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James II (Penguin Monarchs)

Author : David Womersley

Publisher : Penguin UK

Page : 105 pages

File Size : 25,95 MB

Release : 2015-04-30

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 0141977078

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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.



William II (Penguin Monarchs)

Author : John Gillingham

Publisher : Penguin UK

Page : 117 pages

File Size : 41,3 MB

Release : 2015-08-27

Category : History

ISBN : 0141978562

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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.



Charles II (Penguin Monarchs)

Author : Clare Jackson

Publisher : Penguin UK

Page : 126 pages

File Size : 20,81 MB

Release : 2016-03-31

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 0141979771

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Book Description

Charles II has always been one of the most instantly recognisable British kings - both in his physical appearance, disseminated through endless portraits, prints and pub signs, and in his complicated mix of lasciviousness, cynicism and luxury. His father's execution and his own many years of exile made him a guarded, curious, unusually self-conscious ruler. He lived through some of the most striking events in the national history - from the Civil Wars to the Great Plague, from the Fire of London to the wars with the Dutch. Clare Jackson's marvellous book takes full advantage of its irrepressible subject.



Elizabeth II (Penguin Monarchs)

Author : Douglas Hurd

Publisher : Penguin UK

Page : 160 pages

File Size : 27,17 MB

Release : 2015-08-27

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 0141979429

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Book Description

In September 2015 Queen Elizabeth II becomes Britain's longest-reigning monarch. During her long lifetime Britain and the world have changed beyond recognition, yet throughout she has stood steadfast as a lasting emblem of stability, continuity and public service. Historian and senior politician Douglas Hurd has seen the Queen at close quarters, as Home Secretary and then on overseas expeditions as Foreign Secretary. Here he considers the life and role of Britain's most greatly admired monarch, who, inheriting a deep sense of duty from her father George VI, has weathered national and family crises, seen the end of an Empire and heard voices raised in favour of the break-up of the United Kingdom. Hurd creates an arresting portrait of a woman deeply conservative by nature yet possessing a ready acceptance of modern life and the awareness that, for things to stay the same, they must change. With a preface by HRH Prince William, Duke of Cambridge



Richard II (Penguin Monarchs)

Author : Laura Ashe

Publisher : Penguin UK

Page : 138 pages

File Size : 17,60 MB

Release : 2016-01-28

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 0141979909

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Book Description

Richard II (1377-99) came to the throne as a child, following the long, domineering, martial reign of his grandfather Edward III. He suffered from the disastrous combination of a most exalted sense of his own power and an inability to impress that power on those closest to the throne. Neither trusted nor feared, Richard battled with a whole series of failures and emergencies before finally succumbing to a coup, imprisonment and murder. Laura Ashe's brilliant account of his reign emphasizes the strange gap between Richard's personal incapacity and the amazing cultural legacy of his reign - from the Wilton Diptych to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman and The Canterbury Tales.



William III & Mary II (Penguin Monarchs)

Author : Jonathan Keates

Publisher : Penguin UK

Page : 107 pages

File Size : 12,76 MB

Release : 2015-04-30

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 0141976888

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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.



Edward II (Penguin Monarchs)

Author : Christopher Given-Wilson

Publisher : Penguin UK

Page : 132 pages

File Size : 16,99 MB

Release : 2016-09-29

Category : History

ISBN : 0141977973

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Book Description

'He seems to have laboured under an almost child-like misapprehension about the size of his world. Had greatness not been thrust upon him, he might have lived a life of great harmlessness.' The reign of Edward II was a succession of disasters. Unkingly, inept in war, and in thrall to favourites, he preferred digging ditches and rowing boats to the tedium of government. His infatuation with a young Gascon nobleman, Piers Gaveston, alienated even the most natural supporters of the crown. Hoping to lay the ghost of his soldierly father, Edward I, he invaded Scotland and suffered catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn. After twenty ruinous years, betrayed and abandoned by most of his nobles and by his wife and her lover, Edward was imprisoned in Berkeley Castle and murdered - the first English king since the Norman Conquest to be deposed.



George II (Penguin Monarchs)

Author : Norman Davies

Publisher : Penguin UK

Page : 201 pages

File Size : 41,93 MB

Release : 2021-05-27

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 0141978430

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Book Description

From the celebrated historian and author of Europe: A History, a new life of George II George II, King of Great Britain and Ireland and Elector of Hanover, came to Britain for the first time when he was thirty-one. He had a terrible relationship with his father, George I, which was later paralleled by his relationship to his own son. He was short-tempered and uncultivated, but in his twenty-three-year reign he presided over a great flourishing in his adoptive country - economic, military and cultural - all described with characteristic wit and elegance by Norman Davies. (George II so admired the Hallelujah chorus in Handel's Messiah that he stood while it was being performed - as modern audiences still do.) Much of his attention remained in Hanover and on continental politics, as a result of which he was the last British monarch to lead his troops into battle, at Dettingen in 1744.



Henry II (Penguin Monarchs)

Author : Richard Barber

Publisher : Penguin UK

Page : 107 pages

File Size : 50,6 MB

Release : 2015-04-30

Category : History

ISBN : 0141977094

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Book Description

Henry II (1154-89) through a series of astonishing dynastic coups became the ruler of an enormous European empire. One of the most dynamic, restless and clever men ever to rule England, he was brought down both by his catastrophic relationship with his archbishop Thomas Becket and his debilitating arguments with his sons, most importantly the future Richard I and King John. His empire may have ultimately collapsed, but in Richard Barber's vivid and sympathetic account the reader can see why Henry II left such a compelling impression on his contemporaries.



James II

Author : John Callow

Publisher : History Press

Page : 0 pages

File Size : 28,5 MB

Release : 2017-01-06

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 9780750964937

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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.