151 Products

The Wars of the Roses that convulsed 15th-century England sprang from a family quarrel as fraught and intimate as any before or since. It is often viewed in terms of its male protagonists but, as this rich, epic history makes clear, women played a key role, among them the Yorkist matriarch Cecily Neville; Margaret of Anjou, formidable wife of the mad King Henry VI; and Margaret Beaufort, whose ambition for her son ushered in the Tudor dynasty.

In chapters devoted to each monarch – Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I – this is a narrative account of the Tudor period, told through 42 letters and documents in the British Library’s collections. From Henry VII and Elizabeth of York’s autograph inscriptions in a prayer book, to a letter from Elizabeth I to James VI of Scotland in 1603, each item is illustrated in colour, fully transcribed and accompanied by a commentary setting it in historical context.

John Hall explores the myths and controversies surrounding Italian nobleman Theodore Paleologus, heir apparent to the throne of Byzantium, who in 1597 arrived in England to murder a traitorous compatriot, then remained in the pay of the Earl of Lincoln to sow misery among the English aristocracy until his death in 1636. The biography also scrutinizes Paleologus’s offspring, who fought one another in the English Civil War, and backs their father’s long-dismissed claim to the imperial throne.

After failing to strike any decisive blow against the Royalists, Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, who commanded the first Parliamentarian army against King Charles I, never achieved military distinction. This account of Essex’s campaigns, which includes analysis of the battles of Edgehill, Lostwithiel and Newbury, reappraises the man and his reputation in the light of his military accomplishments, his strategic influence over the battles, and his loyalty to his men.

Reared in a dangerous world, Margaret of York was one of history’s great survivors. This biography tells how, from her Burgundian exile, she sought to avenge the overthrow of the House of York by sending pretenders to contest the throne of Henry Tudor. Slightly off-mint.

In this study of the Welsh military and civilian involvement in Ireland between the accession of Elizabeth I and the Irish rebellion of 1641, Morgan shows how Welsh men and women played a pervasive role in England’s attempts to conquer and settle early modern Ireland.

Slightly off-mint.

Scotland saw two political revolutions in the 17th century, in 1638 and 1689, and the beginnings of both religious toleration and the modernization of the state. In twelve essays, this volume presents some of the latest research on this dramatic period.

Against the familiar view of puritans as killjoys, this study reveals a neglected strand of puritan theology in the writings and pastoral work of Ralph Venning, an Independent divine who emphasized the importance of inner happiness and personal piety.

The letters of the Glaswegian minister Robert Baillie (1620–1662) are a common source for the history of Scotland during the violent years 1637–1660. This first biography of Baillie establishes his significance as a polemicist, theologian and contemporary historian.

Reviled as a tyrant and canonized as a martyr, Charles I remains one of the most controversial of English monarchs, and he polarizes historians to this day. Drawing on previously unseen royal correspondence, Leanda de Lisle’s carefully researched history charts the tragic career of a flawed king, sets the Civil War in the context of the wider European conflict of the Thirty Years' War, and highlights the crucial and often underestimated role of Charles’s wife Henrietta Maria. Felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

Napoleon Bonaparte was not the first exile to end his days on St Helena. In the 16th century, the Portuguese conquistador Fernão Lopes set out to invade India, only to defect to the Muslim side and fight his own countrymen. This compelling biography tells the long-forgotten story of how he was captured and tortured before jumping ship en route to his homeland to live as a hermit on the uninhabited island for 30 years.

The six wives of Henry VIII and the virginity of Elizabeth I are the stuff of popular history, but the lives of the Tudor monarchs away from the public eye are little known. Drawing on contemporary correspondence and eyewitness accounts, this book takes us into their kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms to reveal, through what they ate, what they wore, how they worshipped, whom they loved and how they gave birth, the intimate moments of their daily lives.

In 1651, Charles II returned to England to reclaim the throne of his executed father, only to be crushed by the might of Cromwell’s armies at Worcester. Based on the account he gave of his adventures to Samuel Pepys, and the reports of others who assisted him, this history tells of his six weeks on the run, using deception and disguise, grit and good luck to evade capture.

Excommunicated in 1570, Queen Elizabeth I found the key markets of Catholic Europe closed to English merchants; instead, she reached out to the Shah of Iran, the King of Morocco and the Ottoman Sultan. This gripping history reveals how English merchants, sailors and diplomats plied their trade with the Muslim world, creating a fashion for the Orient in London that was reflected in the plays of Marlowe and Shakespeare. Off-mint and felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

As part of the marriage contract between Charles II and the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza, Charles agreed to send three regiments, under the command of General Hermann von Schomberg, to support Portugal’s struggle for independence from Spain. Many of the troops were from Cromwell’s disbanded New Model Army. This history of the brigade and its expedition explores the politics surrounding the Portuguese Restoration War and recounts many of its battles, including Montes Claros.

Much has been written about the six wives of Henry VIII, but less attention has been paid to his two sisters. This groundbreaking volume restores these two women to their rightful place at the crux of European history. The book describes how Margaret became Queen of Scotland at 13, how her younger sister Mary was married to the ageing king of France, and how both, defying convention, chose their second husbands for love.

This biography of Henry VIII’s fifth wife, who was queen consort for just 16 months, sheds new light on her story by describing the world that surrounded her both above and below stairs, and includes maps, charts and colour illustrations.

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.

Drawing on Walderswick church wardens’ accounts and the Brooke archive from Cockfield Hall, Warner tells the story of the 1644 affray between the landlord’s man and townsmen over grazing rights that earned the Suffolk town the name ‘Bloody Marsh’.

The Acts of Succession (1536 and 1544) allowed Henry VIII to nominate his successors in his will: the result was one of the most intriguing and contested documents in British history. Lipscomb re-opens the debate about its intended meaning, authenticity and validity. Felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

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.

When Ferdinand Magellan set sail in 1519 to claim the Spice Islands for the King of Spain, his fleet included an international crew of family, friends, mariners, men-at-arms and slaves. Returning to Spain years later, three dozen of them had circumnavigated the globe, probably by accident. This book tells the story of the men accompanying Magellan and other illustrious expedition leaders on their voyages of discovery, and includes route maps and short biographies. Slightly off-mint.

Known as an age of artistic rebirth, the Renaissance is cloaked with an aura of beauty and brilliance. But behind the Mona Lisa's smile lurked a seamy world of power politics, cruelty and corruption. Illustrated with colour reproductions of works by Michelangelo, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and other Renaissance masters, this groundbreaking survey reveals how these sublime works of art were created by flawed, tormented artists living in a world of corrupt bankers, greedy politicians, sex-crazed priests, extravagance, murder and madness.

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, the restoration of Charles II in 1660 heralded the rebirth of London. In this account of the capital and its prominent figures such as Wren, Newton, Halley and Pepys, Don Jordan shows how the city recovered rapidly from plague and fire to become the crucible of commerce, science and culture in which modern Britain was forged.

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.

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. Slightly off-mint.

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.

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.

With chapters on nine individuals, including Lord Inchiquin, Lord Taaffe and Daniel O’Neill, Williams examines the experience of Irish royalists in Charles II’s court-in-exile, and places their allegiances within Three Kingdoms and European contexts.

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.

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).

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.