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Author: David Womersley
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141977078
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 105
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Book Description
'James was a king tragically trapped by principle. Yet was it wise to attempt to change the national religion?' The short reign of James II is generally seen as one of the most catastrophic in British history, ending in his exile after he unsuccessfully tried to convert England to Catholicism, a crisis that would haunt the monarchy for generations. Ultimately, David Womersley's biography shows, James was a man whose blindness to subtlety and political reality brought about his ruinous downfall.
Author: David Womersley
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141977078
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 105
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Book Description
'James was a king tragically trapped by principle. Yet was it wise to attempt to change the national religion?' The short reign of James II is generally seen as one of the most catastrophic in British history, ending in his exile after he unsuccessfully tried to convert England to Catholicism, a crisis that would haunt the monarchy for generations. Ultimately, David Womersley's biography shows, James was a man whose blindness to subtlety and political reality brought about his ruinous downfall.
Author: John Gillingham
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141978562
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 117
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Book Description
William II (1087-1100), or William Rufus, will always be most famous for his death: killed by an arrow while out hunting, perhaps through accident or perhaps murder. But, as John Gillingham makes clear in this elegant book, as the son and successor to William the Conqueror it was William Rufus who had to establish permanent Norman rule. A ruthless, irascible man, he frequently argued acrimoniously with his older brother Robert over their father's inheritance - but he also handed out effective justice, leaving as his legacy one of the most extraordinary of all medieval buildings, Westminster Hall.
Author: Piers Brendon
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241196426
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 133
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Book Description
'After my death,' George V said of his eldest son and heir, 'the boy will ruin himself within twelve months.' The forecast proved uncannily accurate. Edward VIII came to the throne in January 1936, provoked a constitutional crisis by his determination to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson, and abdicated in December. He was never crowned king. In choosing the woman he loved over his royal birthright, Edward shook the monarchy to its foundations. Given the new title 'Duke of Windsor' and essentially sent into exile, he remained a visible skeleton in the royal cupboard until his death in 1972 and he haunts the house of Windsor to this day. Drawing on unpublished material, notably correspondence with his most loyal (though much tried) supporter Winston Churchill, Piers Brendon's superb biography traces Edward's tumultuous public and private life from bright young prince to troubled sovereign, from wartime colonial governor to sad but glittering expatriate. With pace and panache, it cuts through the myths that still surround this most controversial of modern British monarchs.
Author: John Callow
Publisher: History Press
ISBN: 9780750964937
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
For 11 years, from his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690 until his death in 1701, James II lived in one of the most spectacular baroque palaces in Europe, holding court as a king in exile. This period is almost completely ignored by those writing about James and yet it was the period which set in train the rise in Jacobitism and allowed James to attempt to fashion the opportunity for his comeback as rightful king. This book reassesses James's strategy for dealing with his downfall and presents a portrait of a man who planned for himself great political rewards. That these plans did not materialize was the result of the changing perception of monarchy in Britain but James left a lasting legacy in the form of Jacobitism on the one hand and a deep suspicion of Catholic monarchs on the other.
Author: Laura Brennan
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
ISBN: 1399012614
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
James II & VII was not born to be a king. As the Duke of York he grew up in a Britain divided by civil wars and witnessed big events in British history including the Battle of Edgehill (1642). After the execution of his father Charles I at the hands of the Parliamentarians, James soldiered in Europe until his brother, Charles II was restored to the crowns of Britain. Under his brother's reign, James converted to Catholicism and subsequently became the heart of several political storms until 1681. Upon inheriting the throne from his brother Charles II, in 1685, James struggled to balance his personal faith and the evolving politics of the time, upsetting courtiers, his parliament and his subjects eventually leading to the Glorious Revolution and him losing his throne in 1688. This book examines the politics and events of James' life, both before and during his reign, to explain why he was unable to maintain the thrones of Britain, as well as the last few years of his life in exile, how he tried to regain the throne and his sad death. Often overlooked as just a king who ruled for less than four years, James II & VII was an accidental but key historical figure in the shaping of British history. The events at the end of his reign were the first steps in creating a better constitution and democratic Britain.
Author: Jonathan Keates
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141976888
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 107
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Book Description
William III (1689-1702) & Mary II (1689-94) (Britain's only ever 'joint monarchs') changed the course of the entire country's history, coming to power through a coup (which involved Mary betraying her own father), reestablishing parliament on a new footing and, through commiting Britain to fighting France, initiating an immensely long period of warfare and colonial expansion. Jonathan Keates' wonderful book makes both monarchs vivid, the cold, shrewd 'Dutch' William and the shortlived Mary, whose life and death inspired Purcell to write some of his greatest music.
Author: Mark Kishlansky
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141979844
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 125
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Book Description
The tragedy of Charles I dominates one of the most strange and painful periods in British history as the whole island tore itself apart over a deadly, entangled series of religious and political disputes. In Mark Kishlansky's brilliant account it is never in doubt that Charles created his own catastrophe, but he was nonetheless opposed by men with far fewer scruples and less consistency who for often quite contradictory reasons conspired to destroy him. This is a remarkable portrait of one of the most talented, thoughtful, loyal, moral, artistically alert and yet, somehow, disastrous of all this country's rulers.
Author: Jane Ridley
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141977191
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 168
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Book Description
Part of the Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers in a collectible format Queen Victoria inherited the throne at 18 and went on to become the longest-reigning female monarch in history, in a time of intense industrial, cultural, political, scientific and military change within the United Kingdom and great imperial expansion outside of it (she was made Empress of India in 1876). Overturning the established picture of the dour old lady, this is a fresh and engaging portrait from one of our most talented royal biographers. Jane Ridley is Professor of Modern History at Buckingham University, where she teaches a course on biography. Her previous books include The Young Disraeli; a study of Edwin Lutyens, The Architect and his Wife, which won the 2003 Duff Cooper Prize; and the best-selling Bertie: A Life of Edward VII. A Fellow of the Royal Society for Literature, Ridley writes for the Spectator and other newspapers, and has appeared on radio and several television documentaries. She lives in London and Scotland.
Author: Tom Holland
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241187826
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 127
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Book Description
The formation of England occurred against the odds: an island divided into rival kingdoms, under savage assault from Viking hordes. But, after King Alfred ensured the survival of Wessex and his son Edward expanded it, his grandson Athelstan inherited the rule of both Mercia and Wessex, conquered Northumbria and was hailed as Rex totius Britanniae: 'King of the whole of Britain'. Tom Holland recounts this extraordinary story with relish and drama, transporting us back to a time of omens, raven harbingers and blood-red battlefields. As well as giving form to the figure of Athelstan - devout, shrewd, all too aware of the precarious nature of his power, especially in the north - he introduces the great figures of the age, including Alfred and his daughter Aethelflaed, 'Lady of the Mercians', who brought Athelstan up at the Mercian court. Making sense of the family rivalries and fractious conflicts of the Anglo-Saxon rulers, Holland shows us how a royal dynasty rescued their kingdom from near-oblivion and fashioned a nation that endures to this day.
Author: Carl Watkins
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141977159
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
Known as 'the anarchy', the reign of Stephen (1135-1141) saw England plunged into a civil war that illuminated the fatal flaw in the powerful Norman monarchy, that without clear rules ordering succession, conflict between members of William the Conqueror's family were inevitable. But there was another problem, too: Stephen himself. With the nobility of England and Normandy anxious about the prospect of a world without the tough love of the old king Henry I, Stephen styled himself a political panacea, promising strength without oppression. As external threats and internal resistance to his rule accumulated, it was a promise he was unable to keep. Unable to transcend his flawed claim to the throne, and to make the transition from nobleman to king, Stephen's actions betrayed uneasiness in his role, his royal voice never quite ringing true. The resulting violence that spread throughout England was not, or not only, the work of bloodthirsty men on the make. As Watkins shows in this resonant new portrait, it arose because great men struggled to navigate a new and turbulent kind of politics that arose when the king was in eclipse.
