Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior


Catherine Hanley - 2019
    But she was also empress, heir to the English crown—the first woman ever to hold the position—and an able military general. This new biography explores Matilda’s achievements as military and political leader, and sets her life and career in full context. Catherine Hanley provides fresh insight into Matilda's campaign to claim the title of queen, her approach to allied kingdoms and rival rulers, and her role in the succession crisis. Hanley highlights how Matilda fought for the throne, and argues that although she never sat on it herself her reward was to see her son become king. Extraordinarily, her line has continued through every single monarch of England or Britain from that time to the present day.

The Death of Kings: A Medical History of the Kings and Queens of England


Clifford Brewer - 2000
    Handsome and virile in his youth, a rare medical condition turned Henry VIII into a bloated and grotesque old man. The Dashing and glamourous Henry V probably died of cancer of the rectum, a fate that also befell Edward I. Charles I was beheaded. Henry VI was the victim of a grisly murder. Edward II, attacked with a red hot poker died in agony from traumatic perforation of the rectum. George II died in ignominy enthroned on the lavatory.This book will enthrall and appall.Distinguished surgeon Clifford Brewer T.D F.R.C.S. has made the death of kings the study of a life time, examining every act of violence and each unpleasant disease with a razor sharp eye for detail.

The Tudor Kings and Queens


Alex Woolf - 2016
    Beginning with the accession to the English throne of Henry VII, the author guides the reader through a succession of monarchs, who also included the infamous King Henry VIII, Mary I, Edward VI and Elizabeth I. Identifying the key moments of their reigns, from insurrections to their handling of foreign policy to their many marriages, Alex Woolf clarifies the way in which these kings and queens governed their realm and what they had to deal with. It's the perfect companion for anyone who enjoys historical drama and wants to know more about one of the most intriguing royal dynasties.

The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England's Most Notorious Queen


Susan Bordo - 2013
    Why is Anne so compelling? Why has she inspired such extreme reactions? What did she really look like? Was she the flaxen-haired martyr of Romantic paintings or the raven-haired seductress of twenty-first century portrayals? (Answer: neither.) And perhaps the most provocative questions concern Anne's death more than her life. How could Henry order the execution of a once beloved wife? Drawing on scholarship and critical analysis, Susan Bordo probes the complexities of one of history's most infamous relationships.Bordo also shows how generations of polemicists, biographers, novelists, and filmmakers imagined and reimagined Anne: whore, martyr, cautionary tale, proto-"mean girl," feminist icon, and everything in between. In this lively book, Bordo steps off the well-trodden paths of Tudoriana to expertly tease out the human being behind the competing mythologies.

A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III


Janice Hadlow - 2014
    But this was far from the only difference between him and his predecessors. Neither of the previous Georges was faithful to his wife, nor to his mistresses. Both hated their own sons. And, overall, their children were angry, jealous, and disaffected schemers, whose palace shenanigans kick off Hadlow's juicy narrative and also made their lives unhappy ones.Pained by his childhood amid this cruel and feuding family, George came to the throne aspiring to be a new kind of king—a force for moral good. And to be that new kind of king, he had to be a new kind of man. Against his irresistibly awful family background—of brutal royal intrigue, infidelity, and betrayal—George fervently pursued a radical domestic dream: he would have a faithful marriage and raise loving, educated, and resilient children.The struggle of King George—along with his wife, Queen Charlotte, and their 15 children—to pursue a passion for family will surprise history buffs and delight a broad swath of biography readers and royal watchers.

Queen Victoria's Matchmaking: The Royal Marriages that Shaped Europe


Deborah Cadbury - 2017
    Victoria's matchmaking plans were further complicated by the tumultuous international upheavals of the time: revolution and war were in the air, and kings and queens, princes and princesses were vulnerable targets.Queen Victoria's Matchmaking travels through the glittering, decadent palaces of Russia and Europe, weaving in scandals, political machinations and family tensions to enthralling effect. It is at once an intimate portrait of a royal family and an examination of the conflict caused by the marriages the Queen arranged. At the heart of it all is Victoria herself: doting grandmother one moment; determined Queen Empress the next.

The Making of a Royal Romance: William, Kate, and Harry--A Look Behind the Palace Walls


Katie Nicholl - 2011
    Now the author, a royal insider and the royal correspondent for the Daily Mail, has updated and added crucial material that completes the story of the fairytale romance. In addition to providing fascinating insight into the lives and loves of two young men who are very much in the public spotlight worldwide, this updated version now becomes the definitive book that brings their story-and that of Kate Middleton, the future Queen Catherine-up to date.The author now fully reveals the secret marriage pact that William and Kate have had for several years, dispelling the notion that Kate Middleton has been "Waity Katie." It paints a portrait of Kate by looking back at her family and childhood, her close friends and former boyfriends, and her ever-present devotion to the love of her life, Prince William. It reveals the domestic life that the two have been living in Wales and provides a look at what the future holds for their new commitment. The epilogue focuses on the wedding preparations.The book will be the most authoritative and entertaining guide to the royal family's most widely anticipated public event since the wedding of Lady Diana Spencer and Prince Charles.

The Kings' Mistresses: The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna, and Her Sister Hortense, Duchess Mazarin


Elizabeth C. Goldsmith - 2012
    Such was the life of many young women of the age: they had no independent status under the law and were entirely a part of their husband’s property once married.  Marie and Hortense, however, had other ambitions in mind altogether. Miserable in their marriages and determined to live independently, they abandoned their husbands in secret and began lives of extraordinary daring on the run and in the public eye. The beguiling sisters quickly won the affections of noblemen and kings alike. Their flight became popular fodder for salon conversation and tabloids, and was closely followed by seventeenth-century European society. The Countess of Grignan remarked that they were traveling “like two heroines out of a novel.” Others gossiped that they “were roaming the countryside in pursuit of wandering lovers.”  Their scandalous behavior—disguising themselves as men, gambling, and publicly disputing with their husbands—served as more than just entertainment. It sparked discussions across Europe concerning the legal rights of husbands over their wives.Elizabeth Goldsmith’s vibrant biography of the Mancini sisters—drawn from personal papers of the players involved and the tabloids of the time—illuminates the lives of two pioneering free spirits who were feminists long before the word existed.

Daughters of Chivalry: The Forgotten Children of Edward I


Kelcey Wilson-Lee - 2019
    Yet the reality was very different, as Kelcey Wilson-Lee shows in this vibrant account of the five daughters of the great English king, Edward I. The lives of these sisters - Eleanora, Joanna, Margaret, Mary and Elizabeth - ran the full gamut of experiences open to royal women in the Middle Ages. Living as they did in a courtly culture founded on romantic longing and brilliant pageantry, they knew that a princess was to be chaste yet a mother to many children, preferably sons, meek yet able to influence a recalcitrant husband or even command a host of men-at-arms

Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret


Craig Brown - 2017
    She cold-shouldered Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor.Andy Warhol photographed her. Jack Nicholson offered her cocaine. Gore Vidal revered her. John Fowles hoped to keep her as his sex-slave. Dudley Moore propositioned her. Francis Bacon heckled her. Peter Sellers was in love with her.For Pablo Picasso, she was the object of sexual fantasy. “If they knew what I had done in my dreams with your royal ladies” he confided to a friend, “they would take me to the Tower of London and chop off my head!”Princess Margaret aroused passion and indignation in equal measures. To her friends, she was witty and regal. To her enemies, she was rude and demanding.In her 1950’s heyday, she was seen as one of the most glamorous and desirable women in the world. By the time of her death, she had come to personify disappointment. One friend said he had never known an unhappier woman.The tale of Princess Margaret is pantomime as tragedy, and tragedy as pantomime. It is Cinderella in reverse: hope dashed, happiness mislaid, life mishandled.Combining interviews, parodies, dreams, parallel lives, diaries, announcements, lists, catalogues and essays, Ma’am Darling is a kaleidoscopic experiment in biography, and a witty meditation on fame and art, snobbery and deference, bohemia and high society.

The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ruler of England 1327-1330


Ian Mortimer - 2003
    King Edward II was murdered by the lover of his estranged Queen Isabella, Sir Roger Mortimer. This biography of 14th century England's evil genius offers a new and controversial theory regarding the fate of Edward II.

Catherine of Aragon


Garrett Mattingly - 1941
    England loved her; Henry loved, respected, and finally feared her. Wolsey hated her. Twice she saved England, once from invasion, once from Civil War. Here is one of those rare books, brilliantly readable and buttressed by scholarship and research, which make you see history through new eyes.

The King's Grave: The Discovery of Richard III’s Lost Burial Place and the Clues it Holds


Philippa Langley - 2013
    Earlier this year, the remains of a man with a curving spine, who possible was killed in battle, were discovered underneath the paving of a parking lot in Leicester, England. Phillipa Langley, head of The Richard III Society, spurred on by the work of the historian Michael Jones, led the team of who uncovered the remains, certain that she had found the bones of the monarch. When DNA verification later confirmed that the skeleton was, indeed, that of King Richard III, the discovery ranks among the great stories of passionate intuition and perseverance against the odds. The news of the discovery of Richard's remains has been widely reported by the British as well as worldwide and was front page news for both the New York Times and The Washington Post. Many believe that now, with King Richard III's skeleton in hand, historians will finally begin to understand what happened to him following the Battle of Bosworth Field (twenty miles or so from Leicester) and, ultimately, to know whether he was the hateful, unscrupulous monarch of Shakespeare's drama or a much more benevolent king interested in the common man. Written in alternating chapters, with Richard's 15th century life told by historian Michael Jones (author of the critically acclaimed Bosworth - 1485) contrasting with the 21st century eyewitness account of the search and discovery of the body by Philippa Langley, The King's Grave will be both an extraordinary portrait of the last Plantagenet monarch and the inspiring story of the archaeological dig that finally brings the real King Richard III into the light of day.

King Edward VIII


Philip Ziegler - 1990
    It also examines his relationships with George V, Queen Mary, the future George VI and Queen Elizabeth, Freda Dudley Ward, Wallis Simpson, Adolf Hitler, and Oswald Mosley.

George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I


Miranda Carter - 2009
    Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war that set twentieth-century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world.Miranda Carter uses the cousins' correspondence and a host of historical sources to tell the tragicomic story of a tiny, glittering, solipsistic world that was often preposterously out of kilter with its times, struggling to stay in command of politics and world events as history overtook it. George, Nicholas and Wilhelm is a brilliant and sometimes darkly hilarious portrait of these men--damaged, egotistical Wilhelm; quiet, stubborn Nicholas; and anxious, dutiful George--and their lives, foibles and obsessions, from tantrums to uniforms to stamp collecting. It is also alive with fresh, subtle portraits of other familiar figures: Queen Victoria--grandmother to two of them, grandmother-in-law to the third--whose conservatism and bullying obsession with family left a dangerous legacy; and Edward VII, the playboy "arch-vulgarian" who turned out to have a remarkable gift for international relations and the theatrics of mass politics. At the same time, Carter weaves through their stories a riveting account of the events that led to World War I, showing how the personal and the political interacted, sometimes to devastating effect.For all three men the war would be a disaster that destroyed forever the illusion of their close family relationships, with any sense of peace and harmony shattered in a final coda of murder, betrayal and abdication.