Lacey Baldwin Smith: 9 books

In this engrossing exploration of martyrdom, Lacey Baldwin Smith takes us on a riveting journey through history as he examines one of the most baffling characteristics of the human species: its willingness to die to sanctify a deity, to defend a cause, or simply to prove a point. In telling the stories...

The Henry VIII of popular legend and historical fiction is a bacchanalian figure of gargantuan proportions. Historical fact, however, is another matter. A deeply insecure man constantly in need of reassurance, a ritualist, a prude unsure of his prowess and easily embarrassed by sex - these are the...

The Elizabethan World was a world remade. At the dawn of the sixteenth century, Europe was emerging from an age of ignorance and uncertainty. New lands were being discovered and old ones revitalized. People abandoned the ideals of medieval times to make startling advances in technology, science, and...

At seven oclock on the morning of 13 February 1542, Catherine Howard stepped out into the cold of the great courtyard of the Tower of London. Slowly she was escorted across the yard and carefully helped up the steps of the wooden scaffold. Only a small group of sightseers had gathered to watch the...

Behind nearly every government in England - and sometimes in front of it - has been a lord of Burghley, Exeter, or Salisbury, all of them descended from plain David Cecil, yeoman. Here, in this essay from the eminent historian Lacey Baldwin Smith, is the story of England's second most powerful family, the Cecils.

The story of Anne Boleyn goes to the root of all history; what makes an individual or event memorable to later generations? Anne is an exceptional case for her life was a double helix intertwining extraordinary human drama with profound historical crisis. A young lady of no particular importance or...

Thomas Cromwell, the king’s Principal Secretary, Mark Smeaton, court songster and musician, and Henry VIII are all caught up in Anne Boleyn’s catastrophic fall from power and grisly death. Anne is the supreme opposite of the king’s first wife, Katherine, who dutifully washed her husband’s...

Here at last is a history of England that is designed to entertain as well as inform and that will delight the armchair traveler, the tourist or just about anyone interested in history. No people have engendered quite so much acclaim or earned so much censure as the English: extolled as the Athenians...

"Whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself." This sentiment was first voiced by English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh, but for the British, it was a lesson that came at a great human and economic cost. Here, in this essay, is the story of how England struggled to settle the New World.