Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 1994-05
Dewey code: 941.0099
Price: £14.99
Review Kings and Queens of England and Great Britain / David & Charles PLC:
Edition: Reprint
Publication date: 1998-07-01
Dewey code: 941.085092
Price: £4.46
Review The Royals / Warner Books:
Publication date: 2009-01-01
RRP: £8.99
Price: £6.99
Review Elizabeth, The Queen / Vintage:Elizabeth I survived to become queen by being very careful. The fact that she avoided being used or implicated by the various plots against her radically Protestant brother Henry VIII, and fanatically Catholic sister Mary I, was a triumph in itself, and she never forgot the lesson that survival needed to be her first goal. What many of her contemporaries took for irritating womanly indecision was a refusal to be hurried; some situations change and some go away, but you can never escape the consequences of your actions-she protected Mary, Queen of Scots for as long as she could. Alison Weir's new biography covers the facts well enough, but she understands Elizabeth's situation imaginatively, and that is what makes her book special. Elizabeth not only overcame the misogyny of the world she lived in-she exploited it; Weir's own feminism gives her insights into the canny role-playing that was so crucial to Elizabeth's chameleon nature. Everything had to be policy from wigs and fans to rack and gallows; this is a biography which understands not only what happened, but how it seemed and felt at the time. This is an excellent conclusion to Weir's series of Tudor biographies-popular history which brings good sense to bear on scholarly fact. -Roz Kaveney.
Edition: Reprint
Publication date: 2008-05-20
Dewey code: 941.0099
RRP: £8.99
Price: £4.24
Review On Royalty: A Very Polite Inquiry into Some Strangely Related Families / PublicAffairs,U.S.:
Creator: Patricia Hodge
Publication date: 2003-01-20
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £13.99
Price: £7.95
Review Elizabeth / HarperCollins Audio:The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, Good Queen Bess; Elizabeth I holds a unique place in the English imagination as one of the nation's most powerful, charismatic and successful monarchs. Elizabeth is usually imagined as the icy, untouchable figure memorably recreated on screen by Bette Davis and Judi Dench, but that vision of Elizabeth ignores the turbulent years of her early life, from her birth as the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn in 1533, until her accession to the throne in 1558 following the death of her sister Mary. It is these early years which are the subject of David Starkey's fascinating Elizabeth I, written to accompany his television series about the life of Elizabeth. Starkey argues that in her first 25 years Elizabeth "had experienced every vicissitude of fortune and ever extreme of condition. She had been Princess and inheritrix of England, and bastard and disinherited; the nominated successor to the throne and an accused traitor on the verge of execution; showered with lands and houses and a prisoner in the Tower". He draws on his skills as a respected Tudor historian to produce a deft account of the religious, political and dynastic maelstrom of mid-16th century England that reads "like a historical thriller". The book carefully picks its way through the finer points of contemporary religious conflict and the peculiarities of Tudor court ceremony, whilst also exploring the formation of Elizabeth's character in relation to a murdered mother, a charismatic father, a tortured sister, and a predatory guardian. Highly readable and written with verve and pace, this is a fascinating account of the young Elizabeth. -Jerry Brotton.
Publication date: 2000-04-13
Dewey code: 392.5086210942
RRP: £48.00
Price: £8.99
Review The Marrying of Anne of Cleves: Royal Protocol in Early Modern England / Cambridge University Press:
Publication date: 1992-10-15
RRP: £17.99
Price: £84.58
Review The Princes in the Tower / The Bodley Head Ltd:
Edition: Rev Ed
Publication date: 2001-02-22
Dewey code: 941.105092
RRP: £10.99
Price: £5.60
Review Mary, Queen of Scots: Politics, Passion and a Kingdom Lost (Tauris Parke Paperbacks) / Tauris Parke Paperbacks:
Publication date: 1998-01-01
Dewey code: 746.92092
RRP: £19.95
Price: £27.88
Review Catherine Walker: Fit for a Princess / Universe Publishing (Incorporated, Div. of Rizzoli:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 1999-06-24
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £10.99
Price: £10.98
Review Two Queens in One Isle: The Deadly Relationship of Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots / Sutton Publishing Ltd:
Authors
- Mark Saunders
- Glenn Harvey
Dewey code: 770.922
RRP: £20.00
Price: £9.24
Review Diana and the Paparazzi / John Blake Publishing Ltd:
Edition: New title
Publication date: 2002-08-12
Dewey code: 942.05092
RRP: £20.00
Price: £10.69
Review Elizabeth Woodville / The History Press Ltd:
Edition: New title
Publication date: 2001-11-16
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £7.99
Price: £3.61
Review St Margaret: Queen of Scotland / John Donald Publishers Ltd:
Publication date: 1999-10-13
Dewey code: 942.053092
RRP: £26.00
Price: £22.49
Review Edward VI (Yale English Monarchs) / Yale University Press:
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2000-08-04
Dewey code: 941
RRP: £10.95
Price: £1.99
Review George IV (Yale English Monarchs) / Yale University Press:What becomes of a controversial Prince of Wales, embroiled in a messy marital separation in which popular opinion thinks the wife virtuous and wronged and the husband an adulterer? Charles, the current Prince of Wales, could do well to read this study of George, Prince Regent in the 1810s and king himself-acceding to the throne at the age of 58-from 1820 to 1830. He might not find the experience too unpleasant either: where previous biographies and studies have tended to characterise George as "dissolute, pleasure-loving dilettante and a feeble, ineffective monarch", Smith sets out to tell the whole story, and gives us his strengths as well as his weaknesses. The business with his wife, Caroline, for instance: although George did have a mistress, and the Princess of Wales was extremely popular, the marriage had genuinely broken down and there were many instances of George's kindness to his estranged wife. George's spendthrift nature had a good side too, in his patronage of many arts and artists. Smith is able to show that many of the brickbats hurled at his reputation were hangovers from his wilder youth and don't reflect his later maturity. Indeed, Smith's is the first biography of George to deal comprehensively with the fuller political context of the man's life and reign. This will surely become the classic account of George as king. -Adam Roberts.
Publication date: 2006-09-30
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £19.99
Price: £7.84
Review Mary Tudor: The Tragical History of the First Queen of England / The National Archives:
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 1999-03-25
Dewey code: 940
RRP: £8.99
Price: £3.52
Review Queen Victoria's Gene: Haemophilia and the Royal Family (Pocket Biographies): Haemophilia and the Royal Family (Pocket Biographies) / The History Press Ltd:
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2004-11-18
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £8.99
Price: £192.80
Review Elizabeth Woodville / The History Press Ltd:
Creator: Mark Fiennes
Edition: New title
Publication date: 2001-04-02
Dewey code: 941.105092
RRP: £19.95
Price: £13.15
Review Mary Queen of Scots / Thames & Hudson Ltd:Susan Watkins' lavishly illustrated biography Mary Queen of Scots vividly brings to life one of the most tragic and romantic figures of the Elizabethan era. In many ways Mary's life was even more colourful than that of her English cousin Elizabeth. Crowned as Queen of Scotland in 1542 when she was just six-days-old, Mary found herself married to the heir to the French throne, the future Francis II, by the age of 14 and Queen of both Scotland and France by the age of 16. Watkins elegantly recaptures Mary's upbringing in the cultured French court, her relations with her formidable mother-in-law Catherine de' Medici and how her "education was to equip her with all the graces, learning and skills befitting a Queen of France, which meant removing every trace of the child's Scottish inheritance". The tragic death of Francis in 1560 led Mary to return to Scotland, where she became embroiled in an intense and ultimately doomed period of political infighting and romantic turmoil. Having experienced the murder of one husband, violence and abuse at the hands of a second, exile from her kingdom and separation from her son, the future King James I, "Mary was to spend the remaining 18 years and three months of her life in England as a prisoner", desperately attempting to hang onto both her crown and her life. Executed for the very real threat she posed to Elizabeth's crown, Mary "continued-as she still does-to hold a prominent position in the world's imagination. The martyr becomes a tragedienne, a heroine and later the subject of romance". Watkins tells her story with pace and verve and the book's 194 colour illustrations dazzlingly evoke the world that created but also finally killed Scotland's greatest queen. -Jerry Brotton.
Creator: Jonathan North
Edition: New title
Publication date: 2005-06-30
Dewey code: 942.053092
RRP: £14.99
Price: £26.36
Review England's Boy King: The Diary of Edward VI, 1547-1553 / Ravenhall Books:
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Kings and Queens of England and Great Britain, The Royals, Elizabeth, The Queen, On Royalty: A Very Polite Inquiry into Some Strangely Related Families, Elizabeth, The Marrying of Anne of Cleves: Royal Protocol in Early Modern England, The Princes in the Tower, Mary, Queen of Scots: Politics, Passion and a Kingdom Lost (Tauris Parke Paperbacks), Catherine Walker: Fit for a Princess, Two Queens in One Isle: The Deadly Relationship of Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, Diana and the Paparazzi, Elizabeth Woodville, St Margaret: Queen of Scotland, Edward VI (Yale English Monarchs), George IV (Yale English Monarchs), Mary Tudor: The Tragical History of the First Queen of England, Queen Victoria's Gene: Haemophilia and the Royal Family (Pocket Biographies): Haemophilia and the Royal Family (Pocket Biographies), Elizabeth Woodville, Mary Queen of Scots, England's Boy King: The Diary of Edward VI, 1547-1553 |
