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.

An official BBC book that celebrates the life of Queen Elizabeth II through photographs, some rarely seen, drawn largely from archives of the BBC.

The longest-reigning monarch in British history, Queen Elizabeth II has been at the centre of British life for almost a century. She's led a very public life, seen by millions through photographs, film and television, from the time of her birth in 1926 to the final years of her reign. The embodiment of Britain, she has been a constant, knowledgeable presence in our politics and culture since she came to the throne in 1952.

This book celebrates the life of Queen Elizabeth II through photographs and still images, drawn largely from the archives of the BBC, an organisation that received its royal charter only one year after she was born. From her earliest days and first moments of public life, to her Platinum Jubilee and the weddings of her children and grandchildren, this is a lavish tribute to the most public of monarchs, an iconic figure in the hearts and minds of millions throughout the world.

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.

George VI reigned through taxing times. Acceding to the throne upon his brother's abdication, he was immediately confronted with the turmoil in European politics leading up to the Second World War, then the War itself, followed by a period of austerity, social transformation and loss of Empire.

George was unprepared for kingship, suffering from a stammer which could make public occasions very painful for him. Moreover he had grown up in the shadow of his brother, a man who had been idolized as no royal prince has been, before or since.

However, as Sarah Bradford shows in this sympathetic biography, although George was not born to be king, he died a great one.

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.

When Mary Stuart was forced off the Scottish throne she fled to England, a move that made her cousin Queen Elizabeth very uneasy. Elizabeth had continued the religious changes made by her father and England was a Protestant country, yet ardent Catholics plotted to depose Elizabeth and put Mary Stuart on the English throne. So what was Queen Elizabeth going to do with a kingdomless queen likely to take hers? Elizabeth had Mary placed under house arrest with her old friend Bess of Hardwick, then married to her fourth husband, the wealthy and influential Earl of Shrewsbury. The charismatic Scotswoman was treated more like a dowager queen than a prisoner and enjoyed an affluent lifestyle until Bess suspected Mary of seducing her husband. But for sixteen years, with the never-ending threat of a Catholic uprising, Bess was forced to accommodate Mary and her entourage at enormous cost to both her finances and her marriage. Bess had also known the doomed Jane Grey and Mary I, Elizabeth's predecessor. She had been in service in the Grey household and companion to the infant Jane. Mary had been godmother to Bess's fifth child. Four Queens and a Countess delves deep into the relationships of these women with their insurmountable differences, the way they tried to accommodate them and the lasting legacy this has left.

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.

The entertaining biography of Edward VII and his playboy lifestyle, by Stephen Clarke, author of 1000 Years of Annoying the French and A Year in the Merde. Despite fierce opposition from his mother, Queen Victoria, Edward VII was always passionately in love with France. He had affairs with the most famous Parisian actresses, courtesans and can-can dancers. He spoke French more elegantly than English. He was the first ever guest to climb the Eiffel Tower with Gustave Eiffel, in defiance of an official English ban on his visit. He turned his French seduction skills into the diplomatic prowess that sealed the Entente Cordiale. A quintessentially English king? Pas du tout! Stephen Clarke argues that as 'Dirty Bertie', Edward learned all the essentials in life from the French.

Sir Seretse Khama, the first President of Botswana and heir apparent to the kingship of the Bangwato people, brought independence and great prosperity to his nation after colonial rule. But for six long years from 1950, Seretse had been forced into exile in England, banned from his own country. His crime? To fall in love and marry a young, white English girl, Ruth Williams. Delving into newly released records, Susan Williams tells Seretse and Ruth's story - a shocking account of how the British Government conspired with apartheid South Africa to prevent the mixed-race royal couple returning home. But it is also an inspiring, triumphant tale of hope, courage and true love as with tenacity and great dignity Seretse and Ruth and the Bangwato people ovecome prejudice in their fight for justice.

The youngest of William the Conqueror's sons, Henry I (1100-35) was never meant to be king, but he was destined to become one of the greatest of all medieval monarchs, both through his own ruthlessness and intelligence and through the dynastic legacy of his daughter Matilda, who began the Plantagenet line that would rule England until 1485. A self-consciously diligent and thoughtful king, his rule was looked back on as the real post-invasion re-founding of England as a new realm, integrated into the continent, wealthy and stable. Edmund King's wonderful portrait of Henry shows him as a strikingly charismatic and thoughtful man. His life was dogged by a single great disaster, the death of his teenage heir William in the White Ship disaster. Despite astonishing numbers of illegitimate sons, Henry was now left with only a daughter. This fact would shape the rest of the 12th century and beyond.

Diana The Voice of Change throws a new light on the most famous woman of her time. Discover the truth about Diana s extraordinary life principles. Learn what created her love and the secret keys that focused her destiny. You can use these same keys to focus your own destiny, to help you find the voice of change that resonates with your whole being, and assists you to live your soul s purpose. This is the legacy that Diana wanted to give the women and men of the world! Learn: how Diana achieved freedom from oppression how she became a force of liberation that literally shook the world why she was taken from us to become a force of Divine Inspiration. Although Diana may no longer be in flesh, her spirit lives on communicating to us all. If you've wondered how Diana Princess of Wales developed the courage and power to bring about vast change in her life and that of the Royal Family, you can find out right here. If you would like to discover where Diana's love, hope and radiance came from, those essential qualities that helped to heal the colossal challenges she faced, and then moved her to become the Global Super Star, the information is within Stewart's extraordinary book "DIANA THE VOICE OF CHANGE". If you were startled by Diana's beauty and essence this book will reveal the key principles and empowerments that gave her the ability to express the wonder and awe that you so admired and still hear about - this book could even be an answer to some of your challenges!

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.

Elizabeth the Queen begins as the young Elizabeth ascends the throne in the wake of her sister Mary's disastrous reign - both a woman and a queen, Elizabeth's story is an extraordinary phenomenon in a patriarchal age. From Elizabeth's intriguing, long-standing affair with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, to her dealings - sometimes comical, sometimes poignant - with her many suitors, her rivalry with Mary, Queen of Scots, and her bizarre relationship with the Earl of Essex, thirty years her junior, here, in rich, vivid and colourful detail, Alison Weir helps us comes as close as we shall ever get to knowing what Elizabeth I was like as a person. 'Excellent...intricate and absorbing...An elegant, shrewd and wonderfully vivacious book.' The Times

Anna was the 'last woman standing' of Henry VIII's wives - and the only one buried in Westminster Abbey. How did she manage it? Anna, Duchess of Cleves: The King's 'Beloved Sister' looks at Anna from a new perspective, as a woman from the Holy Roman Empire and not as a woman living almost by accident in England. Starting with what Anna's life as a child and young woman was like, the author describes the climate of the Cleves court, and the achievements of Anna's siblings. It looks at the political issues on the Continent that transformed Anna's native land of Cleves - notably the court of Anna's brother-in-law, and its influence on Lutheranism - and Anna's blighted marriage. Finally, Heather Darsie explores ways in which Anna influenced her step-daughters Elizabeth and Mary, and the evidence of their good relationships with her. Was the Duchess Anna in fact a political refugee, supported by Henry VIII? Was she a role model for Elizabeth I? Why was the marriage doomed from the outset? By returning to the primary sources and visiting archives and museums all over Europe (the author is fluent in German, and proficient in French and Spanish) a very different figure emerges to the 'Flanders Mare'.

Drawing on his unprecedented access to Grace Kelly, bestselling biographer Donald Spoto at last offers an intimate, honest, and authoritative portrait of one of Hollywood's legendary actresses.

In just seven years-from 1950 through 1956-Grace Kelly embarked on a whirlwind career that included roles in eleven movies. From the principled Amy Fowler Kane in "High Noon" to the thrill-seeking Frances Stevens of "To Catch a Thief," Grace established herself as one of Hollywood's most talented actresses and iconic beauties. Her astonishing career lasted until her retirement at age twenty-six, when she withdrew from stage and screen to marry a European monarch and became a modern, working princess and mother.
Based on never-before-published or quoted interviews with Grace and those conducted over many years with her friends and colleagues-from costars James Stewart and Cary Grant to director Alfred Hitchcock-as well as many documents disclosed by her children for the first time, acclaimed biographer Donald Spoto explores the transformation of a convent schoolgirl to New York model, successful television actress, Oscar-winning movie star, and beloved royal.
As the princess requested, Spoto waited twenty-five years after her death to write this biography. Now, with honesty and insight, "High Society" reveals the truth of Grace Kelly's personal life, the men she loved, the men she didn't, and what lay behind the facade of her fairy-tale life.

"From the Hardcover edition."

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.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY "THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW "AND "THE BOSTON GLOBE"
This richly entertaining biography chronicles the eventful life of Queen Victoria's firstborn son, the quintessential black sheep of Buckingham Palace, who matured into as wise and effective a monarch as Britain has ever seen. Granted unprecedented access to the royal archives, noted scholar Jane Ridley draws on numerous primary sources to paint a vivid portrait of the man and the age to which he gave his name.
Born Prince Albert Edward, and known to familiars as "Bertie," the future King Edward VII had a well-earned reputation for debauchery. A notorious gambler, glutton, and womanizer, he preferred the company of wastrels and courtesans to the dreary life of the Victorian court. His own mother considered him a lazy halfwit, temperamentally unfit to succeed her. When he ascended to the throne in 1901, at age fifty-nine, expectations were low. Yet by the time he died nine years later, he had proven himself a deft diplomat, hardworking head of state, and the architect of Britain's modern constitutional monarchy.
Jane Ridley's colorful biography rescues the man once derided as "Edward the Caresser" from the clutches of his historical detractors. Excerpts from letters and diaries shed new light on Bertie's long power struggle with Queen Victoria, illuminating one of the most emotionally fraught mother-son relationships in history. Considerable attention is paid to King Edward's campaign of personal diplomacy abroad and his valiant efforts to reform the political system at home. Separating truth from legend, Ridley also explores Bertie's relationships with the women in his life. Their ranks comprised his wife, the stunning Danish princess Alexandra, along with some of the great beauties of the era: the actress Lillie Langtry, longtime "royal mistress" Alice Keppel (the great-grandmother of Camilla Parker Bowles), and Lady Randolph Churchill, mother of Winston.
Edward VII waited nearly six decades for his chance to rule, then did so with considerable panache and aplomb. A magnificent life of an unexpectedly impressive king, "The Heir Apparent" documents the remarkable transformation of a man--and a monarchy--at the dawn of a new century.
Praise for" The Heir Apparent"
"If "The Heir Apparent"] isn't "the "definitive life story of this fascinating figure of British history, then nothing ever will be."--"The Christian Science Monitor
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""The Heir Apparent" is smart, it's fascinating, it's sometimes funny, it's well-documented and it reads like a novel, with Bertie so vivid he nearly leaps from the page, cigars and all."--Minneapolis "Star Tribune"
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"I closed "The Heir Apparent" with admiration and a kind of wry exhilaration."--"The Wall Street Journal"
"Ridley is a serious scholar and historian, who keeps Bertie's flaws and virtues in a fine balance."--"The Boston Globe"
"Brilliantly entertaining . . . a landmark royal biography."--"The Sunday Telegraph"
"Superb."--"The New York Times Book Review"

"From the Hardcover edition."

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 purpose of this book is to give, not only a portrait and a description of the birds, but a summing up of the beneficial and injurious habits of each, gained from the highest authorities obtainable. The book is intended for those who long to know birds intimately and intelligently, and wish to belong to the great army of bird-students who are "doing their bit" to preserve the bird-life of our country.

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

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