They shared an important commonality of experience — both with a parent dead on the headsman’s block, both imprisoned in the Tower just yards away. Within days of the death of her sister, Mary, he was at her side and within months, openly spoken of as her lover, even her future husband. Her relationship with her “bonnie sweet Robin” was one of the most important in the life of Elizabeth. For thirty years he loved her, advised her, understood her, sat by her bed in sickness, and represented her on state occasions. Yet, much of the fascination in their relationship comes from what is not on display: the sudden death — some said murder — of Leicester’s wife, which damaged his reputation irretrievably; and Elizabeth’s persistent refusal for ever afterwards to marry anybody at all.Not a conventional biography, Elizabeth & Leicester is, rather, an intimate portrait of an affair between two people at a crucial moment in history.

    Joanna Stafford, a Dominican nun, learns that her favorite cousin has been condemned by Henry VIII to be burned at the stake. Defying the rule of enclosure, Joanna leaves the priory to stand at her cousin’s side. Arrested for interfering with the king’s justice, Joanna, along with her father, is sent to the Tower of London.While Joanna is in the Tower, the ruthless Bishop of Winchester forces her to spy for him: to save her father’s life she must find an ancient relic—a crown so powerful, it may possess the ability to end the Reformation.With Cromwell’s troops threatening to shutter her priory, bright and bold Joanna must decide who she can trust so that she may save herself, her family, and her sacred way of life. This provocative story set in Tudor England melds heart-stopping suspense with historical detail and brings to life the poignant dramas of women and men at a fascinating and critical moment in England’s past.

    A Latin scholar and outstanding musician, her love of fashion was matched only by her zeal for gambling. It is the tragedy of Queen Mary that today, 450 years after her death, she remains the most hated, least understood monarch in English history.Linda Porter’s pioneering new biography—based on contemporary documents and drawing from recent scholarship—cuts through the myths to reveal the truth about the first queen to rule England in her own right. Mary learned politics in a hard school, and was cruelly treated by her father and bullied by the strongmen of her brother, Edward VI. An audacious coup brought her to the throne, and she needed all her strong will and courage to keep it. Mary made a grand marriage to Philip of Spain, but her attempts to revitalize England at home and abroad were cut short by her premature death at the age of forty-two.  The first popular biography of Mary in thirty years, The First Queen of England offers a fascinating, controversial look at this much-maligned queen.

    I stared on in horror as the sword sliced my aunt's head from her swan-like neck. The executioner raised her severed head into the air by its long chestnut locks. The last thing I remembered before my world turned black was my own scream.Fifteen year-old Catherine Carey has been dreaming the same dream for three years, since the bloody execution of her aunt Queen Anne Boleyn. Her only comfort is that she and her family are safe in Calais, away from the intrigues of Henry VIII's court. But now Catherine has been chosen to serve Henry VIII's new wife, Queen Anne of Cleves. Just before she sets off for England, she learns the family secret: the true identity of her father, a man she considers to be a monster and a man she will shortly meet.This compelling novel tells the life story of a woman who survived being close to the crown and who became one of Queen Elizabeth I's closest confidantes.

    Bridget Manning is forced to leave the safety and tranquillity of her home at Rivers Abbey in order to join the household of the queen, Anne Boleyn. Once there she enters a world seething with intrigue and plots against her new mistress. Will Bridget be able to navigate her way through the dangerous maze of the court or will it destroy her as it is destroying her queen?

    Europe is seething with conflict between Protestants and Catholics. James sees himself as a grand peacemaker -- and what better way to make his mark than to use his children in marriage negotiations? Into this court come Henry, Prince of Wales, and his sister Elizabeth. Their louche father is so distrusted that soon they are far more popular than he is: an impossibly dangerous position. Then Elizabeth is introduced to Frederick of Bohemia, Elector Palatine. He's shy but they understand one another. She decides he will be her husband -- but her parents change their minds. Brutally denied Henry's support, how can Elizabeth forge her own future? At once a love story, a tale of international politics and a tremendous evocation of England at a time of great change, this is a landmark novel to thrill all lovers of fine historical fiction.

     All that history knows of Grace Plantagenet is that she was an illegitimate daughter of Edward IV and one of two attendants aboard the funeral barge of his widowed queen. Thus, she was half sister of the famous young princes, who -- when this story begins in 1485 -- had been housed in the Tower by their uncle, Richard III, and are presumed dead. But in the 1490s, a young man appears at the courts of Europe claiming to be Richard, duke of York, the younger of the boys, and seeking to claim his rightful throne from England's first Tudor king, Henry VII. But is this man who he says he is? Or is he Perkin Warbeck, a puppet of Margaret of York, duchess of Burgundy, who is determined to regain the crown for her York family? Grace Plantagenet finds herself in the midst of one of English history's greatest mysteries. If she can discover the fate of the princes and the true identity of Perkin Warbeck, perhaps she will find her own place in her family.

    Should she trust her father's brother and most loyal supporter or honor the betrothal that her mother has made for her to her family's enemy, Henry Tudor?The choice was made for her on the field at Bosworth, and Elizabeth the Plantagenet princess became the first Tudor queen.Did Elizabeth find happiness with Henry? Did she ever discover the truth about her missing brothers, who became better known as the Princes in the Tower?Lose yourself in Elizabeth's world in Plantagenet Princess, Tudor Queen.Selected as an Editor's Choice by the Historical Novel Society and long-listed for the 2016 HNS Indie Award.

    Summoned to the castle as the old lord's scribe, she falls obsessively in love with his son Hugo, who is married to Catherine. Driven to desperation by her desire, she summons the most dangerous powers Morach has taught her, but soon the passionate triangle of Alys, Hugo, and Catherine begins to explode, launching them into uncharted sexual waters. The magic Alys has conjured now has a life of its own -- a life that is horrifyingly and disastrously out of control. Is she a witch? Since heresy means the stake, and witchcraft the rope, Alys is in mortal danger, treading a perilous path between her faith and her own female power. Synopsis from Barnes & Noble.

    No longer stuck in Cat's shadow, Kitty's now caught between two men--the object of her affection and the object of her desire. But court is also full of secrets, lies, and sordid affairs, and as Kitty witnesses Cat's meteoric rise and fall as queen, she must figure out how to keep being a good friend when the price of telling the truth could literally be her head.

    This is a page-turning, revisionist history of the villainised and misunderstood Mary Tudor, the first queen of England.

    It is almost midnight and the cream of the English nobility hold their breath as King Henry VIII prepares to face his God. As the royal physicians wring their hands and Archbishop Cranmer gallops through the frigid night, two dispossessed princesses pray for their father’s soul and a boy, soon to be king, snivels into his velvet sleeve. Time slows, and dread settles around the royal bed, the candles dip and something stirs in the darkness … something, or someone, who has come to tell the king it is time to pay his dues. The Kiss of the Concubine is the story of Anne Boleyn, second of Henry VIII’s queens.

    To the great Catholic powers of France and Spain, England was a heretic pariah state, a canker to be cut away for the health of the greater body of Christendom. Elizabeth's government, defending God's true Church of England and its leader, the queen, could stop at nothing to defend itself.Headed by the brilliant, enigmatic, and widely feared Sir Francis Walsingham, the Elizabethan state deployed every dark art: spies, double agents, cryptography, and torture. Delving deeply into sixteenth-century archives, Stephen Alford offers a groundbreaking, chillingly vivid depiction of Elizabethan espionage, literally recovering it from the shadows. In his company we follow Her Majesty's agents through the streets of London and Rome, and into the dank cells of the Tower. We see the world as they saw it-ever unsure who could be trusted or when the fatal knock on their own door might come. The Watchers is a riveting exploration of loyalty, faith, betrayal, and deception with the highest possible stakes, in a world poised between the Middle Ages and modernity.

    Henry was considered a demi-god by his subjects, so each woman he chose was someone who had managed to stand out in a crowd of stunning ladies. Looking good was not enough (indeed, many of Henry’s lovers were considered unattractive); she had to have something extra special to keep the King’s interest. And Henry’s women were every bit as intriguing as the man himself. In this book Henry’s mistresses are rescued from obscurity. The 16th century was a time of profound changes in religion and society across Europe—and some of Henry’s lovers were at the forefront of influencing these events.

    The letters appear to have been written after Anne Boleyn had been sent away from court, in consequence of reports injurious to her reputation, which had begun to be publicly circulated. Her removal indeed was so abrupt that she had resolved never to return. The king soon repented his harshness, and strove to persuade her to come back; but it was a long time, and not without great trouble, before he could induce her to comply. This book is very different from other works on the same topic and two of its letters-the fifth and the thirteenth-are not comprehended in the Vatican collection. Of the seventeen letters here included eight were written in English and nine in French.