Runyan masterfully blends fact and fiction to explore the founding of New France through the experiences of three young women who, in 1667, answer Louis XIV’s call and journey to the Canadian colony.They are known as the filles du roi, or “King’s Daughters”—young women who leave prosperous France for an uncertain future across the Atlantic. Their duty is to marry and bring forth a new generation of loyal citizens. Each prospective bride has her reason for leaving—poverty, family rejection, a broken engagement. Despite their different backgrounds, Rose, Nicole, and Elisabeth all believe that marriage to a stranger is their best, perhaps only, chance of happiness.Once in Quebec, Elisabeth quickly accepts baker Gilbert Beaumont, who wants a business partner as well as a wife. Nicole, a farmer’s daughter from Rouen, marries a charming officer who promises comfort and security. Scarred by her traumatic past, Rose decides to take holy vows rather than marry. Yet no matter how carefully she chooses, each will be tested by hardship and heartbreaking loss—and sustained by the strength found in their uncommon friendship, and the precarious freedom offered by their new home.

    When Lucy St.John, a beautiful highborn orphan at the court of King James, is seduced by the Earl of Suffolk, she never imagines the powerful enemy she creates in his beloved sister, the Countess of Rochester. Or that her own sister Barbara would betray her and force Lucy to leave the court in disgrace. Spirited, educated, and skilled in medicine and precious remedies, Lucy fights her way back into society, and through an unexpected love match, becomes mistress of the Tower of London. Living inside the walls of the infamous prison, she defies plague, political intrigues and tragic executions to tend to aristocratic prisoners and criminals alike.Now married into the immensely powerful Villiers family, Barbara unites with the king’s favorite, the Duke of Buckingham, to raise the fortunes of Lucy and her family to dizzying heights. But with great wealth comes treachery, leaving Lucy to fight for her survival—and her honor—in a world of deceit and debauchery.Elizabeth St.John’s critically acclaimed debut novel tells the true story of her ancestress Lucy through her family’s surviving diaries, letters, and court papers. Lucy’s personal friendships with historical figures such as Sir Walter Raleigh and the Stuart kings brings a unique perspective to the history of seventeenth century England.

    Cornwall, 1793: Rose Pengelly's father has been ruined—he has lost his boat yard and his fortune, plunging Rose and her mother into poverty and debt. There appears to be only one way out of their terrible circumstances; for Rose to marry Mr Tregellas, a powerful timber merchant and the man Rose believes is responsible for her father's downfall. He has made his terms clear; either she marries him or faces homelessness and destitution. Desperate, Rose sets out to find evidence of Mr Tregellas's wrongdoing. In her search, she encounters a mysterious young sailor called Jim, who refuses to disclose his identity. Even as she falls in love with him, she questions who he really is. He may help her restore her fortune and her good name, but does he ever tell her the truth?

    But at a time when women are second-class citizens, can her charm and spirit protect her from the dangers of the court? And at what cost?

    On one side of the watery pasture at Sedgemoor was the dashing thirty-six-year-old Duke of Monmouth, the charismatic son of Charles II, adored by the people. A reformer, a romantic, and a Protestant, he was fighting the army he had once commanded, in opposition to his uncle, King James II. Yet even before he launched his attack, Monmouth knew he would die.Born in the backstreets of Rotterdam in the year his grandfather Charles I was executed, Monmouth was the child of a turbulent age. His mother, the first of Charles II's famous liaisons, played courtesan to the band of raw and restless young royalists forced abroad by the changing political current. Conceived during a revolution and born into a republic, Monmouth, by the time he was twelve, was the sensation of the most licentious and libertine court in Europe. Adored by the king and drenched in honors, he became the greatest rake and reprobate of the age.On his path to becoming "the last royal rebel," Monmouth consorted with a spectacular list of contemporaries: Louis XIV was his mentor, William of Orange his confidant, Nell Gwyn his friend, the future Duke of Marlborough his pupil, D'Artagnan his lieutenant, John Dryden his censor, and John Locke his comrade. Anna Keay expertly chronicles Monmouth's life and offers splendid insight into this crucial and dramatic period in English history.

    Beneath the wit and laughter of Charles II’s Restoration Court, political and religious tensions mount, and Countess Elizabeth Herbert tries to keep her family safe. When Titus Oates, a minister begging on the streets, claims to have uncovered a plot to kill the King and replace him with his Catholic heir, no one is safe from accusation. When suspicion falls on her husband, Elizabeth’s life is thrown into turmoil. As a tangled web of lies and deceit unfolds, Elizabeth realises her husband is a pawn in a much larger game. Caught up in the mass hysteria sweeping the country she’s forced to fight back to stop his execution for high treason. But, how can a woman take on the most powerful men in England? Set at a time of religious and political turmoil, when the fate of English rule is at stake, and it’s impossible to know who to trust ‘Reign of the Marionettes’ brims with historical detail and intrigue. #historical fiction #Stuarts #17th century

    This forgotten tragedy has been lost to history.Until now.As heir to the family estate, young English gentleman Christopher Clive is submissive to his grandfather's grooming, but his heart is drawn to the enchanting Irish muse, Raven O'Morrissey. When her village is attacked, Christopher makes a noble sacrifice and comes face to face with Leviathan--a godless spirit of chaos--and its world of forced slavery, jihad, and the clash of empires.Yet even as the years pass, he cannot forget the coastal mist of the sea cove he and Raven once shared as the setting of their tragic romance and of a legendary treasure that could change their fate forever.Muslim pirates, Christian slaves and an epic struggle for love in exotic places, 'The Pursuit of Leviathan' will carry you across perilous lands and into a historical portrait of unthinkable evil and surprising good. This unforgettable adventure reveals a great monster that threatens us all--and the greater power that insures its inevitable defeat.

    General Juan del Águila has been sprung from a prison cell to command the last great Spanish armada. His mission: to seize a bridgehead in Queen Elizabeth's England and hold it.Facing him is Charles Blount, a brilliant English strategist whose career is also under a cloud. His affair with a married woman edged him into a treasonous conspiracy—and brought him to within a hair’s breadth of the gallows.Meanwhile, Irish insurgent Hugh O’Neill knows that this is his final chance to drive the English out of Ireland. For each man, this is the last throw of the dice. Tomorrow they will be either heroes or failures.These colorful commanders come alive in this true story of courage and endurance, of bitterness and betrayal, and of drama and intrigue at the highest levels in the courts of England and Spain.

    While most scholarship on commodities focuses either on labor and production or on consumption and use, Anishanslin unifies both, examining the worlds of four identifiable people who produced, wore, and represented this object: a London weaver, one of early modern Britain’s few women silk designers, a Philadelphia merchant’s wife, and a New England painter.   Blending macro and micro history with nuanced gender analysis, Anishanslin shows how making, buying, and using goods in the British Atlantic created an object-based community that tied its inhabitants together, while also allowing for different views of the Empire. Investigating a range of subjects including self-fashioning, identity, natural history, politics, and trade, Anishanslin makes major contributions both to the study of material culture and to our ongoing conversation about how to write history.

    In a hovel in the centre of Paris, the fortune-teller La Voisin holds a black mass, summoning the devil to help an unnamed client keep the love of Louis XIV.Three years later, Athenais, Madame de Montespan, the King's glamorous mistress, is nearly forty. She has borne Louis seven children but now seethes with rage as he falls for eighteen-year old Angelique de Fontanges.At the same time, police chief La Reynie and his young assistant Bezons have uncovered a network of fortune-tellers and prisoners operating in the city. Athenais does not know it, but she is about to be named as a favoured client of the infamous La Voisin."This book kept me reading into the night... luxury and squalor, royal scandal and sorcery... how could it not?" ~ Fay Weldon, author of The Life and Loves of a She-devil

    England 1642…A family ripped apart in a country divided by war.King or Parliament?Hardened mercenary, Adam Coulter returns to England sickened by violence, seeking only peace, but he finds England on the brink of civil war.He has seen first-hand what that will mean for every man, woman and child and wants no part of it.Neutrality is not an option and Adam can only be true to his conscience, not the dictates of his family.Having escaped a violent marriage, Perdita Gray has found much needed sanctuary and the love of a good man, but her fragile world begins to crumble as Adam Coulter bursts into her life.This stranger brings not only the reality of war to her doorstep but reignites an old family feud, threatening everything and everyone she holds dear.As the war and the family tensions collide around them, Adam and Perdita are torn between old loyalties and a growing attraction that must be resisted.

    Morgan, whose American Slavery, American Freedom revolutionized colonial history, a new generation of historians is fundamentally rewriting America’s beginnings. Nowhere is this more evident than in Wendy Warren’s explosive New England Bound, which reclaims the lives of so many long-forgotten enslaved Africans and Native Americans in the seventeenth century. Based on new evidence, Warren links the growth of the northern colonies to the Atlantic slave trade, demonstrating how New England’s economy derived its vitality from the profusion of slave-trading ships coursing through its ports. Warren documents how Indians were systematically sold into slavery in the West Indies and reveals how colonial families like the Winthrops were motivated not only by religious freedom but also by their slave-trading investments. New England Bound punctures the myth of a shining “City on a Hill,” forcefully demonstrating that the history of American slavery can no longer confine itself to the nineteenth-century South.

    The Atlantis, captained by veteran seaman Benjamin Archer, flies the colours of an English merchantman on the high seas between the English Channel and the Caribbean.But she also runs up the ‘jolie rouge’ – the Jolly Roger – whenever the prospect of plundering a Spanish treasure ship presents itself. Nipping at Spain’s empire is common practice for state-sponsored privateers like the Atlantis at a time when lesser European powers dare not directly make war on Spain. But when those governments abandon the practice of issuing letters of marque to privateers against the Spanish galleons, many of the crews turn pirate.Such is the fate of Archer’s men. The crew is forced to sign the ship’s articles consenting to their new piratical ways, thereby placing their heads in a noose. Unless, that is, they can stage a mutiny and turn Archer over to the authorities in the Caribbean city of Port Royal, a popular homeport for privateers – and notorious for its gaudy displays of wealth and loose morals, the ‘wickedest city on earth’. But superstition is rife among seamen and the presence on board the Atlantis of two women – one a high-born French stowaway Catherine and the other a Jamaican slave-born ‘cabin boy’ Serafine – will only be a bad omen if they are discovered. Worse, the runaway is thought by her family to possess the powers of a witch while the ‘boy’ worships voodoo gods who rule life from beneath the waves.Will the mutiny succeed? What is the secret bond between Archer and Serafine? And can Catherine escape the captain’s determination to make her his after she has fallen for another young officer? Is some unstoppable divine force slowly gathering to punish the profane?Beyond the power and control of man lies what …?

    Closely associated with the regicide and revolution, he befriended Oliver Cromwell, was appointed vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, and became the premier religious statesman of the Interregnum. The restoration ofthe monarchy pushed Owen into dissent, criminalizing his religious practice and inspiring his writings in defense of high Calvinism and religious toleration. Owen transcended his many experiences of defeat, and his claims to quietism were frequently undermined by rumors of his involvement inanti-government conspiracies.Crawford Gribben's biography documents Owen's importance as a controversial and adaptable theologian deeply involved with his social, political, and religious environments. Fiercely intellectual and extraordinarily learned, Owen wrote millions of words in works of theology and exegesis. Far frompersonifying the Reformed tradition, however, Owen helped to undermine it, offering an individualist account of Christian faith that downplayed the significance of the church and means of grace. In doing so, Owen's work contributed to the formation of the new religious movement known asevangelicalism, where his influence can still be seen today.

    Empty kingdom coffers and nefarious gossip and accusations do little to raise moral which means only one thing: a vacation is in order.This episode is brought to you by Barbara Samuel who encourages all to take in the waters. "The Marriage of True Minds" continues the 13-part serial, Whitehall, presented by Serial Box. Intrigue, romance, and scandal fill the palace halls in this historical tale, collaboratively written by Liz Duffy Adams, Delia Sherman, Barbara Samuel, Madeleine Robins, Sarah Smith, and Mary Robinette Kowal. She who would be queen must win the love of a king—and a country.Whitehall is set in the 17th century court of King Charles II and focuses on his queen, Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza. Her journey to find her place as the foreign wife in a court riddled with political and religious intrigue – not to mention the many mistresses of Charles the "Merry Monarch” – is a tale of perseverance only a true queen could endure. Love mingles with betrayal before a sensual renaissance of art, culture, and sex in this lush historical serial.

    Through probing inquiry, Davidson draws out how nationalist ideology and consciousness is used to bind the subordinate classes to “the nation,” while simultaneously using “the state” as a means of conducting geopolitical competition for capital.

    While some long-held aspirations finally see light, others remain left in darkness with fate proving itself a fickle friend. This episode is brought to you by Madeleine Robins, who knows life and fiction are seldom fair. "Ambitions which Climb Upwards" continues the 13-part serial, Whitehall, presented by Serial Box. Intrigue, romance, and scandal fill the palace halls in this historical tale, collaboratively written by Liz Duffy Adams, Delia Sherman, Barbara Samuel, Madeleine Robins, Sarah Smith, and Mary Robinette Kowal. She who would be queen must win the love of a king—and a country.Whitehall is set in the 17th century court of King Charles II and focuses on his queen, Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza. Her journey to find her place as the foreign wife in a court riddled with political and religious intrigue – not to mention the many mistresses of Charles the "Merry Monarch” – is a tale of perseverance only a true queen could endure. Love mingles with betrayal before a sensual renaissance of art, culture, and sex in this lush historical serial.

    When Philip leaves the French army and returns to England he has only one aim – to acquire High Heatherton for himself. Lord Shaftesbury, an old associate of Devalle’s and a prolific schemer, promises to use his influence with the courts to help him get High Heatherton back. But Shaftesbury’s help comes at a hefty price. He wants Philip to lead a daring plot – a plot to place King Charles’ illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, who Shaftesbury can easily manipulate, on the throne. Philip has enemies in England, enemies who would be only too pleased to see him fail, but he knows to tread carefully if he is to avoid being tried for treason. All too soon Philip fears that he has got himself in too deep and has set in motion a plan that he is unable to stop. It’s a dangerous game that Philip is forced to play, one which could cost him everything, including his life... Full of intrigue and inspired by authors such as Bernard Cornwell and Simon Scarrow, High Heatherton will appeal to those who enjoy historical fiction, as well as fans of Judith’s previous novels Designs of a Gentleman: The Early Years and Designs of a Gentleman: The Darker Years.

    Ethyl Smith is the latest writer to explore the legacy of the Covenanters: her novel depicts ordinary people forced by circumstance to weigh their religious faith and their political beliefs against the everyday practicalities of survival. It is an unsustainable balancing act, and Ms Smith does not shrink from showing the brutality and destruction that result. She writes with a fine ear for Scots speech, and with a sensitive awareness to the different ways in which history intrudes upon the lives of men and women, soldiers and civilians, adults and children. Changed Times, the first in a projected trilogy, reminds us that the past is neither as distant nor as complete as we might like to think.’Review by Jan Fortune:Changed Times is a remarkable and compelling debut from an accomplished name to watch. A superb story with distinctive characters who are complex, and convincing; the novel is rich in research that renders it authentic whilst never becoming intrusive. It’s a joy to read a historical novel with real dialect that is also easy to follow and always engaging. A narrative with huge scope and superb pacing, reading Changed Times will leave you impatient for the next two volumes in this evocative, moving and absorbing trilogy.

    1660. King Charles I has been dead for eleven years. England is a republic. But for how long? In a country divided by factions after the English Civil War the desires of the most powerful players are deadlier for being concealed. Meanwhile, amongst the danger and mystery moves the King’s Shadow, the most enigmatic of them all.Until New Year’s Day 1660, few believe the return from exile of the man who would become Charles II ever will happen. But on this icy morning, an army sets out from Coldstream to march on London. Is it marching to bring back the king?Mark Denton, colonel of cavalry, is the most rigorous parliamentarian in York and the scourge of royalist conspirators across the North. He must find out what his commander, General George Monck, intends to achieve in London.Lucinda Selby’s family has been dispossessed by England’s new rulers of their land and home in the Yorkshire Dales – and it is now in the hands of the despised Colonel Denton. Lucinda, in secret revolt against Parliament and its army, allies herself with a brilliant member of the exiled court and goes to London also – with a risky mission on the king’s behalf.But her life is to change utterly when she discovers the true identity of the King’s Shadow. The concluding novel in a compelling trilogy by Cheryl Sawyer traces the attempt to restore the monarchy – together with the old guard of courtly attendants – after the creation of the ‘democratic’ Commonwealth by Puritan revolutionaries led by Oliver Cromwell.Sawyer writes with absolute authority and bewitching charm – a combination of hardcore history and burning romance that makes her characters and what drives them as palpable as the events themselves.Praise for Cheryl Sawyer‘Hardcore history buffs will appreciate the fly-on-the-turret view of the dramas besieging the British royal court in 1642 when the country is rocked by civil war.’ - Publishers Weekly ‘The depiction of Rupert as a commander is both vivid and convincing. I was particularly impressed by the description of the battles of Newark and Marston Moor … seen as they might have appeared to Rupert at the time, in a spectacular manner.’ - Sir Frank Kitson (former Commander-in-Chief, UK Land Forces) ‘A ghost story, a romance, and a quest for vengeance; this is a novel based on fact … A good read and although the second of a trilogy it stands alone.’ - Historical Novel Society New Zealander Cheryl Sawyer has two master's degrees, with honors in French and English literature, and her career has included teaching, publishing, and writing. She has traveled to all the countries where her novels are set, and currently lives in Sydney, Australia.

    His intense naturalism, almost brutal realism, and dramatic use of light had a wide impact on European painters, including Orazio Gentileschi, Valentin de Boulogne, and Gerrit van Honthorst. Each of Caravaggio’s followers absorbed something different from his work, propagating his stylistic legacy across Europe.   In this extensively illustrated catalogue, Letizia Treves introduces the international Caravaggesque movement and traces the distinct artistic personalities of its leading players. Even now, Caravaggio’s name overshadows the other talented artists who adopted his approach to narrative painting: the use of theatrical lighting to illuminate a story encapsulated in a single, dramatic moment. Treves explains the innovative and unifying features of these painters’ work and how, despite resistance to their style and subject matter, many outstanding Caravaggesque pictures found their way into important collections.

    Of these minorities Christians are by far the largest, comprising over 10% of the population in Syria and as much as 40% in Lebanon.The largest single group of Christians are the Arabic-speaking Orthodox. The author draws on archaeological evidence and previously unpublished primary sources uncovered in Russian archives and Middle Eastern monastic libraries to present a vivid and compelling account of this vital but little-known spiritual and political culture, situating it within a complex network of relations reaching throughout the Mediterranean, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe.

    This book, the first complete monograph of his work in English, features more than 50 lushly illustrated paintings by Valentin, as well as numerous comparative works that help situate his oeuvre.    Essays by an international team of experts explore Valentin’s masterful depictions of everyday life as well as the tumult and violence of 17th-century Rome, where he lived and worked.  This comprehensive survey brings to light a radical but under-recognized practitioner of realism whose powerful works prefigured the modernity of 19th-century artists such as Gustave Courbet.

    This interpretation remains seductive because of its simplicity; there are villains and victims in this familiar cautionary tale of the American frontier. But as this volume of groundbreaking scholarship shows, the story of the bison’s demise is actually quite nuanced.Bison and People on the North American Great Plains brings together voices from several disciplines to offer new insights on the relationship between humans and animals that approached extinction. The essays here transcend the border between the United States and Canada to provide a continental context. Contributors include historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, paleontologists, and Native American perspectives. This book explores the deep past and examines the latest knowledge on bison anatomy and physiology, how bison responded to climate change (especially drought), and early bison hunters and pre-contact trade. It also focuses on the era of European contact, in particular the arrival of the horse, and some of the first known instances of over-hunting. By the nineteenth century bison reached a “tipping point” as a result of new tanning practices, an early attempt at protective legislation, and ventures to introducing cattle as a replacement stock. The book concludes with a Lakota perspective featuring new ethnohistorical research.Bison and People on the North American Great Plains is a major contribution to environmental history, western history, and the growing field of transnational history.

    In this groundbreaking study, thirteen leading scholars explore the idea of transatlanticism--or a shared Atlantic world experience--through the lens of architecture, built spaces, and landscapes in the British Atlantic from the seventeenth century through the mid-nineteenth century. Examining town planning, churches, forts, merchants' stores, state houses, and farm houses, this collection shows how the powerful visual language of architecture and design allowed the people of this era to maintain common cultural experiences across different landscapes while still forming their individuality.By studying the interplay between physical construction and social themes that include identity, gender, taste, domesticity, politics, and race, the authors interpret material culture in a way that particularly emphasizes the people who built, occupied, and used the spaces and reflects the complex cultural exchanges between Britain and the New World.

    Instead, this invigorating new book equips teachers to enable student-centred discovery of these complex texts.Because Shakespeare's plays are excellent vehicles for many topics -history, socio-cultural norms and mores, vocabulary, rhetoric, literary tropes and terminology, performance history, performance strategies - it is tempting to teach his plays as though they are good for teaching everything. This lens-free approach, however, often centres the classroom on the teacher as the expert and renders Shakespeare's plays as fixed, determined, and dead. Teaching Shakespeare with Purpose shows teachers how to approach Shakespeare's works as vehicles for collaborative exploration, to develop intentional frames for discovery, and to release the texts from over-determined interpretations. In other words, this book presents how to teach Shakespeare's plays as living, breathing, and evolving texts.

    Diarists from the famous Samuel Pepys to the gardener John Evelyn here brush shoulders with anonymous household accounts and well-known poets, describing events from the Great Fire of London to the coronations and depositions of kings and queens. Andrea Zuvich guides the reader through a year with the ordinary people and the movers and shakers of the Stuart era, lavishly illustrated in full color, providing the definitive timeline for this period in history. By turns entertaining, thought-provoking and surprising, this book is for anyone who wants to know more about both the everyday yearly activities and the once-in-a-lifetime events that shaped Britain during the seventeenth century.

    

    Murder, arson, and rumour - would a man whose principles led him to once take up arms against his King, turn his coat again and work against His Majesty for the Dutch Republic? Possessed of a most unfeminine strength of purpose, Roundhead's daughter Thomazine Babbitt has finally wed her hero, marred and enigmatic retired Admiralty intelligencer Major Thankful Russell, who's been drifting in and out of her life in various states of idealistic disrepair since she was two and he was twenty-one. Twice her age, disfigured, shy, a long-term bachelor - hopelessly unpromising romantic material, surely? But Thomazine doesn't care. Russell is her rebel angel - he always was, and he always will be. No matter what the neighbours say. But as war with the Dutch looms and tensions run high in the streets of London, the darkness of Russell's past is all too suddenly exposed - and someone at Court is determined that he shouldn't get his happy ever after. Funny, sexy, and brutal, this is a story of a man tortured by the demons of his past, eaten up by jealousy and hatred. It's also a story of an unlikely but happy marriage, the Earl of Rochester's monkey, and amor vincit omnia...