Tudor History

In the first full-scale biography of Mary Stuart in more than 30 years, John Guy creates an intimate and absorbing portrait of one of history's most famous women, depicting her world and her place in the sweep of history with stunning immediacy. Bringing together all surviving documents and uncovering a trove of new sources for the first time, Guy dispels the popular image of Mary Queen of Scots as a romantic leading lady - achieving her ends through feminine wiles - and establishes her as the intellectual and political equal of Elizabeth I.

Elizabeth was not just Queen, she was ruler. In an age of male supremacy she, by sheer force of character, became not only the unchallenged leader of the English but also the first leader of an empire upon which the sun never set. Erickson’s biography tells the truth about this extraordinary woman and profiles some amazing people - their personalities and culture.

John Gaunt was the son of Edward III, brother to the Black Prince, father to Henry IV, and the sire of all those Tudors. He has had pretty bad press: supposed usurper of Richard II’s crown and the focus of hatred in the Peasants’ Revolt, as they torched his home, the Savoy Palace. Helen Carr paints a complex portrait of a man who held the levers of power on the English and European stage, passionately upheld chivalric values, pressed for the Bible to be translated into English, and patronized the arts.

Ten remarkable women. One remarkable era. In the Tudor period, 1485 to 1603, a host of fascinating women sat on the English throne. The dramatic events of their lives are told in The Turbulent Crown: The Story of the Tudor Queens.

Since the 16th century we have been fascinated by Henry VIII and the man who stood beside him, guiding him, enriching him, and enduring the king's insatiable appetites and violent outbursts until Henry ordered his beheading in July 1540. After a decade of sleuthing in the royal archives, Diarmaid MacCulloch has emerged with a tantalizing new understanding of Henry's mercurial chief minister, the inscrutable and utterly compelling Thomas Cromwell.

In the year 1526 King Henry VIII is facing a great personal crisis. He has been married to Queen Catherine of Aragon for seventeen years. But he has no son and the kingdom is without an heir. He has fallen in love with a maid of honor named Anne Boleyn. But she refuses to become his mistress and insists on being recognized as his lawful wife. The tragedy of “The King’s Great Matter” begins to unfold with terrible consequences for all concerned.

1399: England’s crown is under threat. King Richard II holds on to his power by an ever-weakening thread, with exiled Henry of Lancaster back to reclaim his place on the throne. For Elizabeth Mortimer, there is only one rightful King - her eight-year-old nephew, Edmund. Only he can guarantee her fortunes and protect her family’s rule over the precious northern lands bordering Scotland.

Mieux connue comme la fiancée d'Azincourt d'Henri V, de la pièce Henri V de Shakespeare, Catherine de Valois était une femme de foi, courage et conviction extraordinaire dans un âge de femmes puissantes politiquement. La plus jeune fille du roi Charles VI de France terrorisé par sa maladie mentale, Catherine de Valois survécut les ravages de sa schizophrénie, une guerre civile dans son pays, et la guerre d'Henri V contre la France pour devenir une des reines les plus courageuses et fascinantes de la Renaissance.

Part literary mystery, part an examination of what constitutes fiction versus reality, "Ghostwriter" is based on the true story of author Lawrence Wells, then 45, hired by the University of Mississippi in 1987 to ghostwrite a novel for a wealthy, eccentric donor (“Mrs. F,” then 75), who was convinced that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was William Shakespeare.

Queen Elizabeth is perhaps the most legendary and celebrated ruler in English history. Yet do you really know her as well as you think you do? In this beautiful narrative biography, you explore Elizabeth’s path from “Lady Elizabeth” to “Gloriana” through the lens of her relationship with Robert Dudley, a relationship far more contentious than most people believe.

Some 70 years before the Mayflower sailed, a small group of English merchants formed the world's first joint-stock company. Back then, in the mid-16th century, England was a small and relatively insignificant kingdom on the periphery of Europe. Struggling with a single export - woolen cloth - the merchants were forced to seek new markets and trading partners. As this absorbing account shows, innovation and risk-taking were at the heart of the settlement of America, as was the profit motive.

Spanish Netherlands, 1620s: raised by her father Lucas to know her mind, Antonia Vorsterman sees everything that goes on in her world—all the rivalries and jealousies that course through the artists' studios and workshops of Antwerp. Drawn into the lively household of the artist Peter Paul Rubens, whose work her father engraves for a living, Antonia begins to see a life of colour and possibility for herself—until Lucas entrusts her with a terrible secret that will alter the course of their family's future.

The original recounting of the events from Sir Francis Drake himself. Listen to Drake's piratical raid on the Spanish Main and the various battle and adventures therein.

Through his newspaper, The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison opposed slavery for 35 years. The policy of the paper was established in the first issue with Garrison's editorial "To the Public", in which he stated that he would "strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population".