"NEW YORK TIMES "BESTSELLER
Acclaimed historian G. J. Meyer provides a fresh look at the fabled Tudor dynasty--and some of the most enigmatic figures ever to rule a country. In 1485, Henry Tudor, whose claim to the English throne was so weak as to be almost laughable, nevertheless sailed from France with a ragtag army to take the crown from the family that had ruled England for almost four centuries. Fifty years later, his son, Henry VIII, aimed to seize even greater powers--ultimately leaving behind a brutal legacy that would blight the lives of his children and the destiny of his country. Edward VI, a fervent believer in reforming the English church, died before realizing his dream. Mary I, the disgraced daughter of Catherine of Aragon, tried and failed to reestablish the Catholic Church and produce an heir, while Elizabeth I sacrificed all chance of personal happiness in order to survive.
"The Tudors" presents the sinners and saints, the tragedies and triumphs, the high dreams and dark crimes, of this enthralling era.

Agnes Strickland (1796 1874) and her sister Elizabeth collaborated on many biographical projects. They were pioneering historical biographers and key figures in the development of women's history. Writing from a female perspective, they included coverage of domestic matters that male historians had previously ignored. Although much of the work is Elizabeth's, she preferred to avoid publicity and her sister Agnes appeared as the sole author. This eight-volume series (originally published between 1850 and 1859) was the sequel to their hugely popular Lives of the Queens of England and allowed Agnes to indulge her passionate interest in Mary, Queen of Scots, to whom five volumes are devoted. The final volume covers Elizabeth Stuart, Princess Royal, later Queen of Bohemia, and her daughter Sophia, Electress of Bohemia, and their role in the British succession. Thoroughly researched and referenced, it describes both the personal and political aspects of their lives.

Agnes Strickland (1796 1874) and her sister Elizabeth collaborated on many biographical projects. They were pioneering historical biographers and key figures in the development of women's history. Writing from a female perspective, they included coverage of domestic matters that male historians had previously ignored. Although much of the work is Elizabeth's, she preferred to avoid publicity and her sister Agnes appeared as the sole author. This eight-volume series (originally published between 1850 and 1859) was the sequel to their hugely popular Lives of the Queens of England and allowed Agnes to indulge her passionate interest in Mary, Queen of Scots, to whom Volumes 3 7 are devoted. Volume 7 (1858) documents the last few years of Mary's life, during which she was imprisoned in England and finally executed in 1587. Thoroughly researched and referenced, it describes both the personal and political aspects of Mary's experiences.

An unconventional figure in an age that excluded women from government, Victoria was accorded prominence unavailable to any male monarch. Yet as Adrienne Munich argues in this fascinating work, the originality of the solid, dour icon that was Victoria lay, paradoxically, in her very ordinariness. The first book to fully investigate the influence of this icon of British history, Queen Victoria's Secrets demonstrates the firm grasp the queen held on the cultural imagination of her country, exploring how Victoria created and maintained her royal authority. Gracefully weaving together feminist, anthropological, and postcolonial approaches, Munich searches out the myriad, often contradictory incarnations of the queen in the minds of her people. How did Victoria convincingly maintain her power for forty years after Prince Albert's death, never giving up her identity as a grieving widow? How did Victorian society's reverential treatment of their queen conflate with the monarch's plain, middle class public image? These are some of the secrets Munich examines in her richly detailed work. In demonstrating the subtle but powerful ways in which Victoria performed significant cultural work, Queen Victoria's Secrets goes against the grain of Victoria scholarship, which has tended to overlook the queen's political and cultural centrality. This stylish, accessible portrait will be of great interest to those who are fascinated by the myth-making and secrets of the Victorian age.

In the Beginning, James.

Orphaned, bullied, lonely, and unloved as a boy, in time the young King of Scots overcame his troubled beginnings to ascend the English throne at the height of England's Golden Age. In an effort to pacify rising tensions in the Anglican Church, and to reflect the majesty of his new reign, he spearheaded the most important literary undertaking in Western history--the translation of the Bible into a beautiful, lyrical, and accessible English.

David Teems's narrative crackles with wit, using a thoroughly modern tongue to reanimate the life of this seventeenth century king--a man at the intersection of political, literary, and religious thought, yet a man of contrasts, dubbed by one French king as "the wisest fool in Christendom."

Warm, insightful, even at times amusing, Teems's depiction of King James has all the elements of a grand tale--conspiracy, kidnapping, witchcraft, murder, love, despair, loss. "Majestie" offers an engaging new look at the world's most cherished, revered, and influential translation of Sacred Writ and the king behind it.

"Engrossing and entertaining...a delightful read in every way." - "Publishers Weekly"

This three-volume work by Julia Pardoe, the author of other books on French royalty, was originally published in 1852. In astonishing detail the books describe the colourful and controversial life of Marie de Medicis, who in 1600 married Henry IV of France after his marriage to Marguerite de Valois had been annulled to make way for this dynastic alliance. The consort's life both before and after her marriage was one of flamboyant living and political intrigue. The work is a complex biography, full of information on every detail of a remarkable life at the centre of European politics. Each volume is illustrated and annotated with references to original documents. This last volume describes events including Louis' assertion of royal authority, the rise to power and influence of Cardinal Richelieu, and finally Marie's death in 1642. For more information on this author, see http: //orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=pardj

The journals of Prince Maximilian of Wied rank among the most important firsthand sources documenting the early-nineteenth-century American West. Published in their entirety as an annotated three-volume set, the journals present a complete narrative of Maximilian's expedition across the United States, from Boston almost to the headwaters of the Missouri in the Rocky Mountains, and back. This new concise edition, the only modern condensed version of Maximilian's full account, highlights the expedition's most significant encounters and dramatic events. The German prince and his party arrived in Boston on July 4, 1832. He intended to explore ""the natural face of North America,"" observing and recording firsthand the flora, fauna, and especially the Native peoples of the interior. Accompanying him was the young Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, who would document the journey with sketches and watercolors. Together, the group traveled across the eastern United States and up the Missouri River into present-day Montana, spending the winter of 1833-34 at Fort Clark, an important fur-trading post near the Mandan and Hidatsa villages in what is now North Dakota. The expedition returned downriver to St. Louis the following spring, having spent more than a year in the Upper Missouri frontier wilderness. The two explorers experienced the American frontier just before its transformation by settlers, miners, and industry. Featuring nearly fifty color and black-and-white illustrations - including several of Karl Bodmer's best landscapes and portraits - this succinct record of their expedition invites new audiences to experience an enthralling journey across the early American West.

Five women who shared one of the most extraordinary and privileged sisterhoods of all time...
Vicky, Alice, Helena, Louise, and Beatrice were historically unique sisters, born to a sovereign who ruled over a quarter of the earth's people and who gave her name to an era: Queen Victoria. Two of these princesses would themselves produce children of immense consequence. All five would face the social restrictions and familial machinations borne by ninetheenth-century women of far less exalted class.
Researched at the houses and palaces of its five subjects-- in London, Scotland, Berlin, Darmstadt, and Ottawa--" Victoria's Daughters" examines a generation of royal women who were dominated by their mother, married off as much for political advantage as for love, and passed over entirely when their brother Bertie ascended to the throne. Packard, an experienced biographer whose last book chronicled Victoria's final days, provides valuable insights into their complex, oft-tragic lives as scions of Europe's most influential dynasty, and daughters of their own very troubled times.

Following a youth of poverty and bitter exile after his father's execution, the ousted king first challenged, then made his magnificent escape from, Cromwell's troops before he was eventually restored to his throne in triumph in 1660. Spanning his life both before and after the Restoration, Antonia Fraser's lively and fascinating biography captures all the vitality of the man and the expansiveness of the age.

Almost two books in one, A Right Royal Scandal recounts the fascinating history of the irregular love matches contracted by two successive generations of the Cavendish-Bentinck family, ancestors of the British Royal Family. The first part of this intriguing book looks at the scandal that erupted in Regency London, just months after the Battle of Waterloo, when the widowed Lord Charles Bentinck eloped with the Duke of Wellington's married niece. A messy divorce and a swift marriage followed, complicated by an unseemly tug-of-war over Lord Charles' infant daughter from his first union. Over two decades later and while at Oxford University, Lord Charles' eldest son, known to his family as Charley, fell in love with a beautiful gypsy girl, and secretly married her. He kept this union hidden from his family, in particular his uncle, William Henry Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, 4th Duke of Portland, upon whose patronage he relied. When his alliance was discovered, Charley was cast adrift by his family, with devastating consequences.A love story as well as a brilliantly researched historical biography, this is a continuation of Joanne and Sarah's first biography, An Infamous Mistress, about the eighteenth-century courtesan Grace Dalrymple Elliott, whose daughter was the first wife of Lord Charles Bentinick. The book ends by showing how, if not for a young gypsy and her tragic life, the British monarchy would look very different today.

Catherine of Aragon is an elusive subject. Despite her status as a Spanish infanta, Princess of Wales, and Queen of England, few of her personal letters have survived, and she is obscured in the contemporary royal histories. In this evocative biography, Theresa Earenfight presents an intimate and engaging portrait of Catherine told through the objects that she left behind. A pair of shoes, a painting, a rosary, a fur-trimmed baby blanket-each of these things took meaning from the ways Catherine experienced and perceived them. Through an examination of the inventories listing the few possessions Catherine owned at her death, Earenfight follows the arc of Catherine's life: first as a coddled child in Castile, then as a young adult alone in England after the death of her first husband, a devoted wife and doting mother, a patron of the arts and of universities, and, finally, a dear friend to the women and men who stood by her after Henry VIII set her aside in favor of another woman. Based on traces and fragments, these portraits of Catherine are interpretations of a life lived five centuries ago. Earenfight creates a compelling picture of a multifaceted, intelligent woman and a queen of England. Engagingly written, this cultural and emotional biography of Catherine brings us closer to understanding her life from her own perspective.

Historians and broadcasters Peter Snow and Ann MacMillan tell the real stories of the most powerful men and women in British history. Kings & Queens explores the lives, loves, triumphs and disasters of a monarchy that is the envy of the world. Snow and MacMillan offer a unique insight into those born to rule, whether villains or heroes - from cruel King John and warrior-king Edward III, to our own Elizabeth II: dutiful, discreet and the longest-reigning queen in the world. This is the story of modern civilization through the lens of those who have ruled.

An abused child, yet confident of her destiny to reign, a woman in a man's world, passionately sexual--though, as she maintained, a virgin--Elizabeth I is famed as England's most successful ruler. David Starkey's brilliant new biography concentrates on Elizabeth's formative years--from her birth in 1533 to her accession in 1558--and shows how the experiences of danger and adventure formed her remarkable character and shaped her opinions and beliefs.

From princess and heir-apparent to bastardized and disinherited royal, accused traitor to head of the princely household, Elizabeth experienced every vicissitude of fortune and extreme of condition--and rose above it all to reign during a watershed moment in history. A uniquely absorbing tale of one young woman's turbulent, courageous, and seemingly impossible journey toward the throne, Elizabeth is the exhilarating story of the making of a queen.

A DAILY TELEGRAPH AND BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019 'A remarkable book: the dramatic story of a truly extraordinary man ... brilliant' Helen Castor, author of She-Wolves A major new biography of one of the most extraordinary of all rulers, and the father of present-day Europe Charles, King of the Franks, is one of the most remarkable figures ever to rule a European super-state. That is why he is so often called 'Charles the Great': by the French 'Charlemagne', and by the Germans 'Karl der Grosse'. His strength of character was felt to be remarkable from early in his long reign. Warfare and accident, vermin and weather have destroyed much of the evidence for his rule in the twelve centuries since his death, but a remarkable amount still survives. Janet L. Nelson's wonderful new book brings together everything we know about Charlemagne and sifts through the evidence to come as close as we can to understanding the man and his motives. Nelson has an extraordinary knowledge of the sources and much of the book is a sort of detective story, prying into and interpreting fascinating material and often obdurate scraps, from prayerbooks to skeletons, gossip to artwork. Above all, Charles' legacy lies in his deeds and their continuing resonance, as he shaped duchies and counties, rebuilt and founded towns and monasteries, and consciously set himself up not just as King of the Franks, but as the new 'Emperor governing the Roman Empire'. His successors - in some ways to the present day - have struggled to interpret, misinterpret, copy or subvert Charlemagne's legacy. Nelson gets us as close as we can ever hope to come to the real figure, as understood in his own time.

James IV is the best-known of all the late medieval Scottish rulers. Widely praised by his contemporaries, he combined the qualities of successful medieval monarch with a wide interest in the arts and sciences, while remaining acutely conscious of the need to enhance the prestige of his dynasty throughout Europe. This excellent study examines all aspects of James IV's sovereignty, explains his popularity and his highly successful kingship and assesses reasons for the disastrous end to the reign when the king and a large population of the Scottish nobility were eliminated in a single afternoon in 1513 at Flodden. This book represents Scottish historical research at its very best. It is meticulously researched and sensitively written.

The official biography of Queen Mary, grandmother of the current Queen, originally commissioned in 1959 - with a new foreword by Hugo Vickers. When Queen Mary died in 1953, James Pope-Hennessy was commissioned to write an official biography of her - unusual for a Queen Consort. Queen Mary's life, contrary to popular belief, was essentially dramatic, and she played a far more important and influential role in the affairs of the British monarchy than her public image might have otherwise suggested. Using material from the Royal Archives, private papers and Queen Mary's personal diaries and letters, Pope-Hennessy's biography was a remarkable portrait of a remarkable woman and received rave reviews across the press. Long out of print, this new edition of Queen Mary will be accompanied by a new foreword from royal biographer and writer Hugo Vickers.

Spirited biography and quest to unearth the secrets of Princess Louise -- a royal desperate to escape her inheritance.
The secrets of Queen Victoria's sixth child, Princess Louise, may be destined to remain hidden forever. What was so dangerous about this artistic, tempestuous royal that her life has been documented more by rumour and gossip than hard facts? When Lucinda Hawksley started to investigate, often thwarted by inexplicable secrecy, she discovered a fascinating woman, modern before her time, whose story has been shielded for years from public view.
Louise was a sculptor and painter, friend to the Pre-Raphaelites and a keen member of the Aesthetic movement. The most feisty of the Victorian princesses, she kicked against her mother's controlling nature and remained fiercely loyal to her brothers -- especially the sickly Leopold and the much-maligned Bertie. She sought out other unconventional women, including Josephine Butler and George Eliot, and campaigned for education and health reform and for the rights of women. She battled with her indomitable mother for permission to practice the 'masculine' art of sculpture and go to art college -- and in doing so became the first British princess to attend a public school.
The rumours of Louise's colourful love life persist even today, with hints of love affairs dating as far back as her teenage years, and notable scandals included entanglements with her sculpting tutor Joseph Edgar Boehm and possibly even her sister Princess Beatrice's handsome husband, Liko. True to rebellious form, she refused all royal suitors and became the first member of the royal family to marry a commoner since the sixteenth century.
Spirited and lively, "The Mystery of Princess Louise" is richly packed with arguments, intrigues, scandals and secrets, and is a vivid portrait of a princess desperate to escape her inheritance.

Richard II, son of the Black Prince, had a dramatic and contentious kingship. At fourteen he faced down the ringleaders of the Peasant Revolt of 1381; only to reach the nadir of his royal authority in 1388 with the Merciless Parliament. Yet in only a decade, his rule was being referred to as 'the tyranny'. This collection of essays by leading historians aims to re-evaluate the frequently biased evidence and create a rounded portrait of this fascinating and much maligned figure.

For more than 70 years, the marriage of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip was at the centre of the nation's life. Now, in My Husband and I, Ingrid Seward reveals the real story of their loving and enduring relationship. When a young Princess Elizabeth met and fell in love with the dashing Naval Lieutenant Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, it wasn't without its problems. The romance between the sailor prince and the young princess brought a splash of colour to a nation still in the grip of post-war austerity. When they married in Westminster Abbey in November 1947, there were 3000 guests, including six kings and seven queens. Within five years, as Queen Elizabeth II, she would ascend to the throne and later be crowned in front of millions watching through the new medium of television. Throughout her record-breaking reign until Prince Philip's death on 9 April 2021, she relied on the formidable partnership she had made with her consort. Now, acclaimed royal biographer Ingrid Seward sheds new light on their relationship and its impact on their family and on the nation. In My Husband and I, we discover the challenges faced by Prince Philip as he had to learn to play second fiddle to the Queen in all their public engagements, but we also get a revealing insight into how their relationship operated behind closed doors. As the years went by, there were rumours of marital troubles, fierce debates over how to bring up their children, and they had to deal with family traumas - from scandalous divorces to shocking deaths - in the full glare of the public eye. But somehow, their relationship endured and provided a model of constancy to inspire all around them. This book is not only a vivid portrait of a hugely important marriage, it is a celebration of the power of love.

During her 70 years on the throne, few got to know the Queen well, but there is one body of work that sheds new light on her thoughts, personality and the issues that really concerned her: the Queen's own speeches. For many years, the Queen's Christmas address was the most-watched programme on television on Christmas Day, and millions regularly tuned in to hear what she had to say. Now, in this wonderful, intimate portrait of Her Majesty, Ingrid Seward uses the Queen's speeches as a starting point to provide a revealing insight into the character of the woman who reigned over us since the days when Churchill was prime minister. Starting with her first-ever broadcast, in December 1940, when the teenaged Princess Elizabeth addressed a war-torn nation, right through the annus horribilis, and on into the 21st century, the book highlights the most important moments in her life and how she responded to them. Based on in-depth research and interviews with many of those who knew the Queen best, this book sheds new light on the life and career of our much-missed monarch. Renowned as one of the most authoritative writers on royal matters, Ingrid Seward, the editor of Majesty magazine, has written a charming and fascinating portrait that will be cherished by all who read it.