Royalty

Robert the Bruce had himself crowned King of Scots at Scone on a frozen March morning in 1306. After years of struggle, Scotland had been reduced to a vassal state by Edward I of England and its people lived in poverty. On the day he seized the crown...

Christmas in Tudor times was a period of feasting, revelry and merrymaking 'to drive the cold winter away'. A carnival atmosphere presided at court, with a twelve-day-long festival of entertainments, pageants, theatre productions and 'disguisings', when...

Four hundred years ago, every barrister had to dance because dancing put them in harmony with the universe. John Ogilby's first job, in 1612, was to teach them. By the 1670s, he was Charles II's Royal Cosmographer, creating beautiful measured drawings...

Through the centuries, succession to the English throne has largely been dictated by blood. Children were born to the role, their destinies entwined with that of the nation. They would be raised with the expectation that they would eventually take their...

'The best account in English of the early years of Elizabeth' Evening Standard A woman in a man's world, Queen Elizabeth I was to become England's most successful ruler. Confident in her destiny, intensely intelligent, passionately sexual yet (she said)...

'The best account in English of the early years of Elizabeth' Evening Standard A woman in a man's world, Queen Elizabeth I was to become England's most successful ruler. Confident in her destiny, intensely intelligent, passionately sexual yet (she said)...

A major new biography of the Black Prince. 'A clear-eyed and thrilling vision of the man behind the legend' DAN JONES. 'Pacy, vivid and extremely readable' TLS. In 1346, at the age of sixteen, he won his spurs at Crecy; nine years later he...

Hugh Despenser the Younger and Edward II tells the story of the greatest villain of the fourteenth century', his dazzling rise as favourite to the king and his disastrous fall. Born in the late 1280s, Hugh married King Edward I of England's eldest...

A thrilling new account of the tragic life and troubled times of Henry VI. 'The best life of Henry VI now in print' DAN JONES. 'Vivid, absorbing and richly detailed' HELEN CASTOR. 'A well-crafted moving account of a tragic reign' MICHAEL JONES. ...

'A delightful insight into an eclectic life'The Daily Telegraph'Very funny and astute . . . a loathly feast for royal-watchers' Hilary Mantel, New Statesman Books of the Year 2018'A complete delight, conjuring up, with a few sharp strokes of the pen, a...

'A delightful insight into an eclectic life'The Daily Telegraph'Very funny and astute . . . a loathly feast for royal-watchers' Hilary Mantel, New Statesman Books of the Year 2018'A complete delight, conjuring up, with a few sharp strokes of the pen, a...

'If a house could gossip, this is the book that Hampton Court would whisper. An enjoyable and readable stroll through 500 years of Hampton Court history: royal residents, common visitors, thieves, invaders and ghosts' PHILIPPA GREGORY ...

"There once is a Queen ever constant to her people..." From the Nation's Favourite Storyteller Sir Michael Morpurgo comes a poetic celebration of our Queen and longest...

"There once is a Queen ever constant to her people..." From the Nation's Favourite Storyteller Sir Michael Morpurgo comes a poetic celebration of our Queen and longest...

Henry II (1133-1189) was an enigma in his own time and has continued to excite widely divergent judgments ever since. His quarrel with Archbishop Becket, his troubled relationships with his sons and with his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and other dramatic...

Fascinating and authoritative of Britain's royal families from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I to Queen Victoria, by leading popular historian Alison Weir 'George III is alleged to have married secretly, on 17th April, 1759, a Quakeress called Hannah Lightfoot...

'A story told with verve and passion' The Times, Book of the Week'An alternative and engaging biography...accessible and unpretentious' The Telegraph'A stunning portrayal of two of the most powerful women in European history' Tracy Borman'Exciting and...

Eleanor of Castile, the remarkable woman behind England's greatest medieval king, Edward I, has been effectively airbrushed from history; yet she had one of the most fascinating lives of any of England's queens. Her childhood was spent in the centre of...

Who invented the 'House of Windsor' as a royal name? Who founded Westminster Abbey? Which king had twenty-one illegitimate children? David Halliam answers all these questions and more. Here is a continuous history of the English monarchy, showing how the...

Based on extensive fresh material and resources, Robert Jobson's biography provides a definitive insight into the extraordinary life of HRH Charles, Prince of Wales as he approaches his seventieth birthday at a watershed in the history of the modern...

'To provide splendid settings for their displays of majesty, kings had great halls built, and none more so than Rufus' William II, or William Rufus, son and successor to William the Conqueror, is most famous for his death: killed by an arrow while out...

Elizabeth Wydeville, Queen consort to Edward IV, has traditionally been portrayed as a scheming opportunist. But was she a cunning vixen or a tragic wife and mother? As this extraordinary biography shows, the first queen to bear the name Elizabeth lived...

An intensely moving account of George III's doomed attempt to create a happy, harmonious family, written with astonishing emotional force by a stunning new history writer. George III came to the throne in 1760 as a man with a mission. He was...

An exploration of the British monarchy from the retreat of the Romans up until the modern day. This compendium volume of two earlier books is fully revised and updated. The monarchy is one of Britain's most revered institutions - but also one...

A year after Richard III's death, a boy claiming to be a Yorkist prince appeared as if from nowhere, claiming to be Richard III's heir and the rightful King of England. In 1487, in a unique ceremony, this boy was crowned in Dublin Cathedral, despite the...

Henry V is regarded as the great English hero. Lionised in his own day for his victory at Agincourt, his piety and his rigorous application of justice, he was elevated by Shakespeare into a champion of English nationalism for all future generations. But...

Henry V is regarded as the great English hero. Lionised in his own day for his victory at Agincourt, his piety and his rigorous application of justice, he was elevated by Shakespeare into a champion of English nationalism for all future generations. But...

Heirs of Ambition: The Making of the Boleyns uncovers the story and the family behind England's most obsessed-over queen, Anne Boleyn.From the fields of Norfolk to the royal court, via city commerce, local government, liberal education and numerous...

A beautifully illustrated companion to the Royal family throughout historySpanning ten dynasties of England's monarchs, The Kings and Queens of England presents portraits and potted biographies of England's monarchs. Spanning from the Normans through to...

A beautifully illustrated companion to the Royal family throughout historySpanning ten dynasties of England's monarchs, The Kings and Queens of England presents portraits and potted biographies of England's monarchs. Spanning from the Normans through to...

'Here is the English sovereign as a crusader, battling on the fringes of the known world; the warrior-king ... imbued with the heart of a lion'Even within his own lifetime Richard I, dubbed the 'Lionheart', attained a kind of semi-mythical status as a...

The first in a groundbreaking two-volume history of Henry III's rule "Professor Carpenter is one of Britain's foremost medievalists. . . . No one knows more about Henry, and a lifetime of scholarship is here poured out, elegantly and often humorously...

The first biography of the rebel baron who deposed and murdered Edward II.One night in August 1323 a captive rebel baron, Sir Roger Mortimer, drugged his guards and escaped from the Tower of London. With the king's men-at-arms in pursuit he fled to the...

'Most contemporaries would have argued that it was a king's job to put in peril his soul for the good of his Church and of his people. But Henry was too determined to live a life of a saint'Henry III, the son of King John, was catapulted onto the...

WITH NEW AFTERWORD FROM THE AUTHOR.When you're the most famous woman in the world, can you really love in secret?When Princess Diana flew to Pakistan in May 1997, she went to meet the family of Dr Hasnat Khan, the man she wanted to marry. One of the most...

The subject of a BBC TV series on Charles I The prize-winning biography of Charles I * Winner of the HWA Crown for Best Work of Historical Non-Fiction 2018 ** Times Book of the Year ** Shortlisted for the Catholic Herald Biography Award 2019 *Less than...

The Times Book of the Year*Winner of the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, 2022**Winner of the General Society of Colonial Wars' Distinguished Book Award, 2021**Winner of the History Reclaimed Book of the Year, 2022**Shortlisted for the...

'What a fabulous book - a must for any royal watcher! It's elegant, stylish and gloriously illustrated. I didn't want it to end. I loved the original and innovative approach to the subject, and the new insights I gained. I cannot recommend it highly...

How did the most wanted man in the country outwit the greatest manhunt in British history? In January 1649, King Charles I was beheaded in London outside his palace of Whitehall and Britain became a republic. When his eldest son, Charles,...

For more than 70 years until his death on 9 April 2021, Prince Philip was the Queen's constant companion and support, but his vital role in the monarchy too often went largely unnoticed. Now, in Ingrid Seward's superb new biography of the Duke of...