English Royalty History

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Henry VIII: The Quest for Fame by John Guy, read by John Banks. Henry VIII's reign transformed the physical and spiritual landscape of England. Magnificent, tyrannical, a strong ruler, a 'pillager of the commonwealth', this most notorious of kings remains a figure of extreme contradictions: a devout traditionalist who oversaw a cataclysmic rupture with the church in Rome, a talented, charismatic, imposing figure who nevertheless could not bear to meet people's eyes when he talked to them.

Do you know the main difference between the diet of a Tudor nobleman and that of a peasant? What was it that changed Henry VIII from an active and pleasant young man into a vastly overweight tyrant? What did a gong farmer do? And what was the purpose of a whipping boy? In this excellent audiobook, narrator Jason Zenobia answers all these questions and more as he talks us through over 100 amazing facts about the Tudors.

Louis XVI is one of the most famous kings of France, but for reasons he would have much rather avoided. Coming of age in the wake of the reign of the Sun King, Louis XIV, and his father, Louis XV, Louis XVI initially intended to be one of France's most enlightened kings. Instead, he was destined to be the only French king ever executed. Indeed, it is his death and his role in fomenting the French Revolution (along with his infamous queen, Marie Antoinette) that continue to play the central role in Louis XVI's legacy.

An informative and entertaining look at royal weddings through English history. The excitement surrounding the marriage of Prince William to Kate Middleton has prompted four of Britain's top historical biographers to look closely at Royal Weddings.

A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors' British Legends series, listeners can get caught up to speed on the lives of Great Britain's most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.

England has had no shortage of influential monarchs, but only Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria had their nation's age literally named after them. Both the Elizabethan era and Victorian era have come to symbolize a golden age of peace and progress in every aspect of British life, with the long reigns of both queens also providing stability.

England's first Queen Elizabeth gave her name to an age. Inheriting a bankrupt, famished, and powerless country, she healed its religious rifts, replenished its treasury, redefined diplomatic guile, defeated the Spanish Armada, and inspired a new flowering of English culture. Her father, Henry VIII, beheaded her mother, Anne Boleyn, and Elizabeth was declared a bastard. As Henry kept marrying and discarding wives, she had to be adroit and canny to avoid being snared in the schemes of courtiers plotting to win the crown.

Once there was a boy named Arthur who had a wizard for a teacher. Arthur wanted to be a knight like his brother. Arthur tried to learn how to be kind and humble and clever...but sometimes he forgot. He did not know that he would ride to war when enemies invaded his country. He did not know that he would, one day, pull a sacred sword from a stone. He did not know that, one day, he would be king. This is the story of the first part of Arthur's life.

During her 63-year reign, Queen Victoria gathered around herself a household dedicated to her service. For some, royal employment was the defining experience of their lives; for others it came as an unwelcome duty or as a prelude to greater things. Serving Victoria follows the lives of six members of her household, from the governess to the royal children, from her maid of honor to her chaplain and her personal physician.

From May 7, 1682 till his death in 1725, Peter the Great or Pyotr Alekséyevich governed the Tsardom of Russia, and ultimately the Russian Empire, collectively ruling before 1696 with his older half-brother, Ivan V. He got ports on the Azov and Baltic Seas, created the structure for the Imperial Russian Navy, ended undisputed Swedish control in the Baltic, and launched the Tsardom's development into a much larger empire. In 1721, he changed the former title of Tsar to the title of Emperor, and he created the city of Saint Petersburg, which stayed Russia's capital till 1917.

Eleanor of Aquitaine is a controversial figure in history. Many have referred to her in a different light. Some with some opinions, others with others. Today, you will learn more about those and get as many facts straight as possible.

Richard I ruled as king of England from 1189 to 1199. He also governed as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine, and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and also being ruler of Brittany at different periods. He was the third of five sons of King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and he appeared not likely to prosper his dad as king, but all of his brothers had passed away before him, other than the youngest, John. In this book, we will learn more about his life and his motivations.

From 768 to 800, Charlemagne, also referred to as Charles the Great, was king of the Franks, king of the Lombards, and emperor of the Romans. Charlemagne combined many Western and main Europe at the time of the Early Middle Ages. Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire three centuries before, he was the first acknowledged emperor to rule from Western Europe. The Carolingian Empire is the name given to Charlemagne's broadening Frankish world. Antipope Paschal the Third later canonized him.

Marie Antoinette was the last queen of France. After eight years of marriage, her position at court improved when she started bearing kids. Nonetheless, she ended up out of favor amongst the people, with French "libelles" accusing her of being inefficient, promiscuous, holding sympathies for France's nemeses—specifically her home Austria—and having invalid kids. Her credibility was more tainted by the phony claims surrounding the Diamond Necklace Affair. At the time of the revolution, she was called Madame Déficit because of her elegant spending and enmity toward monetary reforms.

Mary I, typically called Mary Tudor and called "Bloody Mary" by her Protestant challengers, ruled as Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 to November 17, 1558. She is well remembered for her attempts to reverse the English Reformation. During her five-year rule, Mary had more than 280 spiritual dissenters burnt at the stake in the Marian persecutions. You might justify it by saying she may not have been much worse than other dictators and royalty around that time, but the fact of the matter is still that she murdered hundreds of people for religious and political reasons.

As King Henry VIII's second marriage partner, Anne Boleyn ruled as Queen of England from 1533 till 1536. Her marriage and execution by beheading for treason and other criminal offenses made her an essential player in the political and religious chaos that defined the start of the English Reformation. Henry VIII started his courtship of Anne in the month of February or March 1526, and quickly focused on having his marriage annulled so that he could wed her. When it became apparent that Pope Clement VII wouldn't do so, Henry and his advisors shuttered abbeys and nunneries in England.

From June 20, 1837, to her death in the year 1901, Victoria ruled as queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Her rule of 63 years and seven months, called the Victorian period, was the longest of any British ruler before her. It was a period of considerable commercial, social, technical, and army development in the UK, and also a period of great growth in the British Empire. The British Parliament gave her the additional title of Empress of India in the year 1876. In this book, you will find out a lot more about Queen Victoria’s life.

The lives of the Scottish queens, both those who ruled in their own right and the consorts, have largely been neglected in conventional history books. One of the earliest known Scottish queens was none other than the notorious Lady Macbeth. Was she really the wicked woman depicted in Shakespeare's famous play? Was St. Margaret a demure and obedient wife? Rosalind K. Marshall delves into these questions and more in this entertaining, impeccably researched book.

Throughout her lonely and isolated childhood, with only her dogs and dolls for company, Queen Victoria relished the visits of her cousins, many of whom she came to regard as surrogate brothers and sisters. From the newly created Empire of Mexico, to the largely undiscovered African Congo, their influence crossed continents; and their lives, spanning more than a century, were interwoven with some of the most significant events of the age. 

The eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles has been heir to the British throne since he was three years old. In this lively and illuminating account, royal biographer Helen Cathcart charts the first thirty years of Prince Charles's life, from his birth at Buckingham Palace in 1948 and rugby-playing schooldays at Gordonstoun, through his undergraduate years cycling to lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge, and subsequent military career in the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.