At age 25, Elizabeth II became Britain's 40th monarch and vowed to dedicate her life to service and duty on behalf of her country. She is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states, head of the 53 member Commonwealth of Nations, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and head of the armed forces. Most notably, however, on September 9th, 2015, she became the longest reigning monarch in British history. She has consistently adapted in order to remain relevant, while devotedly upholding the age-old traditions of the monarchy. Although there have only been six British female monarchs, it cannot be argued that some of the most enlightened times in history have occurred during periods of queenship. Elizabeth I led the country through the Golden Age and Victoria ushered in the Industrial Revolution, but it is Elizabeth II who will leave the most illustrious and progressive legacy of all.

This is the story of Queen Caroline's favourite ghostwriter, the infamous Captain Thomas Ashe, who was also an adventurer and sometime blackmailer. His unpublished novel, The Claustral Palace: or Memoirs of The Family, carried out Caroline's threat to 'blow the roof off the Nunnery', revealing the secret lives and loves of the daughters of King George III in their unmarried confinement at Frogmore, the UK marital home of Harry and Meghan (for a short time). A blackmailing synopsis was circulated to members of the royal family. It was then stolen by government agents and preserved by the Treasury Solicitor. James Travers describes for the first time the significance of this novel, its author, and his relationship with Caroline, the estranged wife of George IV, and with the government of Spencer Perceval, whose untimely death the author predicted. Did Perceval himself blackmail his way to power? The novel itself is a never-before-seen gothic bodice-ripper about the royal princesses and their clandestine lovers at Frogmore, based on Caroline's own confidences gained from Princess Elizabeth. Later encouraged by shadowy figures allied to the Irish statesman Daniel O'Connell, Captain Ashe blackmailed and threatened the life of the Duke of Cumberland and preoccupied the cabinet meetings of the Duke of Wellington.

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.

Isabella arrived in London in 1308, the spirited twelve-year-old daughter of King Philip IV of France. Her marriage to the heir to England's throne was designed to heal old political wounds between the two countries, and in the years that followed, she would become an important figure, a determined and clever woman whose influence would come to last centuries. But Queen Isabella's political machinations led generations of historians to malign her, earning her a reputation as a ruthless schemer and an odious nickname, "the She-Wolf of France."
Now the acclaimed author of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Alison Weir, reexamines the life of Isabella of England, history's other notorious and charismatic medieval queen. Praised for her fair looks, the newly wed Isabella was denied the attentions of Edward II, a weak, sexually ambiguous monarch with scant taste for his royal duties. As their marriage progressed, Isabella was neglected by her dissolute husband and slighted by his favored male courtiers. Humiliated and deprived of her income, her children, and her liberty, Isabella escaped to France, where she entered into a passionate affair with Edward II's mortal enemy, Roger Mortimer. Together, Isabella and Mortimer led the only successful invasion of English soil since the Norman Conquest of 1066, deposing Edward and ruling in his stead as co-regents for Isabella's young son, Edward III. Fate, however, was soon to catch up with Isabella and her lover.
Many mysteries and legends have been woven around Isabella's story. She was long condemned as an accessory to Edward II's brutal murder in 1327, but recent research has cast doubt on whether that murder even took place.
Isabella's reputation, then, rests largely on the prejudices of monkish chroniclers and prudish Victorian scholars. Here Alison Weir gives a startling, groundbreaking new perspective on Isabella, in this first full biography in more than 150 years. In a work of extraordinary original research, Weir effectively strips away centuries of propaganda, legend, and romantic myth, and reveals a truly remarkable woman who had a profound influence upon the age in which she lived and the history of western Europe.
Engaging, vibrant, alive with breathtaking detail and unforgettable characters, Queen Isabella is biographical history at its finest.

"From the Hardcover edition."

In Shah of Shahs Kapuscinski brings a mythographer's perspective and a novelist's virtuosity to bear on the overthrow of the last Shah of Iran, one of the most infamous of the United States' client-dictators, who resolved to transform his country into "a second America in a generation," only to be toppled virtually overnight. From his vantage point at the break-up of the old regime, Kapuscinski gives us a compelling history of conspiracy, repression, fanatacism, and revolution.Translated from the Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand.

Prince Philip was a man of many, many words. For almost eighty years since he first entered the public's eye, Prince Philip had been telling the world exactly what he thought of it. Over the years, Prince Philip's quips and wisecracks have been labelled as shocking and even outrageous, but at the root of this colourful royal was a very funny man who seemingly never took life too seriously. He was an icon of the royal family and a reminder of a time when the world was a different place - and for that, we, the Great British public, salute him. This tiny tome is a celebration of his extraordinary life in the service of his subjects, as well as a compilation of his best (and worst) one-liners, in his own inimitable style. 'I rather doubt whether anyone has ever been genuinely shocked by anything I have said.' Prince Philip, in an interview, 1999. Smashing Fact No.1: Philip was 13 years old when he met his future wife, Elizabeth. They were both attending the wedding of Princess Marina of Greece and the Duke of Kent in 1934. Elizabeth was eight at the time. The pair met again five years later.

The definitive biography of Ivan the Terrible, setting the Tsar's infamous cruelty within the context of his time. Ivan IV, "the Terrible" (1533-1584), is one of the key figures in Russian history, yet he has remained among the most neglected. Notorious for pioneering a policy of unrestrained terror-and for killing his own son-he has been credited with establishing autocracy in Russia. This is the first attempt to write a biography of Ivan from birth to death, to study his policies, his marriages, his atrocities, and his disordered personality, and to link them as a coherent whole. Isabel de Madariaga situates Ivan within the background of Russian political developments in the sixteenth century. And, with revealing comparisons with English, Spanish, and other European courts, she sets him within the international context of his time. The biography includes a new account of the role of astrology and magic at Ivan's court and provides fresh insights into his foreign policy. Facing up to problems of authenticity (much of Ivan's archive was destroyed by fire in 1626) and controversies which have paralyzed western scholarship, de Madariaga seeks to present Russia as viewed from the Kremlin rather than from abroad and to comprehend the full tragedy of Ivan's reign.

The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller 'This second volume of memoirs is as fascinating as the first....full of wit, joy, vivid vignettes and useful insights...she has another bestseller on her hands' India Knight, Sunday Times 'It's great to have another memoir from Lady Glenconner . . . as open-minded and entertaining as she clearly is' Lynn Barber, Sunday Telegraph 'A jolly anecdote for every day of the year and excellent advice' Hilary Rose, The Times 'As glorious and highly readable as its predecessor - as well as being packed full of new stories' ipaper 'Full of eye-popping detail' Sophia Money-Coutts, Daily Telegraph 'Charm itself' Spectator 'Anne Glenconner returns to charts her fascinating life and the hard-won lessons learnt in diplomacy, marriage and motherhood' Tatler.com Bracing honesty, rare insight and hilarious revelations from internationally bestselling author of LADY IN WAITING as she shares everything she's learned from her extraordinary and unexpected life. Anne Glenconner's glittering life hasn't always been golden. As she revealed in her astonishing bestselling memoir Lady in Waiting, it has been one of stark contrasts - from growing up in the splendour of Holkham Hall to living in a tent in the jungle of Mustique, from travelling the world with Princess Margaret to coping with her wildly unpredictable husband Lord Glenconner. Tragically, she has also survived the loss of two of her sons and nursed a third son back from a coma. Now in her ninetieth year, and at her happiest, Anne brings her bracing honesty, characteristic wit and courage to reflect on and reveal more about her long and unexpected life, her extremely volatile marriage, and what it's taught her. As a wife, she became a master in the art of keeping the peace, knowing when to pick her battles, when she needed help - and when to take a lover. As a hostess, she acquired great practical skills in throwing marvellous parties and looking after magnificent homes, and, as a lady in waiting, became well versed in diplomacy and etiquette. It was as a mother she learnt the toughest lessons of all, and through them the value of friendship, family, and laughter to get her through the worst moments in life, as well as celebrate the best of them. Anne Glenconner's Whatever Next? is the richly entertaining proof that staying open to every new adventure and being ready for whatever happens sets an inspiring example for us all.