162 Products

A muse to poets and descendant of royalty, the golden-haired Penelope Devereux was celebrated in the court of her godmother, Queen Elizabeth I, for being as quick-witted as she was beautiful. This biography charts Devereux’s political ascendancy in the court, her unhappy marriage to nobleman Robert Rich, her involvement in the rebellion to overthrow Elizabeth, led by her brother, the Earl of Essex, and her doomed love affair with Charles Blount, which ultimately led to her downfall.

Nothing reveals as much about a society as its bad behaviour, and if Shakespeare’s England is remembered for courtly ceremony, it was also an age of brawling, boozing and badmouthing. Drawing on contemporary behaviour manuals, court cases and sermons, Ruth Goodman, the presenter of Victorian Farm, reveals what most upset and infuriated our forebears. Her entertaining survey dishes the dirt on ninny-hammers, wittols, stinkards and draggletails, and offers practical advice on how to handle yourself in a fight. Off-mint.

Slightly off-mint.

Illustrated with reproductions of paintings by the great Renaissance masters, this groundbreaking survey reveals a darker side of the Renaissance: a seamy world of power politics, cruelty and corruption.

This selection from Pepys’s famous diaries covers the years 1660 to 1666 and includes the diarist’s first-hand accounts of the Plague and the Great Fire of London, as well as descriptions of his day job, running the Navy. Read by Michael Maloney.

Annotated woodcuts of historical duels and methodical swordplay illustrate this classic guide to resolving a gentlemen’s disagreement in Elizabethan England. Honour, pride and shame were at the heart of most duels, and Italian fencing master Vincentio Saviolo’s prose, which has been subtly updated for the modern reader, suggests ways for both challenger and defender to navigate the labyrinth of etiquette without resort to the rapier, his favoured weapon of combat.

After years of civil war and political turmoil, the restoration of Charles II in 1660 heralded the rebirth of London. Recovering rapidly from the setbacks of plague and fire, the city became a flourishing crucible of commerce, science and the arts. This gripping history offers a vivid panorama of the metropolis in which modern Britain was forged, and the remarkable characters who made it: Wren, Newton, Halley, Dryden, Pepys – and the king himself.

This book sheds fresh light on the wives of Henry VIII by exploring the manors, castles and palaces where their lives – and deaths – were played out. Lavishly illustrated with maps, plans and 36 pages of colour plates, it takes the reader from the Alhambra in Spain, childhood home of Katherine of Aragon, to Acton Court, where Henry dined with Anne Boleyn; from Düsseldorf, birthplace of Anne of Cleves, to Hampton Court, scene of Jane Seymour’s triumph and tragedy.

Showing what buildings looked like and how they developed in the Tudor age, this set of ten A3 double-sided posters includes artworks and photographs of different types of structure along with an explanatory illustrated booklet.

Originating in France, the Seymour family accompanied William the Conqueror to England and served the crown for generations; but came to prominence in the Tudor era. Jane was Henry VIII's third queen and mother to Edward VI, and her brothers Edward and Thomas rose to high office, only to end their lives at the executioner's block. The two brothers are the main focus in Loades's study of the rise and fall of the family and their ancestral home at Wolfhall, Wiltshire.

Historians trawl through documentary records to reveal how people lived in the past, but few actually experience it first-hand. Ruth Goodman, presenter of the BBC TV series Tudor Monastery Farm, has done just that, eating, sleeping, working, dressing and dancing like a Tudor. Drawing on these adventures with characteristic wit and humour, she describes a day in the life of an ordinary person, from dawn to dusk, during one of the most vibrant periods of English history.

Debora Shuger offers a new approach to the history of early modern English censorship. Attempting to recover the system of beliefs and values ‘that made the regulation of language, including state censorship, seem like a good idea’, the study deals with issues that remain relevant today: the rhetoric of ideological extremism, the use of defamation to ruin political opponents, and the grounding of law in theological ethics.

Discussing familiar animals – horses, sheep, dogs, cats, rats and moles – in the literary contexts of Renaissance works including Hamlet, Utopia and Romeo and Juliet, Karen Raber argues that ‘there is no such thing as human identity, history, culture, without the prior cooperation, collaboration, habitation, ideological appropriation, consumption of animals, without animals as the "always already" of both materiality and culture itself.’

Charles I was a loving father, but what became of his children after his execution in 1649? This engaging, sympathetic and meticulously researched history charts the fortunes of the Stuart princes and princesses in exile and after: Elizabeth, imprisoned during the Civil War; the dashing Henry, who died within months of his brother Charles's restoration to the throne; James, Charles's ill-fated successor; Mary, child bride of the Prince of Orange; and Henrietta Anne, the youngest, who married Philippe d'Orléans.

Samuel Pepys was born in London in 1633 and died there in 1703, having lived through revolution and Restoration, the Dutch raid, notable scientific advances, plague and fire. All of this he recorded in his diary and letters; a National Maritime Museum exhibition brought it to life in 2015. Presenting 158 objects and paintings, and with essays by contributing scholars, this accompanying volume explores Pepys’s career and varied interests while illuminating aspects of 17th-century London life ranging from surgical procedures to Stuart portraiture.

This time-traveller’s guide takes the reader back to a London not entirely unlike ours, a city of drinking, dining, entertainment and shopping. And though many buildings have been obliterated by fire, Blitz and development, the street plan remains. Like any reliable guidebook, it provides information on when to visit, how to get there – ‘the Gravesend voyage is very difficult and its length depends on the weather’ – where to stay and what to see.

Illustrated with photographs of the Bicorne range of metal miniatures, this wargamer's guide provides an introduction to the battles, troops and weapons of the English Civil War and a set of fast play rules to suit both novice and experienced gamers.

This book profiles the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAA), tracing its foundation under the Shah, giving a detailed analysis of operations during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s and charting developments in organization and equipment after the conflict.

Had the first-born son of Henry VII lived into adulthood, the crown would not have passed to his younger brother: Arthur Tudor, rather than Henry VIII, would have ruled and England’s subsequent history would have been quite different. This study of Arthur (1486-1502) describes the life of a prince royally matched to Catherine of Aragon, groomed and destined for the throne; and it shows how, when Arthur died, Henry inherited his brother’s wife, but not his careful preparation for kingship.

Autumn 1536: Henry VIII has broken with Rome and is eyeing the wealth of the monasteries. In the north of England, 30,000 men loyal to the Catholic Church take arms against him in the uprising known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Using the rebels' own testimony, this narrative history examines their motives and beliefs, charts the course of the ill-fated insurrection, and describes the rhetoric, rewards and retribution employed by Henry's minister Thomas Cromwell to thwart them.

In two parts, covering the periods 1540–1660 and 1660–1850, this volume presents first-hand descriptions of Ireland by English, Scottish and Welsh writers who visited the country, and provides notes on the authors and the historical context of their writings. Among the great range of writers represented are Edmund Campion (visiting in 1570), John Wesley (c.1750), Thomas de Quincey (c.1800), Thomas Carlyle (1849) and Queen Victoria (1870).

This volume makes available full scholarly editions and translations of two documents that are vital for an understanding of Reformation church discipline: the drafts for the reformation of canon law known as the Henrician Canons; and the attempt to revise canon law published by John Foxe in 1571, the Reformation legum ecclesiasticarum, which never became law but attained unofficial authority in ecclesiastical courts. No jacket.

During his varied career, Thomas Larkham (1602–1669) was a Church of England cleric, a New England colonist, chaplain in Cromwell’s New Model Army, a preacher and, in the 1660s, a fugitive non-conformist. His idiosyncratic ‘diary’, in which finances prompt spiritual reflections and poetry, sheds light on both parish life during Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the early experience of non-conformists after the Restoration of Charles II. No jacket.

Samuel Rogers (1613–1643) of Wethersfield, Essex, kept a diary while at home with his family, at university in Cambridge, and at various posts in Bishop's Stortford and London. Transcribed and published here for the first time, with a substantial biography and introduction, and with translations of Latin passages, the diary gives access to the experience and observations of a minister who, although himself obscure, was living in ‘interesting times’. No jacket.

In 1553, 17-year-old Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of England to prevent the accession of Henry VIII’s Catholic daughter Mary. Thirteen days later she was imprisoned in the Tower, and in February 1554 she was beheaded. This absorbing narrative history draws on previously overlooked sources to create a vivid and engaging portrait of an intelligent, charismatic and deeply religious girl caught up in the power politics of her age, whose courage shone through her final, harrowing ordeal.

Peter Mundy was a 17th-century trader whose journeys took him to Istanbul, India, China, Danzig, Russia and the Arctic. His account of his remarkable travels, illustrated with his own lively drawings of the strange people and animals he encountered, survives in a single manuscript. This edited selection provides a vivid and fascinating account of the Ottoman, Mughal, Chinese and Russian empires, as well as events in London following the coronation of Charles II in 1661.

When the Massachusetts Bay authorities responded to months of accusations by executing 14 women, five men and two dogs for witchcraft, they made the name of Salem synonymous with murderous mass hysteria. In her vivid narrative of this seminal episode in American history, Pulitzer-winner Schiff profiles the leading figures, takes the reader into Salem’s houses, taverns, streets and courtrooms and explores how the adolescent girls at the centre of the crisis responded to their repressive Puritan surroundings. Felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge and American-cut pages.

Had the first-born son of Henry VII lived into adulthood, the crown would not have passed to his younger brother: Arthur Tudor, rather than Henry VIII, would have ruled and England’s subsequent history would have been quite different. This study of Arthur (1486–1502) describes the life of a prince royally matched to Catherine of Aragon, groomed and destined for the throne; and it shows how, when Arthur died, Henry inherited his brother’s wife, but not his careful preparation for kingship.

Rob Roy has been one of Scotland’s most successful exports, famed for his skill at evading capture and daring exploits; but what of the real Robert MacGregor (1671–1734)? In this acclaimed biography, Stevenson shatters the popular image of a man unjustly oppressed who fights back and wins. The ‘real’ Rob Roy was a fugitive debtor, never went into battle, and lost the only duel he ever fought – but his real struggle for survival was as remarkable as his mythical heroism.

This second study returns to the so-called ‘Golden Age’ and attempts to recover, from primary sources, the realities of the era of men like Blackbeard, ‘Black Bart’ Roberts and Charles Vane.

Describing the long Tudor century as ‘an age of avarice in which the Crown led by example’, David Childs examines the ways in which the seizing of foreign assets by privateers underpinned the reign of Elizabeth. He describes how the ‘pirate queen’ condoned the activities of ‘her wayward, and always disownable, pirates’, but also considers the legacy of piracy in Elizabethan naval policy as erstwhile privateers, men such as Grenville, Ralegh and Drake, became ‘admirals all for England’s sake’.

The global expansion of the early modern European empires challenged their old, land-based systems of defending borders and trade. Now there were issues such as rights to fishing waters and smuggling. This volume of eleven essays sets out to examine how successfully early modern rulers dealt with problems of watery borders, rampant piracy, trade in far-flung colonies, and the slave trade.

‘A narrative that balances on the cusp of old and new, equally informed by both’, the story of Anne Boleyn – her courtship, marriage and eventual tragedy – is often told, yet remains something of a mystery. Amy Licence approaches Anne’s life from the long perspective of the ambitious Boleyn family; she examines how, as queen, Anne overreached contemporary ideas about both women and aristocrats, and how she developed the sophisticated tastes and expectations of Renaissance culture, patronage and queenship.

Roy Calley presents a visitor’s guide to the castles, palaces and houses associated with the life of Mary, Queen of Scots, from her birth in Linlithgow and early years in Stirling Castle to her execution at Fotheringay. As well as telling Mary’s story through her many places of residence and captivity, Calley describes sites such as Notre Dame in Paris, where she married Dauphin François in 1558 and Kirk O’Field, the scene of Darnley’s murder in 1567.

Against the traditional image of ‘Bloody Mary’ promoted by Protestant propaganda, and against the more recent portrayals of Mary Tudor as a pitiable and tragic figure, this study presents Mary as her father’s daughter, a strong-willed risk-taker. The book examines her life during the reign of Henry VIII and her complex and dramatic relationship with her father, and reveals England’s first queen regnant as a gambler who ‘staked everything – life, freedom, religion – in a bid for the throne, and won’.

In an in-depth study of intellectual and artistic responses in Rome to a broadsheet depicting the torture and execution of Carthusians in London and York, Dillon focuses on the astonishing involvement of Michelangelo in this Counter-Reformation publication.

Peter Whitfield reads his own introduction to the Renaissance, discussing its intellectual origins and the ‘rebirth’ in fields ranging from the visual arts to science and exploration. 1 CD 78mins.

Charles II was obsessed by women, and his conquests ranged across the classes, from the actress Nell Gwyn to the aristocrat Barbara Villiers. For the first time, this revealing book places the king’s compulsive philandering at the centre of an account of his reign. Taking us behind the scenes, it introduces a colourful cast of court favourites, politicians and a parade of mistresses fighting for influence over a king ruled – and ruined – by his passions.

In the 1650s, a group of Cavaliers fled Cromwell’s England for the lush coast of Surinam. Here, they established a colony named after its founder, Sir Thomas Willoughby. This absorbing book explores the untold story of the colony’s rise and fall. The rich cast of characters includes Willoughby himself, the playwright Aphra Behn, the indigenous people and their rulers, and the planters and mercenaries who would turn this utopia into a hell of terror and slavery.