Royalty category: 1453 books

Legend and lore surround the history of kings Richard and John, from the ballads of Robin Hood and the novels of Sir Walter Scott to Hollywood movies. Frank McLynn has returned to the original sources to discover what Richard and John, the warring sons of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, were really...

A lively and poignant biography of the young princess who, at the impressionable age of eleven, found that she was now heiress to the throne, by the New York Times bestselling author of Becoming Queen Victoria. We can hardly imagine a Britain without Elizabeth II on the throne. It seems to...

'After my death,' George V said of his eldest son and heir, 'the boy will ruin himself within twelve months.' The forecast proved uncannily accurate. Edward VIII came to the throne in January 1936, provoked a constitutional crisis by his determination to marry the American divorcée Wallis...

A lively, opinionated biography of the queen, and a vivid portrait of nineteenth-century England, from a literary icon. ‘You call me the little Queen,’ she told her uncle the King of the Belgians; ‘my body is little, but my heart is not.’ Edith Sitwell’s endearing portrait...

Like his mother Queen Victoria, Edward VII defined an era. Both reflected the personalties of their central figures: hers grand, imperial and pretty stiff; his no less grand, but much more relaxed and enjoyable. This book conveys Edward's distinct personality and significant influences. To the despair...

The land on which the Dome of the Rock now stands is hallowed ground to three of the world's major religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. On this site originally stood a Jewish temple that was rebuilt as a Roman one and is now home to an Islamic shrine. The obvious ties of all three cultures...

Recreating the turbulent life of one of the most exciting women in European medieval history, this biography reveals a peculiarly "modern" queen Eleanor of Aquitaine was the only person ever to sit on the thrones of both France and England. This account of the adventures of the extraordinary...

The kings and queens of England have an enduring hold over the cultural psyche of the British. Whether it’s William the Conqueror’s slaying of Harold Godwinson, King John’s mythic badness, or Henry VIII’s readiness to behead his unfortunate wives, these monarchs hold both legendary and symbolic...

Before his death in 1216, King John's desperate exploitation of his subjects for ever more money had turned him into the mythical monster of Hollywood legend. In contrast to his brother Richard, he appeared incompetent in battle, failing to defend Normandy (1202–04), and was unsuccessful in recovering...

This compelling new biography provides the most authoritative picture yet of King Stephen, whose reign (1135–1154), with its “nineteen long winters” of civil war, made his name synonymous with failed leadership. After years of work on the sources, Edmund King shows with rare clarity the strengths...

Reveals the dark side of England's most celebrated monarchWhen people think of Richard the Lionheart they recall the scene at the end of every Robin Hood epic when he returns from the crusade to punish his treacherous brother John and the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham. In reality Richard detested England...

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...

Frank Barlow's magisterial biography, first published in 1970 and now reissued with new material, rescues Edward the Confessor from contemporary myth and subsequent bogus scholarship. Disentangling verifiable fact from saintly legend, he vividly re-creates the final years of the Anglo-Danish monarchy...

In My End Is My Beginning is the story of Mary Queen of Scots (1542-87), the tragic heroine par excellence. Queen of an unfamiliar and troubled nation when she was a week old, it was her misfortune to be a pawn in the game of international politics throughout her life. Even in the brief period from...