Shakespeare's Pub: A Barstool History of London as Seen Through the Windows of Its Oldest Pub - The George Inn


Pete Brown - 2012
    Grab yourself a pint, listen to the chatter of the locals and lean back, resting your head against the wall. And then consider this: who else has rested their head against that wall, over the last six hundred years?Chaucer and his fellow pilgrims almost certainly drank in the George on their way out of London to Canterbury. It's fair to say that Shakespeare popped in from the nearby Globe for a pint, and we know that Dickens certainly did. Mail carriers changed their horses here, before heading to all four corners of Britain—while sailors drank here before visiting all four corners of the world.The pub, as Pete Brown points out, is the 'primordial cell of British life' and in the George he has found the perfect example. All life is here, from murderers, highwaymen, and ladies of the night to gossiping peddlers and hard-working clerks. So sit back with Shakespeare's Pub and watch as buildings rise and fall over the centuries, and 'the beer drinker's Bill Bryson' (UK's Times Literary Supplement) takes us on an entertaining tour through six centuries of history, through the stories of everyone that ever drank in one pub.

Digging for Richard III: The Search for the Lost King


Mike Pitts - 2014
    Its site had been unknown for centuries. The quest had taken years of preparation followed by intensive archaeological study and almost no one had expected a result. As the astonishing story of the discovery emerged, millions watched around the world.First came the news that archaeologists were searching for a king in a parking lot. Next it was said they had located the church where Richard had been buried. Finally it was announced that a skeleton with a curved spine and battle wounds had been found and was thought to be that of Richard. Archaeologists urged caution as media frenzy led to questions in Parliament. The scientific consensus came early in 2013. All the studies, including analysis of anatomy, DNA, high-resolution scanning and a digital facial reconstruction, led to the conclusion that the skeleton was indeed Richard III, England's most disputed monarch and the probable murderer of the Princes in the Tower. The events of Richard III's reign and his death in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth are known worldwide, made popular by Shakespeare's most performed, filmed and translated history play. Digging for Richard III is the page-turning story of how his grave was found and the people behind the discovery. It is the first complete narrative of a project that blended passion, science, luck and detection. Told by a noted archaeologist with access to all the parties involved, it follows the quest from an idea born in an Edinburgh bookshop to the day, fourteen years later, when two archaeologists carefully raised the bones from the parking lot in Leicester, and the scientific studies that resulted.The vivid tale of a king, his demise and his rediscovery, this is also an insider's gripping account of how modern archaeology, forensics and the meticulous analysis of clues can come together to create a narrative worthy of the finest detective fiction.

Edward II: The Unconventional King


Kathryn Warner - 2014
    He drove his kingdom to the brink of civil war a dozen times in less than twenty years. He allowed his male lovers to rule the kingdom. He led a great army to the most ignominious military defeat in English history. His wife took a lover and invaded his kingdom, and he ended his reign wandering around Wales with a handful of followers, pursued by an army. He was the first king of England forced to abdicate his throne. Popular legend has it that he died screaming impaled on a red-hot poker, but in fact the time and place of his death are shrouded in mystery. His life reads like an Elizabethan tragedy, full of passionate doomed love, bloody revenge, jealousy, hatred, vindictiveness and obsession. He was Edward II, and this book tells his story. The focus here is on his relationships with his male 'favourites' and his disaffected wife, on his unorthodox lifestyle and hobbies, and on the mystery surrounding his death. Using almost exclusively fourteenth-century sources and Edward's own letters and speeches wherever possible, Kathryn Warner strips away the myths which have been created about him over the centuries, and provides a far more accurate and vivid picture of him than has previously been seen.

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.

Arthur and the Lost Kingdoms


Alistair Moffat - 1999
    In a book which argues that previous scholars have been looking in the wrong place, Moffat identifies Arthur as a cavalry general of a Welsh-speaking southern Scottish tribe. Through archaeology, documentary and place-name evidence, Moffat weaves a history of this truly British hero' and asks whether the real Camelot is to be found in the borders of Scotland.

Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant


Tracy Borman - 2014
    As Henry VIII’s right-hand man, Cromwell was the architect of the English Reformation, secured Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and plotted the downfall of Anne Boleyn, and upon his arrest, was accused of trying to usurp the King himself. But here Tracy Borman reveals a different side of one of the most notorious figures in history: that of a caring husband and father, a fiercely loyal servant and friend, and a revolutionary who helped make medieval England into a modern state.Born in the mid-1480s to a lowly blacksmith, Cromwell left home at eighteen to make his fortune abroad. After serving as a mercenary in the French army, working for a powerful merchant banker in Florence at the height of the Renaissance, and spending time as a cloth merchant in the commercial capital of the world, the Netherlands, Cromwell returned to England and built a flourishing legal practice. He soon became the protégé of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and then worked his way into the King’s inner circle. As Henry’s top aide, Cromwell was at the heart of the most momentous events of his time and wielded immense power over both church and state. His seismic political, religious, and social reforms had an impact that can still be felt today. Grounded in excellent primary source research, Thomas Cromwell gives an inside look at a monarchy that has captured the Western imagination for centuries, and tells the story of a controversial and enigmatic man who forever changed the shape of his country.

Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey


Nicola Tallis - 2016
    Minutes later her head was struck from her body with a single stroke of a heavy axe. Her death for high treason sent shockwaves through the Tudor world, and served as a gruesome reminder to all who aspired to a crown that the axe could fall at any time.Jane is known to history as "the Nine Days Queen," but her reign lasted, in fact, for thirteen days. The human and emotional aspects of her story have often been ignored, although she is remembered as one of the Tudor Era’s most tragic victims. While this is doubtlessly true, it is only part of the complex jigsaw of Jane’s story. She was a remarkable individual with a charismatic personality who earned the admiration and affection of many of those who knew her. All were impressed by her wit, passion, intelligence, and determined spirit. Furthermore, the recent trend of trying to highlight her achievements and her religious faith has, in fact, further obscured the real Jane, a young religious radical who saw herself as an advocate of the reformed faith—Protestantism—and ultimately became a martyr for it.Crown of Blood is an important and significant retelling of an often-misunderstood tale: set at the time of Jane’s downfall and following her journey through to her trial and execution, each chapter moves between the past and the “present,” using a rich abundance of primary source material (some of which has never been published) in order to paint a vivid picture of Jane’s short and turbulent life. This dramatic narrative traces the dangerous plots and web of deadly intrigue in which Jane became involuntarily tangled—and which ultimately led to a shocking and catastrophic conclusion.

The King in the North: The Life and Times of Oswald of Northumbria


Max Adams - 2005
    A charismatic leader, a warrior whose prowess in battle earned him the epithet Whiteblade, an exiled prince who returned to claim his birthright, the inspiration for Tolkien's Aragorn. Oswald of Northumbria was the first great English monarch, yet today this legendary figure is all but forgotten. In this panoramic portrait of Dark Age Britain, archaeologist and biographer Max Adams returns the king in the North to his rightful place in history.

The Scourging Angel: The Black Death in the British Isles


Benedict Gummer - 2010
    The Scourging Angel tells the story of Britain immediately before, during and after this catastrophe. Against a backdrop of empty homes, half-built cathedrals and pestilence-saturated cities, we see communities gripped by unimaginable fear, shock and paranoia. By the time it completed its pestilential journey through the British Isles in 1350, the Black Death had left half the population dead. Despite the startling toll of life, physical devastation and sheer human chaos it inflicted, Britain showed an impressive resilience. Amid disaster many found opportunity, and the story of the Black Death is ultimately one of survival.

The Plantagenet Prelude


Jean Plaidy - 1976
    But such a position for an unmarried woman puts the whole kingdom at risk. So on his deathbed William made a will that would ensure his daughter's protection: he promised her hand in marriage to the future King of France.Eleanor grows into a romantic and beautiful queen, but she has inherited the will of a king, determined to rule Aquitaine using her husband's power as King of France. Her resolve knows no limit and, in the years to follow, she is to become one of history's most scandalous queens.

God's Executioner: Oliver Cromwell and the Conquest of Ireland


Micheál Ó Siochrú - 2008
    The massacre of thousands of soldiers and civilians by the New Model Army at both Drogheda and Wexford in 1649 must rank among the greatest atrocities in Anglo-Irish history: a tale that makes decidedly uncomfortable reading for those keen to focus on Cromwell's undoubted military and political achievements elsewhere.In a century of unrelenting, bloody warfare and religious persecution throughout Europe, Cromwell was, in many ways, a product of his times.As commander-in-chief of the army in Ireland, however, the responsibilities for the excesses of the military must be laid firmly at his door, while the harsh nature of the post-war settlement also bears his personal imprint. Cromwell was no monster, but he did commit monstrous acts. A warrior of Christ, somewhat like the crusaders of medieval Europe, he acted as God's executioner, convinced throughout the horrors of the legitimacy of his cause, and striving to build a better world for the chosen few. He remains, therefore, a remarkably modern figure, somebody to be closely studied and understood, rather than simply revered or reviled.

The Greatest Knight: The Remarkable Life of William Marshal, The Power Behind Five English Thrones


Thomas Asbridge - 2014
    

Blood Will Tell: A Medical Explanation of the Tyranny of Henry VIII


Kyra Cornelius Kramer - 2012
    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.

The House of Beaufort: The Bastard Line that Captured the Crown


Nathen Amin - 2017
    But what gave the eventual victor, Henry Tudor, the right to claim the throne? What made his mother the great heiress of medieval England? And how could an illegitimate line come to challenge the English monarchy? Whilst the Houses of York and Lancaster battled directly for the crown, other noble families of England also played integral roles in the war; grand and prestigious names like the Howards, Nevilles and Percys were intimately involved in the conflict but arguably none symbolised the volatile nature of the period quite like the House of Beaufort. The story of the Beauforts, with their rise, fall and rise again, is the story of England during the period, a dramatic century of war, intrigue and scandal. Many books have been written about individual members of the dynasty but never has the whole family been explored as one. This book will uncover the rise of the Beauforts from bastard stock of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, to respected companions of their cousin Henry V, celebrated victor of Agincourt. The Beauforts fell with the House of Lancaster during the 1460s and 1470s, and their hopes and fortunes came to rest upon the shoulders of a teenage widow named Margaret and her young son, Henry. From her would rise the House of Tudor, the most famous of all England’s royal houses and a dynasty who owed their crown to their forebears, the House of Beaufort. From bastards to princes, the Beauforts are medieval England’s most intriguing family.

Brides of the Marches: Five Medieval England Scotland Wales Romances


Kathryn Le Veque - 2017
    Over TWO thousand pages of Medieval Pagentry - purchase this limited edition set or read for free in KINDLE UNLIMITED! Where England and Wales meet among the dark and rolling hills of the Welsh Marches, romance is born. Powerful English and Scottish men and their Welsh brides come together in a limited edition bundle that is a must-have for your Le Veque library. Delight in the drama and passion of these highly rated, full-length border romances, including: Rise of the Defender: The greatest knight in Richard the Lionheart's realm assumes his post, and his bride, on the Welsh Marches. The Red Lion: A Highlander serving in Wales finds more than he bargained for in a Welsh warrior woman. Spectre of the Sword: A half-Welsh knight is charged with protecting the heir to the throne against those who wish to see her dead. Island of Glass: A big English knight and a fiery lass on her search for the Holy Grail. Netherworld: A seasoned English knight makes a bargain with the devil to assume his post at a bleak Welsh castle called Netherworld. The Welsh Marches never looked so dark and sexy. Get this collection before it's gone!