Author: Thomas Penn
Publisher: Allen Lane
ISBN: 9780241185346
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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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 Drawing on unpublished material, notably correspondence with his most loyal (though much tried) supporter Winston Churchill, Piers Brendon's superb biography traces Edward's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: David Cannadine
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 014197690X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 119

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Book Description
For a man with such conventional tastes and views, George V had a revolutionary impact. Almost despite himself he marked a decisive break with his flamboyant predecessor Edward VII, inventing the modern monarchy, with its emphasis on frequent public appearances, family values and duty. George V was an effective war-leader and inventor of 'the House of Windsor'. In an era of ever greater media coverage--frequently filmed and initiating the British Empire Christmas broadcast--George became for 25 years a universally recognised figure. He was also the only British monarch to take his role as Emperor of India seriously. While his great rivals (Tsar Nicolas and Kaiser Wilhelm) ended their reigns in catastrophe, he plodded on. David Cannadine's sparkling account of his reign could not be more enjoyable, a masterclass in how to write about Monarchy, that central--if peculiar--pillar of British life.

Author: Anne Curry
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141978724
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
Foremost medieval historian Anne Curry offers a new reinterpretation of Henry V and the battle that defined his kingship: Agincourt Henry V's invasion of France, in August 1415, represented a huge gamble. As heir to the throne, he had been a failure, cast into the political wilderness amid rumours that he planned to depose his father. Despite a complete change of character as king - founding monasteries, persecuting heretics, and enforcing the law to its extremes - little had gone right since. He was insecure in his kingdom, his reputation low. On the eve of his departure for France, he uncovered a plot by some of his closest associates to remove him from power. Agincourt was a battle that Henry should not have won - but he did, and the rest is history. Within five years, he was heir to the throne of France. In this vivid new interpretation, Anne Curry explores how Henry's hyperactive efforts to expunge his past failures, and his experience of crisis - which threatened to ruin everything he had struggled to achieve - defined his kingship, and how his astonishing success at Agincourt transformed his standing in the eyes of his contemporaries, and of all generations to come.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 10

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Book Description
The National Politics Web Guide, a service of Oleg Schultz, offers a very brief biographical sketch of the British King Edward VI (1537-1553). The biographical sketch notes important events during his reign. The information is provided as part of a listing of the monarchs and rulers of England and Great Britain from 924 forward.

Author: A J Pollard
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141978708
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
In 1461 Edward earl of March, an able, handsome, and charming eighteen-year old, usurped the English throne from his feeble Lancastrian predecessor Henry VI. Ten years on, following outbreaks of civil conflict that culminated in him losing, then regaining the crown, he had finally secured his kingdom. The years that followed witnessed a period of rule that has been described as a golden age: a time of peace and economic and industrial expansion, which saw the establishment of a style of monarchy that the Tudors would later develop. Yet, argues A. J. Pollard, Edward, who was drawn to a life of sexual and epicurean excess, was a man of limited vision, his reign remaining to the very end the narrow rule of a victorious faction in civil war. Ultimately, his failure was dynastic: barely two months after his death in April 1483, the throne was usurped by Edward's youngest brother, Richard III.

Author: Nicholas Vincent
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141977701
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 121

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Book Description
King John ruled England for seventeen and a half years, yet his entire reign is usually reduced to one image: of the villainous monarch outmanoeuvred by rebellious barons into agreeing to Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215. Ever since, John has come to be seen as an archetypal tyrant. But how evil was he? In this perceptive short account, Nicholas Vincent unpicks John's life through his deeds and his personality. The youngest of four brothers, overlooked and given a distinctly unroyal name, John seemed doomed to failure. As king, he was reputedly cruel and treacherous, pursuing his own interests at the expense of his country, losing the continental empire bequeathed to him by his father Henry and his brother Richard and eventually plunging England into civil war. Only his lordship of Ireland showed some success. Yet, as this fascinating biography asks, were his crimes necessarily greater than those of his ancestors - or was he judged more harshly because, ultimately, he failed as a warlord?

Author: Rosemary Horrox
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141978945
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 106

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Book Description
No English king has so divided opinion, both during his reign and in the centuries since, more than Richard III. He was loathed in his own time for the never-confirmed murder of his young nephews, the Princes in the Tower, and died fighting his own subjects on the battlefield. This is the vision of Richard we have inherited from Shakespeare. Equally, he inspired great loyalty in his followers. In this enlightening, even-handed study, Rosemary Horrox builds a complex picture of a king who by any standard failed as a monarch. He was killed after only two years on the throne, without an heir, and brought such a decisive end to the House of York that Henry Tudor was able to seize the throne, despite his extremely tenuous claim. Whether Richard was undone by his own fierce ambitions, or by the legacy of a Yorkist dynasty which was already profoundly dysfunctional, the end result was the same: Richard III destroyed the very dynasty that he had spent his life so passionately defending.

Author: Sarah Bradford
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241968232
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 822

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Book Description
THE DEFINITIVE BIOGRAPHY OF GEORGE VI, THE HERO OF THE KING'S SPEECH George VI reigned through taxing times. Acceding to the throne upon his brother's abdication, he was immediately confronted with the turmoil in European politics leading up to the Second World War, followed by a period of austerity, social transformation. George was unprepared for kingship, suffering from a stammer which could make public occasions very painful for him. Moreover he had grown up in the shadow of his brother, a man who had been idolized as no royal prince has been, before or since. However, as Sarah Bradford shows in this sympathetic biography, although George was not born to be king, he died a great one. 'A triumph . . . Sarah Bradford looks set to inherit Lady Longford's mantle as royal biographer supreme' Mail on Sunday 'Lucid, convincing and admirably fair . . . George VI has been fortunate in his biographer' Philip Ziegler 'Vivid, thorough and enjoyable' Independent

Author: Sean Cunningham
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0141977760
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Part of the Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers in a collectible format Henry VII was one of England's unlikeliest monarchs. An exile and outsider with barely a claim to the throne, his victory over Richard III at Bosworth Field seemed to many in 1485 only the latest in the sequence of violent convulsions among England's nobility that would come to be known as the Wars of the Roses - with little to suggest that the obscure Henry would last any longer than his predecessor. To break the cycle of division, usurpation, deposition and murder, he had both to maintain a grip on power and to convince England that his rule was both rightful and effective. Here, Sean Cunningham explores how, in his ruthless and controlling kingship, Henry VII did so, in the process founding the Tudor dynasty.