Witty, wealthy and beautiful, Catherine Tylney Long was the most eligible heiress in England. Courted by royalty, she chose instead to marry William Wellesley, the charming but feckless and dissolute nephew of the Duke of Wellington. Combining archival research and the readability of detective fiction, this history unravels the story of a scandalous marriage that delighted the press and cartoonists of the day, and culminated in financial ruin and a landmark court case.

After serving in the household of Thomas Cromwell during the reign of Henry VIII, Thomas Chaloner became a diplomat in France, Scotland, Flanders and finally, in 1559, he was made resident ambassador at the court of Phillip II in Madrid. This biographical study examines Chaloner as a prime example of an educated, but not aristocratic man, a humanist, the translator of Erasmus’ The Praise of Folly, and astute enough to weather the storms of four Tudor monarchs.

‘Elizabeth’, writes Lisa Hilton, ‘was happy to play on the conventions of gender when it suited her ‘weak and feeble’ woman’s body to do so’. In this biography, Lisa Hilton argues that Elizabeth’s upbringing, education and royal status effectively negated gender and the Queen saw herself as – and ruled as – a Machiavellian prince. This study of Elizabeth shifts the focus from her gender and sexuality to her statecraft and her view of England as a Renaissance state. Felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge.

Henry Cockburn (1779–1854) was a judge of the Court of Session and a leading personality in 19th-century Edinburgh, best remembered now for his posthumous literary works, Memorials of His Time (1856), Journal (1874) and Circuit Journeys (1888). This selection of 180 letters written by Cockburn provides new information about his career as judge, Whig activist, family man and pioneer of building conservation. With introduction, notes and index.

Physician John Elliotson and his friend Thomas Wakley, founding editor of The Lancet, were well-known medical pioneers in Victorian London. Yet when Elliotson championed the new ‘science’ of mesmerism, which purported to dull surgical pain, their friendship – and Elliotson’s credibility – were severely tested. Against a backdrop of Victorian lecture theatres and hospital wards, the two distinguished men publicly clashed over a technique which, for all its successes and failures, is still little understood.

Posted to Kathmandu as a junior officer, Brian Hodgson found himself in a delicate position as relations between Britain and Nepal became hostile. This biography tells how he learned the Nepalese language, studied Buddhism and natural history, and helped to negotiate peace with the mountain kingdom.