Mary stands firm against her father’s determination to destroy both her mother’s reputation, and the Catholic church. It is a battle that will last throughout both her father’s and her brother’s reign, until, she is almost broken by persecution. When King Edward falls ill and dies Mary expects to be crowned queen. But she has reckoned without John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, who before Mary can act, usurps her crown and places it on the head of her Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey. Furious and determined not to be beaten, Mary musters a vast army at Framlingham Castle; a force so strong that Jane Grey’s supporters crumble in the face of it, and Mary is at last crowned Queen of England. But her troubles are only just beginning. Rebellion and heresy take their toll both on Mary’s health, and on the English people. Suspecting she is fatally ill, and desperate to save her people from heresy, Mary steps up her campaign to compel her subjects to turn back to the Catholic faith. All who resist will face punishment for heresy in the flames of the Smithfield fires.

    Beyond a large dowry, he is seeking a virtuous and dutiful wife. Neither he nor Alyce expect more from marriage than mutual courtesy and respect.As the King of Spain launches his great armada and England braces for invasion, Alyce must confront closer dangers from both her own and Thomas’s past, threats that could not only destroy her hopes of love and happiness but her life. And Thomas is powerless to help.

    For centuries the Scottish and English borders were known as the Debatable lands: wild, lawless, and the province of reivers, tight-knit robber families that roamed and pillaged the remote passes without fear...Fifteen-year-old Mintie Henderson has just seen her father murdered. With the Scottish King newly dead and an army of hired reivers on the march, justice is in short supply. Then she comes across Batty Coalhouse: one-armed and hard as nails. Together they will set out on a journey of revenge.But they are soon caught up in something bigger, a tale of Mary Queen of Scots and King Henry VIII. Stuck in the heart of a tempest, they know only one way to get out alive…Fight.

    A few among the Scottish nobles, for both political and religious reasons, are eager for this alliance too. They kill Cardinal Beaton, who is Mary’s great protector, and take St Andrews Castle, expecting rescue any day from England.For a sister and brother – spirited Bethia, living outside the castle in St Andrews, and Will among the rebels inside the castle – the long siege becomes a fight for survival. But it’s also a struggle over loyalties and the choices they each must make: whether to save their family, or follow their hearts…This debut novel closely follows the tumultuous events of the siege of St Andrews Castle, and its dramatic re-takingRunner up SAW Barbara Hammond TrophyFinalist Wishing Shelf Book Awards

    Tracking the politicization of male homosexuality in Renaissance Florence, Amsterdam, Paris, and London between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, and twentieth-century New York City, Chitty shows how sexuality became a crucial dimension of the accumulation of capital and a technique of bourgeois rule. Whether policing male sodomy during the Medici rule in Florence or accusing the French aristocracy of monstrous sexuality in the wake of the French Revolution, the bourgeoisie weaponized both sexual constraint and sexual freedom in order to produce and control a reliable and regimented labor class and subordinate it to civil society and the state. Only by grasping sexuality as a field of social contention and the site of class conflict, Chitty contends, can we embark on a politics that destroys sexuality as a tool and effect of power, and open a front against the forces that keep us unfree.

    Her unlikely champion becomes a national hero, sailing around the world in the Golden Hind and attacking the Spanish fleet.King Philip of Spain has enough of Drake’s plunder and orders an armada to threaten the future of England.Reader Reviews:Riches has a way of portraying history in a manner that is highly engaging. I could not put this book down. The descriptions of those treacherous sea journeys where often Drake was faced with disaster, danger and heartbreak were so vivid I had a tear in my eye on more than one occasion. Amy, Book BloggerThe sweeping narrative, the poetic prose and the vivid sense of time and place made this story not only a gripping read, but it really did feel like I had been transported back in time. The setting was so vivid that I fancied I could feel the rolling deck under my feet. I could hear the splash of the waves as it crashed against the bow of the ship. This is a book that fooled my senses into believing that what I was reading was actually happening, and that is something that I always look for in a novel.The Coffee Pot Book Club

    Her last musician, Juan de Granada, refuses to depart with the other servants, forcing two functionaries of the Holy Office of the Inquisition to interrogate him in the now-empty palace. But is it really empty? Or is there, as Holy Office suspects, a heretic hidden on the premises, a converso secretly practicing the forbidden rites of Judaism? Only Juan knows the answer, and his subversive tale is at once a ballad of lost love and a last gambit to save a life—and a rich cultural and spiritual tradition on the verge of erasure.

    Resistance from the enslaved started on the western coast of Africa in the 15th century and continued as the institution of slavery was codified in America, culminating with the War between the States.This 300-year struggle has too often been glossed over by history books enamored with American ingenuity, Manifest Destiny, and tales of Revolutionary freedom. But to understand America - to fully understand our country today - one must examine the whole history of struggle, oppression, and resistance, not only by famous figures like Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman, but also by an enormous and often unfamiliar cast of characters, including:The “saltwater slaves” who revolted aboard slave ships; Phibbah Thistlewood, a woman who made the best of her situation to bridge the gap between her master and her fellow slaves; David Walker, Nat Turner, and other figures calling for immediate, urgent action; andNorthern Quakers who changed the political tide. What these disparate figures had in common was they gradually coalesced into a movement. Individuals gradually organized, and then the abolitionist movement led to war which led, in theory, to freedom. America’s Long Struggle Against Slavery is your chance to survey the history of the American anti-slavery movement, from the dawn of the transatlantic slave trade during the late 15th century to the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and beyond. Taught by Professor Richard Bell of the University of Maryland, these 30 eye-opening lectures give you an up-close view of a venal institution and the people who fought against it - and who often paid for their courage with their lives.This Great Course is a must-have for scholars and history buffs alike. As Professor Bell examines the different means and methods that Americans, white and black, have used to escape slavery, he presents the grand problems that animated everyone engaged in this great struggle.

    With overviews of each key period and detailed illustrations for each new style, How to Read a Suit is an authoritative visual guide to the under-explored area of men's fashion across four centuries. Each entry includes annotated color images of historical garments, outlining important features and highlighting how styles have developed over time, whether in shape, fabric choice, trimming, or undergarments. Readers will learn how garments were constructed and where their inspiration stemmed from at key points in history – as well as how menswear has varied in type, cut, detailing and popularity according to the occasion and the class, age and social status of the wearer. This lavishly illustrated book is the ideal tool for anyone who has ever wanted to know their Chesterfield from their Ulster coat. Equipping the reader with all the information they need to 'read' menswear, this is the ultimate guide for students, researchers, and anyone interested in historical fashion.

    

    Tapestries, embroideries, carpets, and hangings were more highly esteemed than paintings and other forms of decorative art. Indeed, in 16th-century Europe, fine textiles were so costly that they were out of reach for average citizens, and even for many nobles.              This spectacularly illustrated book tells the story of textiles during the long Tudor century, from the ascendance of Henry VII in 1485 to the death of his granddaughter Elizabeth I in 1603. It places elaborate tapestries, imported carpets, lavish embroidery, and more within the context of religious and political upheavals of the Tudor court, as well as the expanding world of global trade, including previously unstudied encounters between the New World and the Elizabethan court. Special attention is paid to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, a magnificent two-week festival—and unsurpassed display of golden textiles—held in 1520. Even half a millennium later, such extraordinary works remain Tudor society’s strongest projection of wealth, taste, and ultimately power.

    Her quest, exploring the life of one of the most creative artists who ever lived, turns more personal than she expects, taking her into the sources of her own creativity and musicality. From a deeply musical family herself, Padel’s parents met through music, and she grew up playing chamber music on viola – Beethoven’s instrument as a child. Her father’s grandfather, a concert pianist born on the German–Danish border, studied in Leipzig with a friend of Beethoven before immigrating to the UK. The poems in this illuminating biography in verse conjure not only Beethoven’s life and personality, but her own music-making and love both of the European music-making tradition to which her father’s family belongs, and to the continent itself Europe.

    Amongst his descendants are his granddaughters, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, and his great-granddaughter, Elizabeth I. The foundations of this dramatic and influential dynasty rest on Thomas' shoulders, and it was his career that placed the Howard family in a prominent position in English society and at the Tudor royal court.Thomas was born into a fairly ordinary gentry family, albeit distantly related to the Mowbray dukes of Norfolk. During the course of the fifteenth century, he and his father would rise through the political and social ranks as a result of their loyal service to Edward IV and Richard III. In a tragic turn of events, all their hard work was undone at the Battle of Bosworth and his father was killed fighting for King Richard. Imprisoned for treason and stripped of his lands and titles, Thomas had to start from the beginning to gain the trust of a new king. He spent the next thirty-five years devoting his administrative, military and diplomatic skills to the Tudors whilst rebuilding his family fortunes and ensuring that his numerous children were well-placed to prosper.

     The Awakening traces the recovery and refashioning of Europe's classical heritage from the ruins of the Roman Empire. The process of preservation of surviving texts, fragile at first, was strengthened under the Christian empire founded by Charlemagne in the eighth century; later, during the High Middle Ages, universities were founded and the study of philosophy was revived. Renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman thought provided the intellectual impetus for the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, whose ideas – aesthetic, political and scientific – were disseminated across Europe by the invention of the printing press. Equally momentous was Europe's encounter with the New World, and the resulting maritime supremacy which conferred global reach on Europe's merchants and colonists. Vivid in detail and informed by the latest scholarship, The Awakening is powered not by the fate of kings or the clash of arms but by deeper currents of thought, inquiry and discovery, which first recover and then surpass the achievements of classical antiquity, and lead the West to the threshold of the Age of Reason. Charles Freeman takes the reader on an enthralling journey, and provides us with a vital key to understanding the world we live in today.

    Royal Seals is an introduction to the seals of the kings and queens of England, Scotland and latterly the United Kingdom, as well as the Church and nobility.Ranging from Medieval times to modern day, it uses images of impressive wax seals held at The National Archives to show the historical importance of these beautiful works of art.Included are features on the great seals of famous monarchs like Richard III, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and twentieth-century monarchs, as well as insights on the role of seals in treaties and foreign policy.With ecclesiastical seals and those of the nobility and lower orders included, this is a comprehensive and lavishly illustrated guide.

    . . showcases a complete mastery of this dark fantasy genre." --Midwest Book ReviewIn 1014 AD, Nieve, a young Irish woman, nurses wounded Fintan, a mysterious foreigner fighting for the Irish at the Battle of Clontarf. From this point on, their fates are intertwined as they attempt to navigate secrets, supernatural beings, a rival for Nieve's affection . . . in addition to their own conflicted feelings for one another. Over five-hundred years later, in 1563, the Black Death descends on the kingdom of Queen Elizabeth I. She welcomes into her court at Windsor Castle, a man, Phineas Varga, who offers protection. However, the young queen soon finds that his strategy includes the use of gargoyles . . . for she and her kingdom are to be defended against something far worse than the plague. England and all mankind are at the mercy of the revenant should those most ancient and evil have their way. Phineas, too, has his secrets, secrets that shaped who he is and who he will become. In his quest to rid Europe of the foul revenant, he is joined by a young, eager apprentice, a gargoyle warrior, a female assassin of a strange guild, and others who seek to find the source of the revenant outbreak. It is only when mysteries are revealed, and tragedy occurs that the reader discovers why five-hundred years is but a short time for some.Today, the revenant is known by its most popular name . . . that of . . . vampire.

    If we believe that Turks and Jews have lived in harmony for so long, then how can we believe that the Turks could have committed genocide against the Armenians? Marc David Baer confronts these convictions and circumstances to reflect on what moral responsibility the descendants of the victims of one genocide have to the descendants of victims of another. Baer delves into the history of Muslim-Jewish relations in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey to find the origin of these many tangled truths. He aims to bring about reconciliation between Jews, Muslims, and Christians, not only to face inconvenient historical facts but to confront it and come to terms. By looking at the complexities of interreligious relations, Holocaust denial, genocide and ethnic cleansing, and confronting some long-standing historical stereotypes, Baer sets out to tell a new history that goes against Turkish antisemitism and admits to the Armenian genocide.

    1535-1625) was the daughter of minor Lombard aristocrats who made the unprecedented decision to have her trained as a painter outside the family house. She went on to serve as an instructor to Isabel of Valois, the young queen of Spain. Sofonisba's Lesson sheds new light on Sofonisba's work, offering a major reassessment of a Renaissance painter who changed the image of women's education in Europe--and who transformed Western attitudes about who could be an artist.In this gorgeously illustrated book, Michael Cole demonstrates how teaching and learning were central themes of Sofonisba's art, which shows women learning to read, play chess, and paint. He looks at how her painting challenged conventional ideas about the teaching of young girls, and also discusses her place in the history of the amateur, a new Renaissance type. Cole examines Sofonisba's relationships with the group of people for whom her work was important--her father Amilcare, her teacher Bernardino Campi, the men and women who sought to be associated with her, and her sisters and the other young women who followed her path.Sofonisba's Lesson concludes with an illustrated catalog of the more than two hundred paintings and drawings that writers have associated with Sofonisba over the past 450 years, with a full report of modern scholarly opinion on each.

     Leonardo da Vinci was a revolutionary thinker, artist, and inventor who has been written about and celebrated for centuries. Lesser known, however, is his revolutionary and empowering portrayal of the modern female centuries before the first women's liberation movements. Before da Vinci, portraits of women in Italy were still, impersonal, and mostly shown in profile. Leonardo pushed the boundaries of female depiction having several of his female subjects, including his Mona Lisa, gaze at the viewer, giving them an authority which was withheld from women at the time. Art historian and journalist Kia Vahland recounts Leonardo's entire life from April 15, 1452, as a child born out of wedlock in Vinci up through his death on May 2, 1519, in the French castle of von Cloux. Included throughout are 80 sketches and paintings showcasing Leonardo's approach to the female form (including anatomical sketches of birth) and other artwork as well as examples from other artists from the 15th and 16th centuries. Vahland explains how artists like Raphael, Giorgione, and the young Titan were influenced by da Vinci's women while Michelangelo, da Vinci's main rival, created masculine images of woman that counters Leonardo's depictions.