Instead, showing how the queens engendered a culture of mutual respect, When Women Ruled the World focuses on the gift-giving by which they aimed to ensure female bonds of friendship and alliance. Detailing the artistic and political creativity that  flourished in the pockets of peace created by these queens, Quilligan’s lavishly illustrated work offers a new perspective on the glory of the Renaissance and the women who helped to create it.

    But as their dramas played out at court, England was being transformed economically by the astonishing discoveries of the New World and of direct sea routes to Asia. At the start of the century, England was hardly involved in the wider world and London remained a gloomy, introverted medieval city. But as the century progressed something extraordinary happened, which placed London at the center of the world stage forever.Stephen Alford’s evocative, original new book uses the same skills that made his widely-praised The Watchers so successful, bringing to life the network of merchants, visionaries, crooks, and sailors who changed London and England forever. In an explosion of energy, English ships were suddenly found all over the world--trading with Russia and the Levant, exploring Virginia and the Arctic, and fanning out across the Indian Ocean. The people who made this possible--the families, the guild members, the money-men who were willing to risk huge sums and sometimes their own lives in pursuit of the rare, exotic, and desirable--are as interesting as any of those at court. Their ambitions fueled a new view of the world--initiating a long era of trade and empire, the consequences of which still resonate today.

    King Henry VIII is galloping through the night to Rochester to meet a young woman. Just arrived in England from Germany, Anne of Cleves is destined to become his fourth wife. He has never met her before. He has only seen her portrait – the portrait of a sweet, demure and innocent young woman. The impatient and lovesick king must see her before their marriage. But this rushed and unplanned rendezvous will shock them and the country both. It will also lead to some completely unexpected and fatal results.In D. Lawrence-Young’s well-researched novel, we learn of the strong passions and the deadly politics when the romantic plans of a frustrated Tudor king go badly wrong.

    'Death and the Virgin' is the story of a remarkable and frenetic period in Elizabeth's life: a tale of love, death and tragedy, exploring the dramatic early life of England's Virgin Queen.

    Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, takes his child bride into Wales where she discovers a land of strife and strangers. At Caldicot Castle and Lamphey Palace Margaret must put aside childhood, acquire the dignity of a Countess and, despite her tender years, produce Richmond with a son and heir. While Edmund battles to restore the king’s peace, Margaret quietly supports his quest; but it is a quest fraught with danger. As the friction between York and Lancaster intensifies 14-year-old Margaret, now widowed, turns for protection to her brother-in-law, Jasper Tudor. At his stronghold in Pembroke, two months after her husband’s death, Margaret gives birth to a son whom she names Henry, after her cousin the king. Margaret is small of stature but her tiny frame conceals a fierce and loyal heart and a determination that will not falter until her son’s destiny as the king of England is secured. The Beaufort Bride traces Margaret’s early years from her nursery days at Bletsoe Castle to the birth of her only son in 1457 at Pembroke Castle. Her story continues in Book Two: The Beaufort Woman.

    But beyond these familiar images, which have come to define our perception of the age, Holbein was a multifaceted genius: a humanist, satirist, and political propagandist, and a deft man whose work was rich in layers of symbolism and allusion. In The King’s Painter, biographer Franny Moyle traces and analyzes the life and work of an extraordinary artist against the backdrop of an era of political turbulence and cultural transformation, to which his art offers a subtle and endlessly refracting mirror. It is a work of serious scholarship written for a wide audience.

     Daughter of the nobility, cousin to a fallen Queen, Catherine Howard rose from the cluttered ranks of courtiers at the court of Henry VIII to become the King's fifth wife. But hers is a tale that starts long before the crown was placed on her head. A tale of tragedy and challenges, predators and prey; the story of a young girl growing up in a perilous time, facing dangers untold. The fifth wife of Henry VIII would end her life on the block, like her cousin Anne Boleyn... But where did her story begin? Shadow of Persephone is Book One in the series The Story of Catherine Howard, by G. Lawrence The Author's thanks are due to Julia Gibbs, proof reader, and Amelie Designs, cover artist.

     Avis Grinnel’s life is forever changed when a young musician arrives unexpectedly to escort her to the innermost sanctum of King Henry VIII’s royal court. However, it is not the king who has demanded her presence but his new queen, the much-disliked Anne Boleyn. She has been told Avis is a “little cunning wench who has the sight” and demands she uses her powers to divine whether the queen is pregnant with a girl, or with the boy child the king expects. From the moment she gives her fateful answer, Avis becomes embroiled in an extravagant world of intrigue, deceit and murderous plotting that is far removed from her lowly home life in the king’s kitchens at Greenwich Palace. She becomes an unwilling participant and watcher in the alliances and misplaced loyalties of court life as the King wages religious war with the Pope and the churches while changing wives and mistresses in his relentless pursuit of a male heir. Whispers, lies and rumours abound as the Queen fights for her survival and Avis struggles to balance her life of opulence in the royal chambers with the humble world of her baker parents and a mysterious suitor. Her story is revealed partly as it unfolds and partly as a deeply-felt memory told to the faithful blind White Boy, who has been at her side for most of her life. The brutal ending of Anne Boleyn’s reign is already known and written into history but this dramatic and vividly drawn story records the stark reality with an intricate and colourful portrayal of life at all levels in Tudor England.

    It affected his wars, his diplomacy and his many marriages. It was at the root of his fatal attraction to Anne Boleyn, the source of her power and it was the means of her destruction. In this witty, intriguing, accessible account, Nicola Shulman interweaves the bloody events of HenryOCOs reign with the story of English love poetry and the life of its first master, HenryOCOs most glamorous and enigmatic subject: Sir Thomas Wyatt. Courtier, spy, wit, diplomat, assassin, lover of Anne Boleyn, and favourite both of Henry and his sinister minister Thomas Cromwell, the brilliant Wyatt was admired and envied in equal measure. His love poetry began as an elite and risqu(r) entertainment for the group of ambitious men and women at the slippery top of the court. But when the axe began to fall among this group, and HenryOCOs laws made his subjects fall silent in terror, WyattOCOs poetic skills became a way to survive. He saw that a love poem was a place where secrets could hide. "

    He was a man of fascinating contradictions—he pursued a woman he loved for almost a decade only to behead her less than four years after their marriage. He defended Catholicism so vigorously that he was honored as Defender of the Faith, but he went on to break with Rome and have himself declared Supreme Head of the Church of England. Worst of all, the King who began his reign praised as “hero” and “lover of justice and goodness” ended it having metamorphosed into such a monster that he was called the "English Nero." What could have caused these incredible paradoxes? Could there be a simple medical explanation for the King’s descent into tyranny? Where do the answers lie? Blood Will Tell.

    Whether it’s the glittering rule of Elizabeth, the ruthless power of her father Henry VIII, or the bloody and radical reign of Mary, the Tudors remain the most fascinating English dynasty. Richard Rex looks at how the public and private lives of the Tudors were inextricably linked, and how each Tudor monarch exuded charisma and danger in equal measure.

    As a young man, he was fond of sports and hunting, and was said to be uncommonly handsome. Standing more than six feet tall, he loomed large in the lives and minds of his subjects as he navigated his country through the tricky diplomatic and military hazards of the sixteenth century. A man of enormous appetites, Henry conducted affairs with many women, married six, and executed two. His infatuation with Anne Boleyn set in motion a chain of events that reshaped the church in England and eroded the dominance of Rome. But the popular image of Henry as a crude tyrant, dispatching courtiers, enemies, and wives with gusto, obscures a more nuanced and fascinating character. He was a true Renaissance king who presided over one of Europe's greatest courts and nudged Western civilization onto a new course. Here, from Abigail Archer, author of The New York Times bestseller Elizabeth I, is the story of Henry VIII.

     The birth of a new dynasty is on the horizon... England, 1469-1509 The Wars of the Roses are raging and England is in turmoil with the ongoing power-struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster. As the throne is wrested between Henry VI of Lancaster and Edward IV of York, young Henry Tudor grows up in exile. A powerful threat to one faction and a symbol of hope for the other, Henry Tudor is moulded by his battled-hardened uncle Jasper and his power-hungry mother, Margaret Beaufort into the king he will one day become. How will Henry prove his worth as heir to the throne? Will he live up to his uncle’s expectations? He must fulfill his destiny to finally unite the red rose and the white… Tudor Dawn is the first thrilling historical adventure novel in the Tudor Saga Series, chronicling the rise and fall of one of England’s most powerful royal families. THE TUDOR SAGA SERIES BOOK ONE: Tudor Dawn BOOK TWO: The King’s Commoner BOOK THREE: Justice For The Cardinal BOOK FOUR: A Clash of Seymours BOOK FIVE: The Queen In Waiting BOOK SIX: The Heart Of A King

    The first collection of its kind, Elizabeth I reveals brilliance on two counts: that of the Queen, a dazzling writer and a leading intellect of the English Renaissance, and that of the editors, whose copious annotations make the book not only essential to scholars but accessible to general readers as well.

    Mary Tudor watches her elder brother become King of England and wonders what the future holds for her. Born into great privilege, Mary has beauty and intelligence beyond her years and is the most marriageable princess in Europe. Henry plans to use her marriage to build a powerful alliance against his enemies. Will she dare risk his anger by marrying for love?Meticulously researched and based on actual events, this 'sequel' follows Mary's story from book three of the Tudor Trilogy and is set during the reign of King Henry VIII.