE PAPERBACK EDITION The Amazon No.1 Bestseller The Sunday Times Bestseller THE ROYAL BOOK OF THE YEAR _________________________________ 'Eye-poppingly revealing. . . impeccable sources, historical heft and canny insights served up with a zingy wit. There are many royal biographers, but few as good as this. She turns gossip into the first draft of history.' TELEGRAPH From the Queen's stoic resolve to the crisis of Meghan and Harry. From the ascendance of Camilla and Kate to the downfall of Andrew. Full of remarkable inside access, The Palace Papers by Sunday Times bestselling author Tina Brown will change how you understand the Royal Family. 'Clever, well-informed and disgustingly entertaining' THE TIMES 'There are royal books, and there are royal books. But The Palace Papers is in a genre of its own' RADIO TIMES 'Jaw dropping! What a book . . . if you ever want to feel like a fly on the wall of any of the palaces, this is it.' LORRAINE KELLY 'Brown's prose has the swoosh of an enjoyably OTT ballgown' FINANCIAL TIMES 'The world's sharpish and best-informed royal expert' PIERS MORGAN 'Riveting and rigorous' PANDORA SYKES 'A witty, rip-roaring read . . . full off perceptive and witty observations' i Newspaper 'A rollicking ride through recent royal family history . . . Tina Brown's sparkling prose and eye for detail enliven an entertaining expose' OBSERVER 'The most explosive royal book of the year' THE SUN 'Gloriously irreverent, racily written and often very funny. The early chapters on the long affair between Prince Charles and Camilla read like a non-fiction version of Jilly Cooper's Rutshire Chronicles' NEW STATESMAN 'A motherlode of delectable gossip . . . Brown has produced a work both scholarly and scandalous that makes us think about what the post-Elizabethan world may bring, alternately amusing and horrifying us along the way . . . vivid and richly-embroidered' INDEPENDENT 'The devil is in the delicious detail . . . Brown tackles her subjects with the same brio she brought to her years as a highly regarded magazine editor . . . Her access to those who flit around the royals gives her writing an edgy authenticity' DAILY MAIL 'Brown thrashes her way through absolutely everything that has happened to the family since the end of the last book in 1997 . . . Charles and Camilla are vividly brought to life in a series of well-researched stories and anecdotes' SUNDAY TIMES 'The Palace Papers is a sharp-nibbed observation of a generation of tumult for the House of Windsor, bookended by the deaths of Princess Diana and Prince Philip. It's a story about media as much as monarchy, and it draws from almost every chapter in Brown's career in journalism' FINANCIAL TIMES 'It's hard to look away as Tina Brown delves into decades' worth of royal scandals' GUARDIAN 'Utter brilliance . . . a rip-roaring read' SCOTSMAN 'A brilliant book. Tina Brown has inside knowledge and writes so well' LADY ANNE GLENCONNER (author of Lady in Waiting) _________________________________ 'Never again', became Queen Elizabeth II's mantra shortly after Diana's death. More specifically, there could never be 'another Diana' - a member of the family whose global popularity upstaged, outshone, and posed an existential threat to the British monarchy. Picking up where The Diana Chronicles left off, The Palace Papers reveals how the royal family reinvented itself after the traumatic years when Diana's blazing celebrity ripped through the House of Windsor like a comet. Tina Brown takes readers on a tour de force journey that shows the Queen's stoic resolve as she coped with the passing of Princess Margaret, the Queen Mother and her partner for seven decades, Prince Philip, and triumphed in her Jubilee years even as the family dramas raged around her. She explores Prince Charles's determination to make Camilla his queen, the tension between William and Harry who are on 'different paths', the ascendance Kate Middleton, the disturbing allegations surrounding Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein, and Harry and Meghan's stunning decision to 'step back' as senior royals. Despite the fragile monarchy's best efforts, 'never again' seems fast approaching.

Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Second is printed from a Manuscript of the late Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford. Among the papers found at Strawberry Hill, after the death of Lord Orford, was the following Memorandum, wrapped in an envelope, on which was written, "Not to be opened till after my Will." Opening the box, it was found to contain a number of manuscript volumes and other papers, among which were these Memoirs.

Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Second is printed from a Manuscript of the late Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford. Among the papers found at Strawberry Hill, after the death of Lord Orford, was the following Memorandum, wrapped in an envelope, on which was written, "Not to be opened till after my Will." Opening the box, it was found to contain a number of manuscript volumes and other papers, among which were these Memoirs.

Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Second is printed from a Manuscript of the late Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford. Among the papers found at Strawberry Hill, after the death of Lord Orford, was the following Memorandum, wrapped in an envelope, on which was written, "Not to be opened till after my Will." Opening the box, it was found to contain a number of manuscript volumes and other papers, among which were these Memoirs.

THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR FANS OF ROYAL FASHION This beautiful book takes a photographic journey through Queen Elizabeth II's ten decades of colour-blocked style. The photographs, which span the colours of the rainbow and a century of style, are gloriously accessorised with captions and commentary by journalist and broadcaster Sali Hughes. From the dusky pinks the Queen wore in girlhood all the way through to #NeonAt90, by way of that hat she wore on the announcement of Brexit, and not forgetting her trusty Launer handbag ever at her side, this must-have collection celebrates the iconic fashion statements of our beloved, longest-reigning and most vibrant monarch.

Behind the Throne is, above all, a history of family life. They ate, entertained their friends and worried about money. Henry VIII kept tripping over his dogs. George II threw his son out of the house. James I had to cut back on the drink bills. The great difference is that royal families had more help with their lives than most. Charles I maintained a household of 2,000. Victoria's medical establishment alone consisted of thirty doctors, three dentists and a chiropodist. Even today, Elizabeth II keeps a full-time staff of 1,200. A royal household was a community, a vast machine. Everyone, from James I's Master of the Horse down to William IV's Assistant Table Decker, was there to smooth the sovereign's path through life while simultaneously confirming their status. Here, Adrian Tinniswood uncovers the reality of five centuries of life at the English court, taking you on a remarkable journey, exploring life as it was lived by clerks and courtiers and clowns and crowned heads. Behind the Throne is a true domestic history of the royal household, a reconstruction of life behind the throne. 'The most interesting and informative book on British royalty for many years' Literary Review

Written in 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth, the Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain) purported to chronicle the British monarchy from the arrival of the Trojan Brutus, grandson of Aeneas, through to the seventh century AD. The Historia was a medieval best-seller, and copies spread across the whole of western Europe. It was the first work to outline the story of King Arthur. The Historia has long been dismissed as an unreliable piece of medieval propaganda. A new examination of the text, however, shows that it is very much more than that. Miles Russell explains how individual elements can be traced back to the first century BC, a time when Britain was making first contact with Rome. Geoffrey of Monmouth's skill was to weave these early traditions together with material culled from post-Roman sources in order to create a national epic. In doing so, he also created King Arthur, a composite character whose real origins and context are explained here. This important work establishes Geoffrey of Monmouth as no mere peddler of historical fiction, but as the man who preserved the earliest foundation myths of Britain. It is time to re-evaluate the Historia Regum Britanniaeand shine a new light into the so-called 'Dark Ages'.

Heir. Prince. King. Discover the real Charles - our King - in the definitive biography from the bestselling author of Elizabeth the Queen 'Brilliant, startling. The royal biography everyone's talking about' Daily Mail _________ His destiny was to become King. But for 70 years, he was a Prince. From his declared heirdom aged three to his years spent fulfilling royal duty in support of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, Charles has spent his entire life serving the nation. But there is still so much we don't know. In this fascinating exploration of his public and private lives, Sally Bedell Smith - the acclaimed, bestselling biographer of Elizabeth the Queen - has drawn extensively on her access to the Royal Family's inner circle to reveal a portrait of a misunderstood prince. Beginning with his lonely childhood, Smith details his intellectual quests, his entrepreneurial pursuits, and his love affairs, from the tragedy of his marriage to Diana to his eventual reunion with Camilla, as well as his relationship with the next generation of royals, including Will, Kate, Harry, and his beloved grandchildren. As this sweeping and definitive biography shows, Prince Charles is more than a king - he is a son, father, husband, servant, prince - who spent his life preparing to follow in his mother's footsteps. _________ 'For all we know about Prince Charles, there is so much we didn't know - until now' Tom Brokaw