Showing titles in Royalty

For years she prayed for her mother to give birth to a son. She longed to be spared her destiny as Britain's future Queen. Her dream was to live in the country surrounded by children, dogs and horses. But Elizabeth did her duty, the young princess pledging before her people that she would dedicate her whole life to the service of Britain and the Commonwealth. She hoped that that day would be a long way off. It was not to be. Only 25 when she became Queen after the premature death of her father, King George Vl, Elizabeth has become the stuff of superlatives.

Anne Boleyn is a subject of enduring fascination and by far the most famous of Henry VIII's six wives. For the most part, she is considered in the context of her relationship with Tudor England's monarch. Dramatic though this story is, of even greater interest - and significance - is the relationship between Anne and her daughter, the future Elizabeth I, who was less than three years old when her mother was executed. Given that she could have held precious few memories of Anne, it is assumed that her mother exerted little influence over her. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Lancater and York is a riveting account of the Wars of the Roses, from beloved historian Alison Weir. The war between the houses of Lancaster and York was characterised by treachery, deceit, and bloody battles. Alison Weir's lucid and gripping account focuses on the human side of history. At the centre of the book stands Henry VI, the pious king whose mental instability led to political chaos, and his wife Margaret of Anjou, who took up her arms in her husband's cause and battled in a violent man's world.

This is the definitive account—insightful and nuanced—of the life of the Duke of Cambridge as he approaches his milestone birthday. Jobson explores the complex character of the man who will one day reign as King William V. It is the story of the making of a king for our times. The story of the making of a monarch for the 21st century.

Queen Elizabeth II was famous for longer than anyone who has ever lived. When people spoke of her, they spoke of themselves; when they dreamed of her, they dreamed of themselves. She mirrored their hopes and anxieties. To the optimist, she seemed an optimist; to the pessimist, a pessimist; to the awestruck, charismatic; and to the cynical, humdrum. Though by nature reserved and unassuming, her presence could fill presidents and rock gods with terror. For close to a century, she inhabited the psyche of a nation.

The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 is one of the most dramatic and bloody events in English history. Starting with village riots in the Essex countryside, chaos rapidly spread across much of the southeast of England, as tens of thousands of ordinary men and women marched in fury to London, torching houses, slaughtering their social superiors and terrifying the life out of those who got in their way. The burning down of Savoy Palace, home to the most powerful magnate in the realm, marked one of the Revolt’s most violent episodes.

For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. The Royal Art of Poison is a hugely entertaining work of popular history that traces the use of poison as a political - and cosmetic - tool in the royal courts of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Kremlin today.

In this poignant memoir, Charles Spencer recounts the trauma of being sent away from home at age eight to attend a boarding school. A Very Private School offers a clear-eyed firsthand account of a culture of cruelty at the school Spencer attended in his youth and provides important insights into an antiquated boarding system. Drawing on the memories of many of his schoolboy contemporaries, as well as his own letters and diaries from the time, he reflects on the hopelessness and abandonment he felt aged eight, describing the pain of homesickness and the appalling inescapability of it all.

Virginal, chaste, humble, patiently waiting for rescue by brave knights and handsome princes: this idealized—and largely mythical—notion of the medieval noblewoman still lingers. Yet the reality was very different, as Kelcey Wilson-Lee shows in this vibrant account of the five daughters of Edward I, often known as Longshanks. The lives of these sisters—Eleanora, Joanna, Margaret, Mary, and Elizabeth—ran the gamut of experiences open to royal women in the Middle Ages.

Dickie Arbiter was spokesman for the queen during the most turbulent period of her reign. On Duty with the Queen is an open and engaging account of his life and his fascinating role in serving this unique family at a time of momentous change. Dickie gives his personal insights into events that shaped his relationship with the royal family over the years, from joining the queen on a picnic at Balmoral in 1988 to being alongside her at the time of the death of Diana Princess of Wales in 1997.

In her relationship with Charles, which has survived for more than 40 years, Camilla's story has seen a great many myths. This book is the definitive account. The relationship between Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, is one of the most remarkable love stories of the age. It has endured against all the odds and, in the process, nearly destroyed the British monarchy.

King George V predicted that his son, Edward VIII, would destroy himself within a year of succeeding to the throne. In December 1936 he was proved right, and the world’s press revealed the king was abandoning his throne to marry Wallis Simpson. A life spent in the shadow of his charismatic elder brother left the new king, George VI, magnificently unprepared for the demands of ruling the kingdom and empire. Drawing on personal accounts from the royal archives, Deborah Cadbury uncovers the very private conflict.

This explosive exposé, Royals at War, takes listeners inside a riven Buckingham Palace to provide the definitive account of the unfolding abdication crisis of 2020 - dubbed Megxit - during which the duke and duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, became royal outcasts.

The last Plantagenet king remains one of England's most famous and controversial monarchs. There are few parallels in English history that can match the drama of Richard III's reign, witnessed in its full bloody intensity. A dedicated brother and loyal stalwart to the Yorkist dynasty for most of his early life, Richard's personality was forged in the tribulation of exile and the brutality of combat.

More than 20 years after her death, Princess Diana remains a mystery. Was she "'the people's princess', who electrified the world with her beauty and humanitarian missions? Or was she a manipulative, media-savvy neurotic who nearly brought down the monarchy? The Diana Chronicles parts the curtains on Diana's troubled time in the mysterious world of the Windsors, as she breaks out of her royal cage into celebrity culture, where she found her own power and used it to devastating effect.

From the moment of her ascension to the throne in 1952 at the age of twenty-five, Queen Elizabeth II has been the object of unparalleled scrutiny. But through the fog of glamour and gossip, how well do we really know the world’s most famous monarch? Drawing on numerous interviews and never-before-revealed documents, acclaimed biographer Sally Bedell Smith pulls back the curtain to show in intimate detail the public and private lives of Queen Elizabeth II.

When Lisa Najeeb Halaby was 26, her father introduced her to King Hussein of Jordan. Within a year, she became his fourth wife. Born in 1951 to a distinguished Arab-American family, Lisa was unsure what her role would be. King Hussein was not only the head of state in Jordan but also considered the spiritual leader of all Muslims. This memoir provides a vital perspective on 30 years of turbulent world history from the Arab point of view.

The story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn is one of the most remarkable in history: a long courtship followed by a shotgun wedding and then a coronation, ending just short of three years later when a husband’s passion turned to such hatred that he simply wanted his wife gone. Missing from most accounts is how the turbulent nature of Anne and Henry’s relationship was tied almost completely to the major events of international politics at one of the great turning points of British and European history. This was a marriage that convulsed not just a nation, but a whole continent.

King Charles III's own life has been marred by scandal and myth, but who is the real man behind the Crown? In this revelatory book, renowned royal correspondent and author Robert Jobson examines the life of our new King, and his passions, purpose, and motivations. On the eve of his landmark coronation, Our King considers the life of the man and the monarch, reflecting on how his values and beliefs will shape him as he takes on this monumental role.

The first in-depth biography of the American actress and humanitarian campaigner who will marry Prince Harry in May 2018, written by the world's best-known royal biographer. When Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were set up by a mutual friend on a blind date in June 2016, little could they know that just 16 months later the resulting whirlwind romance would lead to their engagement in November 2017 and marriage in May 2018.