The Magna Carta is a founding document of individual liberty, the rule of law, and parliamentary democracy. In this accessible and engaging book, Chris Berg and John Roskam explain what the Magna Carta is, where it came from, and why it matters.The barons demanded of King John nothing less than a wholesale revolution of government. The Magna Carta established the fundamental link between tax and consent.Eight centuries later, understanding how our liberties came from a revo...

An exploration of the British monarchy from the retreat of the Romans up until the modern day. This compendium volume of two earlier books is fully revised and updated.The monarchy is one of Britain’s longest surviving institutions – as well as one of its most tumultuous and revered. In this masterful book, David Starkey looks at the monarchy as a whole, charting its history from Roman times, to the Wars of the Roses, the chaos of the Civil War, the fall of Charles I and Cromwell's...

On 15 June 1215, rebel barons forced King John to meet them at Runnymede. They did not trust the King, so he was not allowed to leave until his seal was attached to the charter in front of him.This was Magna Carta. It was a revolutionary document. Never before had royal authority been so fundamentally challenged. Nearly 800 years later, two of the charter's sixty-three clauses are still a ringing expression of freedom for mankind: 'To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or ...

The Tudor Age began in August 1485 when Henry Tudor landed with a small force at Milford Haven intent on snatching the English throne from Richard III. For more than a hundred years England was to be dominated by the personalities of the fi ve Tudor monarchs, ranging from the brilliance and brutality of Henry VIII to the shrewdness and vanity of the virgin queen, Elizabeth I.

An authoritative and accessible history of the kings and queens of England from the warrior kings of the Dark Ages to King Charles III.The lives of the kings and queens of England include some of the most dramatic episodes in the history of Great Britain.Whether it's William the Conqueror's slaying of Harold Godwinson, Henry VIII's readiness to behead his unfortunate wives, Elizabeth I's chastity, or the glamour of the young Elizabeth II, these monarchs hol...

England, 1154. As Henry II seizes the throne after years of turmoil, a new dynasty is poised to haul this hitherto turbulent nation out from the Dark Ages and transform it into the nation state we recognize today. Featuring some of England's greatest but also most notorious kings, the house of Plantagenet would reign for over 300 blood-soaked, yet foundational, years.The dynasty provides some of the most evocative names in our history: from the brave yet rash Richard the Lionheart,...

King John long ago acquired the epithet 'Bad,' and he is reputed to be the worst of England's kings. Before his death in 1216, his desperate exploitation of his subjects for ever more money had turned him into the mythical monster of Hollywood legend. In marked contrast to his brother Richard, John appeared incompetent in battle, failing to defend Normandy (1202-04), and was unsuccessful in recovering his lost lands in 1214. A continuing crisis was a constant need...

The Magna Carta has long been considered the foundation stone of the British Constitution, yet few people today understand either its contents or its context. This Very Short Introduction introduces the document to a modern audience, explaining its origins in the troubled reign of King John, and tracing the significance of the role that it played thereafter as a totemic symbol of the subject's right to protection against the raw and absolute authority of the sovereign.Drawing upon the grea...

There may not be a more fascinating a historical period than the late fourteenth century in Europe. The Hundred Years' War ravaged the continent, yet gallantry, chivalry, and literary brilliance flourished in the courts of England and elsewhere. It was a world in transition, soon to be replaced by the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration -- and John of Gaunt was its central figure.In today's terms, John of Gaunt was a multibillionaire with a brand name equal to Rockefeller. He fo...

This is the history of the men and women who occupied the highest position in English, and later British, society. From Richard III’s infamous life and death, to Henry VIII’s wives, Charles I’s execution and Queen Victoria’s exceptionally long reign, their dramatic story unfolds within the pages of this book. For about a thousand years they were superior lords, the leaders of a nobility which ruled, and for about three hundred years thereafter they were sovereigns, whose servants ruled in ...

First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, John Morrill's Very Short Introduction to Stuart Britain sets the Revolution into its political, religious, social, economic, intellectual, and cultural contexts. It thus seeks to integrate what most other surveys pull apart. It gives a graphic account of the effects of a century-long period during which population was growing inexorably and faster than both the food supply and the empl...

First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths' Very Short Introduction to Medieval Britain covers the establishment of the Anglo-Norman monarchy in the early Middle Ages, through to England's failure to dominate the British Isles and France in the later Middle Ages. Out of the turbulence came stronger senses of identity in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Yet this was an age, too, ofgrowing definition of Englishne...