Royalty category: 1453 books

The Grimaldis of Monaco tells in full the remarkable history of the world’s oldest reigning dynasty. For nearly eight hundred years, from the elegant Genoese Rainier I to the current Prince Albert II, the Grimaldis—“an ambitious, hot-blooded, unscrupulous race, swift to revenge and furious in...

Per chi non è nato in Gran Bretagna è molto difficile capire il profondo legame tra Elisabetta II e il suo popolo. Con i suoi cappellini, i suoi cani corgi, la sua passione per le automobili veloci, per lo champagne e per i purosangue di razza, ma anche con il suo stile e con la sua dedizione...

An entirely original account of Victoria’s relationship with the Raj, which shows how India was central to the Victorian monarchy from as early as 1837 In this engaging and controversial book, Miles Taylor shows how both Victoria and Albert were spellbound by India, and argues that the Queen...

'James was a king tragically trapped by principle. Yet was it wise to attempt to change the national religion?' The short reign of James II is generally seen as one of the most catastrophic in British history, ending in his exile after he unsuccessfully tried to convert England to Catholicism,...

Edward VI, the only son of Henry VIII, became king at the age of nine and died wholly unexpectedly at the age of fifteen. All around him loomed powerful men who hoped to use the child to further their own ends, but who were also playing a long game - assuming that Edward would long outlive them and...

George I was not the most charismatic of the Hanoverian monarchs to have reigned in England but he was probably the most important. He was certainly the luckiest. Born the youngest son of a landless German duke, he was taken by repeated strokes of good fortune to become, first the ruler of...

Isabel Amalia Eugenia Duquesa en Baviera. Dotada de una gran belleza física, Isabel se caracterizó por ser una persona rebelde, culta y demasiado avanzada para su tiempo. Adoraba la equitación, llegando a participar en muchos torneos. Sentía un gran aprecio por los animales; amaba a sus perros,...

Depuis sa mort en 1898 sous le couteau d'un anarchiste, Elisabeth d'Autriche est devenue un mythe. Mariée à 16 ans au futur empereur François-Joseph, Elisabeth de Wittelsbach est belle, intelligente, mais devient très vite dépressive et solitaire car elle déteste...

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,...

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, has long been portrayed as one of history's romantically tragic figures. Devious, naive, beautiful and sexually voracious, often highly principled, she secured the Scottish throne and bolstered the position of the Catholic Church in Scotland. Her plotting, including probable...

Les soeurs de Napoléon ont eu une influence beaucoup plus grande qu'on ne le croit généralement sur la marche des événements pendant le règne de leur frère. « Tout parti périt par les femmes », a dit Michelet ; le régime...

Known as 'the anarchy', the reign of Stephen (1135-1141) saw England plunged into a civil war that illuminated the fatal flaw in the powerful Norman monarchy, that without clear rules ordering succession, conflict between members of William the Conqueror's family were inevitable. But there was another...

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...

Cnut, or Canute, is one of the great 'what ifs' of English history. The Dane who became King of England after a long period of Viking attacks and settlement, his reign could have permanently shifted eleventh-century England's rule to Scandinavia. Stretching his authority across the North Sea to become...