Some lost their thrones. Others supported the Nazis. Several suffered from haemophilia. One had to get a job, and two were executed! Written entirely in the first person, this is a concise introduction to the extraordinary lives, scandals, loves, triumphs and tragedies of the extended royal family that has stretched across Europe, some of them becoming Kings and Queens. In Children of The Empire, Michael Farah imagines how forty-seven children and grandchildren of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert would have each summarised the story of their life, from their early childhood to the very end. Complete with individual portraits and family trees, this is an easy and enjoyable gateway to the family of Queen Victoria, accessible to all.

The iconic figure of Robert the Bruce has gone down through the centuries as one of the most remarkable leaders of all time. With equal parts tenacity and ruthlessness, he had himself crowned King of Scotland after murdering one of his most powerful rivals, and so began the rule of an indomitable military genius unafraid of breaking convention, and more than a few English heads. Indeed, it was under the leadership of King Robert that the Battle of Bannockburn took place - a famous victory snatched by a tiny Scots force against a larger, supposedly more sophisticated English foe. In King and Outlaw medieval expert Chris Brown explores the life of Robert the Bruce, whose remarkable history has merged with legend, and reveals the true story of the outlaw king.

Memorable not for his life but his death, Edward V is probably better known as one of the Princes in the Tower, the supposed victim of his uncle, Richard III. This work presents to us the backdrop to this tragically short life - and reveals how he was both the hope of a dynasty and an integral cause of that dynasty's collapse.

As the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne (1665-1714) received the education thought proper for a princess, reading plays and poetry in English and French while learning dancing, singing, acting, drawing, and instrumental music. As an adult, she played the guitar and the harpsichord, danced regularly, and took a connoisseur's interest in all the arts. In this comprehensive interdisciplinary biography, James Winn tells the story of Anne's life in new breadth and detail, and in unprecedented cultural context. Winn shows how poets, painters, and musicians used the works they made for Anne to send overt and covert political messages to the queen, the court, the church, and Parliament. Their works also illustrates the pathos of Anne's personal life: the loss of her mother when she was six, her troubled relations with her father and her sister, James II and Mary II, and her own doomed efforts to produce an heir. Her eighteen pregnancies produced only one child who lived past infancy; his death at the age of eleven, mourned by poets, was a blow from which Anne never fully recovered. Her close friendship with Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, a topic of scabrous ballads and fictions, ended in bitter discord; the death of her husband in 1708 left her emotionally isolated; and the wrangling among her chief ministers hastened her death. Richly illustrated with visual and musical examples, Queen Anne draws on works by a wide array of artists - among them composer George Frideric Handel, the poet Alexander Pope, the painter Godfrey Kneller, and the architect Christopher Wren - to shed new light on Anne's life and reign. This is the definitive biography of Queen Anne.

When Charlene Wittstock married Prince Albert of Monaco in a starstudded wedding watched by millions across the world in 2011, rumours of her getting cold feet and her unhappiness about his love children swirled around the couple. Ever since then, the statuesque Olympic swimmer has been in the eye of the paparazzi and the centre of endless tabloid speculation and malicious rumour-mongering.

Is the bubbly, down-to-earth South African lonely in glamorous Monaco? Is it a marriage of convenience? What is truth behind her health issues? These are just some of the questions that roil so publicly around her.

Journalist Arlene Prinsloo sifts fact from fiction in this revealing unauthorised biography of Her Serene Highness Princess Charlene. Prinsloo traces her life from humble beginnings in Zimbabwe, Johannesburg and Durban to the Olympic Games, her jet-set romance with the bachelor prince, a ‘fairy-tale’ wedding and becoming a mother to twins.

At its heart, it’s the story of a woman in search of happiness for herself and her family – and also of the beginning of Charlene defining her own space amid the royal protocol.

With her royal insider's knowledge and historical insight, Lady Colin Campbell turns her attention to People of Colour and the Royals. She herself is strongly vested in the subject of colour, being the proud product of one of the most prominent families in the multi-racial world of Jamaica.When she was born there in 1949 that country had, although inadequate, more progressive and inclusive race relations than anywhere else. In her first eighteen years she lived through the transitional period from colonial heyday to independence in 1962, to the subsequent political and demographic changes. Jamaicans hold very dear the concept of their national motto 'Out of Many One People', and she understands the nuances whereby all Jamaicans, irrespective of colour, are regarded as members of the Black Community. Her lack of prejudice allows her to examine the sometimes difficult past with welcome objectivity and refreshing candour, and Jamaica has continued to spearhead many of the positive changes taking place in larger countries like the United States and the United Kingdom. Her book is full of welcome surprises. It takes her unique heritage, courage, insight and experience to write a book as illuminating and hopeful as People of Colour and the Royals. It is a work which she hopes will go some way to healing the divisions of the past and consolidating the unity of the present into an even more cohesive future.

A seminal biography of the underappreciated eleventh-century Scandinavian warlord-turned-Anglo-Saxon monarch who united the English and Danish crowns to forge a North Sea empire Historian Timothy Bolton offers a fascinating reappraisal of one of the most misunderstood of the Anglo-Saxon kings: Cnut, the powerful Danish warlord who conquered England and created a North Sea empire in the eleventh century. This seminal biography draws from a wealth of written and archaeological sources to provide the most detailed accounting to date of the life and accomplishments of a remarkable figure in European history, a forward-thinking warrior-turned-statesman who created a new Anglo-Danish regime through designed internationalism.

Read the thrilling, tempestuous story of the 'first' Queen of England. Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, was the first woman to be crowned Queen of England and formally recognised as such by her subjects. Beyond this, however, little is known of her. No contemporary images of her remain, and the chroniclers of her age left us only the faintest clues as to her life. Who was this spectral queen? In this first major biography, Tracy Borman sifts through the evidence to uncover an extraordinary story. Matilda was loving and pious, possessed strength, ambition and intelligence, and was fiercely independent. All of these attributes gave her unparalleled influence over William. Although Matilda would provide an inspiring template for future indomitable queens, these qualities also led to treachery, revolt and the fracturing of a dynasty. Matilda: Wife of the Conqueror, First Queen of England takes us from the courts of Flanders to the opulence of royal life in England. Alive with intrigue, rumour and betrayal, it illuminates for the first time the life of an exceptional, brave and complex queen pivotal to the history of England.

Princess Diana is seen as the first member of the British royal family to tear up the rulebook, and the Duchess of Cambridge is modernising the monarchy in strides. But before them was another who paved the way. Princess Mary was born in 1897. Despite her Victorian beginnings, she strove to make a princess's life meaningful, using her position to help those less fortunate and defying gender conventions in the process. As the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary, she would live to see not only two of her brothers ascend the throne but also her niece Queen Elizabeth II. She was one of the hardest-working members of the royal family, known for her no-nonsense approach and her determination in the face of adversity. During the First World War she came into her own, launching an appeal to furnish every British troop and sailor with a Christmas gift, and training as a nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital. From her dedication to the war effort, to her role as the family peacemaker during the Abdication Crisis, Mary was the princess who redefined the title for the modern age. In the first biography in decades, Elisabeth Basford offers a fresh appraisal of Mary's full and fascinating life.

In this new book royal historian Lady Colin Campbell covers The Queen's Marriage in intimate detail. Using her connections and impeccable sources she recounts details of the inside story of the monarch's relationship with the Duke of Edinburgh and her close family.

Part of the Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers - now in paperback On Christmas Day 1066, William, duke of Normandy was crowned in Westminster, the first Norman king of England. It was a disaster: soldiers outside, thinking shouts of acclamation were treachery, torched the surrounding buildings. To later chroniclers, it was an omen of the catastrophes to come. During the reign of William the Conqueror, England experienced greater and more seismic change than at any point before or since. Marc Morris's concise and gripping biography sifts through the sources of the time to give a fresh view of the man who changed England more than any other, as old ruling elites were swept away, enemies at home and abroad (including those in his closest family) were crushed, swathes of the country were devastated and the map of the nation itself was redrawn, giving greater power than ever to the king. When, towards the end of his reign, William undertook a great survey of his new lands, his subjects compared it to the last judgement of God, the Domesday Book. England had been transformed forever.

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"

Edward the Confessor was the son of King Aethelred the Unready of the House of Wessex. The family was exiled to Normandy when the Danish invaded England in 1013 but, with the nation in crisis on the death of King Harthacnut twenty-nine years later, Edward was named King of England, restoring the throne to English rule. Often portrayed as a holy simpleton, Edward was in fact a wily and devious king. For most kings a childless marriage would have been an Achilles' heel, but Edward turned it to his advantage. He cunningly played off his potential rivals and successors, using the prize of the throne as leverage. Though his reign was peaceful, his death would wreak havoc. Bloody wars were waged, two claimants were cut down and William the Conqueror earned his name. Edward's posthumous reputation grew as stories were spread by the monks of his magnificent foundation, Westminster Abbey. The childless king was transformed into a chaste, pious and holy man. Miracles were attributed to him and he was credited with the King's Touch - the ability to cure illnesses by touch alone. In 1161 he was canonised as Saint Edward the Confessor and to this day he remains the patron saint of the royal family.

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.

**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** Veteran style journalist Elizabeth Holmes expands her popular Instagram series, So Many Thoughts, into a nuanced look at the fashion and branding of the four most influential members of the British Royal Family: Queen Elizabeth II; Diana, Princess of Wales; Catherine, The Duchess of Cambridge; and Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex. Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle are global style icons, their every fashion choice chronicled and celebrated. With all eyes on them, the duchesses select clothes that send a message about their values, interests, and priorities. Their thoughtful sartorial strategies follow in the footsteps of Queen Elizabeth II and Diana, Princess of Wales, two towering figures known for using their personal style to great acclaim. With one section devoted to each woman, HRH is a celebration of their stories and their style, pairing hundreds of gorgeous photographs with extensive research. A picture emerges of the British monarchy's evolution and the power of royal fashion, showing there's always more than what meets the eye.

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.

From his earliest public appearances as a mischievous redheaded toddler, Prince Harry has captured the hearts of royal enthusiasts around the world, while his marriage to Meghan Markle has only endeared him further. In Harry and Meghan, Britain's leading expert on the young royals offers an in-depth look at the wayward prince turned national treasure. Nicholl sheds new light on growing up royal, Harry's relationship with his mother, his troubled youth and early adulthood, and how his military service in Afghanistan inspired him to create his legacy, the Invictus Games. She uncovers new information about Harry's past relationships and reveals the true story of his romance with Meghan Markle, the smart and spirited American who captured his heart. Harry and Meghan: Life, Loss, and Love features interviews with friends, those who have worked with the prince, and former Palace aides. Nicholl reveals behind-the-scenes details about the run up to the couple's spectacular wedding day, their first tours as a married couple, and their preparations for the arrival of the youngest new royal. Harry and Meghan is a compelling portrait of the Royal Family's most popular royal couple and the story of the most gripping royal romance in a decade.

R is for Revenge Dress explores the celebrated life of Princess Diana through the alphabet. "A-mazing to 'C' the younger generation B-eing so interested in the legacy of HRH." -Andrew Morton, Author of Diana: Her True Story Though "R" is for Revenge Dress, this book is rather sweet-about a cheeky princess whose laughter you could hear from the street. Not a nursery rhyme for babies, but more suitable for a teen...this is a tale about a woman who refused to go unseen. Princess Diana is no longer here, but her legacy still shines. Hopefully this tribute is one of your new favorite finds!