British Royalty Biographies

A life of Matilda - empress, skilled military leader, and one of the greatest figures of the English Middle Ages.

t her vivid life, Elizabeth I was the center of a complicated web of political intrigue that made up the Elizabethan constitution. Elizabeth Jenkins, in her classic biography, reveals the woman behind the skillful politician, showing her belief in personal sacrifice to secure peace for the country she loved more than any man.

Now a Major Motion Picture starring Dame Judi Dench from director Stephen Frears. History’s most unlikely friendship—this is the astonishing story of Queen Victoria and her dearest companion, the young Indian Munshi Abdul Karim. In the twilight years of her reign, after the devastating...

One of the most beautiful and brilliant women of her time, Gladys Deacon dazzled, as much as she puzzled, the glittering social circles in which she moved. Born in Paris to American parents in 1881, she suffered a traumatic childhood after her father shot her mother's lover dead. Educated in...

The critically acclaimed author of Serving Victoria brilliantly illuminates the life of the little-known Bess of Hardwick—next to Queen Elizabeth I, the richest and most powerful woman in sixteenth-century England. Aided by a quartet of judicious marriages and a shrewd head for business, Bess...

For millions of people, both in Britain and across the world, Elizabeth II is the embodiment of monarchy. Her long life spans nearly a century of national and global history, from a time before the Great Depression to the era of COVID-19. Her reign embraces all but seven years of Britain's postwar history; she has been served by 15 UK prime ministers from Churchill to Johnson, and witnessed the administrations of 13 US presidents from Truman to Trump. The vast majority of Britons cannot remember a world without Elizabeth II as head of state and the Commonwealth.

Through the centuries, succession to the English throne has largely been dictated by blood. Children were born to the role, their destinies entwined with that of the nation. They would be raised with the expectation that they would eventually take their place on the throne and rule the land. But not all those expected to wear the crown completed this journey. Ashley Mantle explores the lives of several heirs apparent, from the Norman Conquest to the present day, who were destined to assume the throne of England but, for one reason or another, did not.

He is one of the most reviled English kings in history. He drove his kingdom to the brink of civil war a dozen times in less than twenty years. He allowed his male lovers to rule the kingdom. He led a great army to the most ignominious military defeat in English history. He was Edward II, and this book tells his story. Kathryn Warner strips away the myths which have been created about him over the centuries, and provides a far more accurate and vivid picture of him than has previously been seen.

The Despensers were a baronial English family who rose to great prominence in the reign of Edward II (1307-27) when Hugh Despenser the Younger became the king's chamberlain, favorite, and perhaps, lover. He and his father Hugh the Elder wielded great influence, and Hugh the Younger's greed and tyranny brought down a king for the first time in English history and almost destroyed his own family. The Rise and Fall of a Medieval Family tells the story of the ups and downs of this fascinating family from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries.

Ed Owens has won for himself key roles as a historian of the monarchy and as a royal commentator, but one who is meticulously objective in his judgements. Nothing seems certain. Will the monarchy survive with its continuing echoes of an Imperial past? Will young people - disenchanted with the political status quo - find the ritual and practice of the monarchy quite so mesmerising as previous generations have done? What might a republican Britain look like?

Born on Christmas Day, 1936, Princess Alexandra's birth was almost overshadowed by the abdication of her uncle, King Edward VIII. Yet public affection for this new addition to the Royal Family has only grown during a lifetime of dedicated royal service. In this biography, Helen Cathcart chronicles the first thirty years of Princess Alexandra's life, from the tragic death of her father when she was just five years old to her wartime childhood at Badminton living with her grandmother Queen Mary.

Doyenne of royal writers, Helen Cathcart takes the listener on a unique journey from infancy up to the third decade of Her Majesty's reign, highlighting the Queen's influence upon her friends and Household, and their reciprocal influence upon the Sovereign. Along the way we meet the royal relatives, intimate acquaintances, and trusted officials who have supported and guided Her Majesty from early childhood through to heiress presumptive to the throne and ultimately as reigning monarch.

One was a married American socialite who embarked on a scandalous affair with the future king of England. Another was an aristocratic ingenue whose winsome charm captured the world’s imagination. And the third was a thirty-something actress whose outspokenness put her on a collision course with the British public. The marriages of Wallis Simpson, Diana Spencer, and Meghan Markle into the British royal family sparked a series of crises that at times seemed to threaten the future of the monarchy itself.

A Sunday Times number one bestseller in the United Kingdom, this is the intimate and revealing autobiography of Margaret Rhodes, first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and niece of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Margaret was born into the Scottish aristocracy, into a now almost vanished world of privilege. Royalty often came to stay, and her house was run in the style of Downton Abbey. During the Second World War, she "lodged" at Buckingham Palace while she worked for MI5.

Mary, Queen of Scots continues to intrigue both historians and the general public - but the story of her mother, Marie de Guise, is much less well known. A political power in her own right, she was born into the powerful and ambitious Lorraine family, spending her formative years at the dazzling, licentious court of François I. Although briefly courted by Henry VIII, she instead married his nephew, James V of Scotland, in 1538.

Celebrating a decade of Columbia Global Reports, the Forerunners series revives groundbreaking works of investigative journalism and incisive analysis published a century before CGR’s founding. These texts, once forgotten or underexplored, reflect CGR’s core mission: fearless reporting...

Margaret, Duchess of Argyll (1912-1993) was an international celebrity in her youth. But in 1963, the year of the Profumo Affair, the 11th Duke of Argyll shocked the country when he alleged that his adulterous wife had slept with over 80 men behind his back. The duke won a divorce, and Margaret was abandoned by most of her friends. Lyndsy Spence tells a tragic story of the life and downfall of this fascinatingly complex woman, and shows how she fell victim to a cruel husband, harsh social mores, and an unforgiving class.

Royal Lodge is one of a scattered group of dwellings, mansions, forts, and follies in the southern recesses and environs of Windsor Great Park which have served royal pleasures and private needs ever since the carefree days of Charles II. It has been the home of artists and courtiers and farmers and foresters, the picnic pavilion of queens and the private abode of two kings. Meticulously researched, royal chronicler Helen Cathcart paints a vivid picture of the evolving architecture, changing decor, and esteemed inhabitants of Royal Lodge from earliest days through to the mid-twentieth century.

The two reigns - both unusually long - could scarcely have been more different. Queen Elizabeth I brought a much needed (and appreciated) stability to England at a key moment in the history of the nation. Queen Elizabeth II has, by contrast, been the constitutional monarch par excellence.

Here is the whole of recorded British royal history, from the legendary King Alfred the Great onwards, including the monarchies of England, Scotland, Wales and the United Kingdom for over a thousand years. Fascinating portraits are expertly woven into a history of division and eventual union of the British Isles - even royals we think most familiar are revealed in a new and sometimes surprising light.This edition includes biographies of the royals of recorded British history, plus an overview of the semi-