Royalty category: 1453 books

Charles II has always been one of the most instantly recognisable British kings - both in his physical appearance, disseminated through endless portraits, prints and pub signs, and in his complicated mix of lasciviousness, cynicism and luxury. His father's execution and his own many years of exile...

First published in 1981, this is Ronald Clark's engagingly readable account of Queen Victoria's relationship with "Our dear Balmoral" and the life that went on there. The biography of Balmoral begins with the first visit to Scotland of the young Queen Victoria and her husband Prince...

This collection, available exclusively as an ebook, brings together two tales of Highclere Castle, the grand estate that serves as the central character for the hit PBS show Downton Abbey, from the current Countess of Carnarvon. A New York Times bestseller, Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey contrasts...

The Spanish armada conjures up images of age-old rivalries, bravery and treachery. however the same Spanish monarch who sent the armada to invade England in 1588 was, just a few years previously, the King of England and husband of Mary Tudor. This important book sheds new light on Philip ii...

Sister to the king of France, queen of Navarre, gifted writer, religious reformer, and patron of the arts—in her many roles, Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549) was one of the most important figures of the French Renaissance. In this, the first major biography in English, Patricia F. Cholakian and...

In 1127 Charles the Good, count of Flanders, was surrounded by assassins while at prayer and killed by a sword blow to the forehead. His murder upset the fragile balance of power between England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire, giving rise to a bloody civil war while impacting the commercial life...

There has never been a more remarkable national leader in modern history than Peter the Great (1672–1725). He was a giant in every way. In physical stature, willpower, enthusiasm, energy, libertinism, and refusal to accept old conventions, he stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries. He...

Richard III, the so-called 'last English King of England' and the wicked uncle of tradition, is the most controversial and enigmatic of monarchs. Could he really have been as sinister as he was painted by Tudor chroniclers and, if he wasn't, why do some historians go on saying that he was? Why is...

This royal historian’s “lively study of the four Georges who sat on the English throne for over a century is a joy” (Jane Austen’s Regency World).   For over one hundred years of turmoil, upheaval, and scandal, Great Britain was a Georgian land. From the day the German-speaking George I stepped...

An authoritative biography of one of the most important figures of the English Reformation who rose from humble beginnings to become Henry VIII's chief minister Thomas Cromwell wielded enormous power while he retained the king's favor, but the failure of Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleves, which Cromwell...

Jane Whorwood was one of Charles I’s closest confidantes. The wife of an Oxfordshire squire, when the court moved to Oxford in 1642, at the start of the Civil War, she helped the royalist cause by spying for the king, and smuggling gold (perhaps as much as 1,000 kg) to help pay for his army. When...

The British monarchy may be over a thousand years old, but the House of Windsor dates only from 1917, when, in the middle of the First World War that was to see the demise of the major thrones of continental Europe, it rebranded itself from the distinctly Germanic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the homely and...

No hive can tolerate two Queens. In the fatal clash between the Protestant Queen of England and the Catholic Queen of Scots, many were determined that 'The death of Mary is the life of Elizabeth'. In this moving chronicle a modern poet magnificently recaptures the splendid colour and sordid...

Sitwell's Fanfare for Elizabeth is a striking account of love, betrayal, and religion as it unfolds in the court of King Henry VIII. Sitwell navigates elegantly through the capricious nature both of Henry's court, and his love life. The youthful hardships of little Elizabeth are played out against...