Royalty category: 1453 books

Born in 1883, King Faisal I of Iraq was a seminal figure not only in the founding of the state of Iraq but also in the making of the modern Middle East. In all the tumult leading to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of new Arab states, Faisal was a central player. His life traversed each of the important political, military, and intellectual developments of his times.

Married at 17 to the grandson of a confirmed lunatic and widowed at 20, Catherine Parr chose a Yorkshire lord twice her age as her second husband. Caught up in the turbulent terrors of the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536, she was captured by northern rebels, held hostage, and suffered violence at their...

As the son of Mary Queen of Scots, born into her 'bloody nest', James had the most precarious of childhoods. Even before his birth, his life was threatened: it was rumoured that his father, Henry, had tried to make the pregnant Mary miscarry by forcing her to witness the assassination of her supposed...

I HAVE to deal, under strict limitations of space, with a long life, almost the whole of its adult period passed in the exercise of sovereignty—a life which is in effect the history of England during forty-five years, abounding at the same time in personal interest, and the subject, both in its...

The study of history, like the study of a landscape, should begin with the most conspicuous features. Not until these have been fixed in memory will the lesser features fall into their appropriate places and assume their right proportions.    The famous men of ancient and modern times are...

Of all the sovereigns that have worn the crown of England, Queen Elizabeth is the most puzzling, the most fascinating, the most blindly praised, and the most unjustly blamed. To make lists of her faults and virtues is easy. One may say with little fear of contradiction that her intellect was magnificent...

The monarchy has made many concessions to the modern age, but the affirming rituals of the coronation – the pageantry, the theatre and the symbolism – are centuries old. Looking at the British coronation from its beginnings, Lucinda Gosling takes the reader on a thematic journey through the history...

On the morning of August 22, 1485, in fields several miles from Bosworth, two armies faced each other, ready for battle. The might of Richard III's army was pitted against the inferior forces of the upstart pretender to the crown, Henry Tudor, a twenty–eight year old Welshman who had just arrived...

The conventional view of Richard III’s defeat at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 is that it was due to a loss of support for him after his usurpation of the throne. However, David Hipshon argues that the result might very well have been in his favor, had not his support for James Harrington...

In 1461 Edward earl of March, an able, handsome, and charming eighteen-year old, usurped the English throne from his feeble Lancastrian predecessor Henry VI. Ten years on, following outbreaks of civil conflict that culminated in him losing, then regaining the crown, he had finally secured his kingdom....

This fully revised edition of Lamb's classic introduction to the last Plantagenet ruler's life coincides with Richard III's reburial in LeicesterIn this classic work, the late V.B. Lamb and Peter Hammond survey the life and times of Richard III and examine the contemporary evidence for the events...

In 2012 Annette Carson formed part of the team that discovered King Richard III's mortal remains, verified in 2013 by forensics including DNA matching. In response to the recent upsurge of interest, her 2009 paperback has been updated with details of the discovery plus new illustrations, and a larger...

Niece to Henry VIII, heir to the throne, courtier at risk of being killed, spy-mistress, and ambitious political player, Lady Margaret Douglas is a vital new character in the Tudor story. Amidst the Christmas revels of 1530, a fifteen-year-old girl arrived at the court of King Henry VIII. Half-English,...

THE DUKE is the biography of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, a celebrity in his own right and yet an enigma still, even after 60 years in the public eye. What is he really like? Bombastic, autocratic, say his critics. Colourful, stimulating, say his admirers. Tim...