Edition: New title
Publication date: 2005-11-08
Dewey code: 941.102092
RRP: £8.99
Price: £5.99
Review Queen Margaret of Scotland / NMSE - Publishing Ltd:
Publication date: 1991-05-01
Price: £20.00
Review Henry VIII: Royal Meridian - A European Court in England / Collins & Brown:
Publication date: 2001-06-01
RRP: £20.00
Price: £6.82
Review Henry VIII King and Court / Jonathan Cape:Henry VIII (1491-1547) casts a long shadow over English royalty and biography alike. In Henry VIII: King and Court, Alison Weir takes on this forbidding reputation to produce an admirably detailed, if somewhat cumbersome, biography of a king who married six times and presided over England's cataclysmic split with Roman Catholicism. Weir's main task is to overturn the "caricature" of Henry "as a man who thought of nothing but chasing the ladies, and who threw chicken bones over his shoulder". This seems a rather obvious characterisation to challenge, but Weir proceeds to amass an extraordinary wealth of detail about Henry's cultivated court, from its learning, architecture and political machinations, to how many people handled Henry's bedsheets and the food that his horses ate. The early sections get bogged down in too much detail, and detract from the political drama of Henry's growing estrangement from his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, and his fateful marriage to Anne Boleyn in 1532. The second section is much more convincing in tracing how "the young, idealist humanist with liberal ideas about kingship was giving way to a selfish, dogmatic tyrant", as Henry dispenses with Wolsey, Sir Thomas More, Anne and then Cromwell, and the court increasingly sinks into factionalism and intrigue. Weir's biography is a lively recreation of the everyday life of Henry, his court and what he called his "ill-conditioned wives", but it neglects the wider European dimensions of Henry's reign, and sweeps over many crucial aspects of the split with Rome. Detailed and scholarly, Henry VIII: King and Court provides a strangely colourless portrait of the most colourful of English monarchs. -Jerry Brotton.
Edition: St Martin's Griffin Ed
Publication date: 1999-12-01
Dewey code: 941.0810922
Price: £12.99
Review Victoria's Daughters / Saint Martin's Press Inc.:
Creator: Laura Parker
Publication date: 2004-12-30
Dewey code: 942.055092
RRP: £2.65
Price: £0.07
Review Elizabeth I - Internet Referenced (Usborne Beginners) / Usborne Books:
Publication date: 1994-09-19
Price: £14.99
Review The Sex Lives of the Kings and Queens of England: From Henry VIII to the Present Day / Prion Books Ltd:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 1991-05-16
Price: £14.99
Review Henry VIII: A European Court in England / Collins & Brown:
Edition: 07
Publication date: 2007-06-01
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.79
Review Elizabeth Fortune's Bastard? / The History Press LTD:
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2003-02-21
Dewey code: 942.037092
RRP: £19.99
Price: £12.88
Review Edward, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine: A Biography of the Black Prince / The Boydell Press:
Publication date: 2007-03-14
Dewey code: 942.051092
RRP: £8.99
Price: £3.51
Review The History of the Reign of King Henry VII (Hesperus Non-Fiction) / Hesperus Press Ltd:
Creator: Isla Blair
Publication date: 2003-03-17
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £15.99
Price: £6.45
Review Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens / HarperCollins Audio:Jane Dunn's double biography Elizabeth and Mary takes as its rich and explosive subject matter the ultimately fatal relationship between Queen Elizabeth I of England and her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots. Throughout much of the second half of the 16th century, these two women found themselves queens of their kingdoms and locked in a battle for possession of the British Isles, which only ended with Mary's eventual downfall and execution at Elizabeth's hands in 1586. As Dunn points out in her meticulous and compelling recreation of the complex relationship between the two women, "from that one act of regicide, a queen killing a fellow queen, has spun a mythology of justification, romance, accusation, and blame that retains its force right to the present day. " Her approach attempts to avoid myth and romance and understand the complex bond that existed between the two women. Elizabeth, the apparent victor, "was haunted by a deep-rooted insecurity as to her own legitimacy", while Mary was pursued by claims of sexual excess and immersion in murderous plots against husbands and enemies, variously seen as "a wronged Madonna or a murderous jezebel. " Dunn elegantly follows the ups and downs of both monarchs as they strive for political power. Mary's tumultuous reign as Queen of Scotland is particularly well handled, as is Elizabeth's agonised vacillation over her decision to execute Mary. In the end, death triumphed over both, and ensured that each was "elevated to an idealised majesty" for very different reasons. Dunn has marshalled an impressive body of evidence that never overwhelms this psychologically nuanced account of these two remarkable women. -Jerry Brotton.
Publication date: 2007-08-09
Dewey code: 942.052092
RRP: £4.99
Price: £0.01
Review Henry VIII (Very Interesting People) / OUP Oxford:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2003-06-02
Dewey code: 941
RRP: £7.99
Price: £0.79
Review All the Queen's Men / Sutton Publishing Ltd:
Publication date: 1983
Dewey code: 941.0850924
RRP: £8.00
Price: £22.95
Review Royal Service: My Twelve Years As Valet to Prince Charles / Macmillan Pub Co:
Publication date: 2002-06-03
Dewey code: 941.085092
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.28
Review God Save the Queen? / Icon Books Ltd:
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2003-08-15
Dewey code: 900
RRP: £13.95
Price: £13.14
Review Henry I (Yale English Monarchs) / Yale University Press:
Publication date: 2006-12-20
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £7.75
Price: £5.84
Review Queen Victoria / 1st World Library, Ltd:
Publication date: 2004-11-01
Dewey code: 821.4
RRP: £25.00
Price: £12.89
Review A Profane Wit: The Life of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester / University of Rochester Press:
Publication date: 2004-06-25
Dewey code: 941.085092
RRP: £18.00
Price: £3.50
Review Diana: In Pursuit of Love / Michael O'Mara Books:
Edition: 1st American trade pbk. e.
Publication date: 1999-12-05
Dewey code: 942.055092
Price: £9.10
Review Life of Elizabeth I, The / Ballantine Bks.,U.S.:
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Queen Margaret of Scotland, Henry VIII: Royal Meridian - A European Court in England, Henry VIII King and Court, Victoria's Daughters, Elizabeth I - Internet Referenced (Usborne Beginners), The Sex Lives of the Kings and Queens of England: From Henry VIII to the Present Day, Henry VIII: A European Court in England, Elizabeth Fortune's Bastard?, Edward, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine: A Biography of the Black Prince, The History of the Reign of King Henry VII (Hesperus Non-Fiction), Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens, Henry VIII (Very Interesting People), All the Queen's Men, Royal Service: My Twelve Years As Valet to Prince Charles, God Save the Queen?, Henry I (Yale English Monarchs), Queen Victoria, A Profane Wit: The Life of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, Diana: In Pursuit of Love, Life of Elizabeth I, The |
