Henry IV's conversion to catholicism in 1593 and Papal absolution in 1595 were traversed by multiple problems and difficulties. These religious events were inseparable from concurrent political, diplomatic and military issues. The subject is therefore examined both within its civil war background and the wider, European context. This treatment is original, not least in its comprehensive coverage of the Papal dimension. Until now, the role of the Papacy has been consistently misinterpreted,...

A “marvelous history”* of medieval Europe, from the bubonic plague and the Papal Schism to the Hundred Years’ War, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Guns of August*Lawrence Wright, author of The End of October, in The Wall Street JournalThe fourteenth century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering age of crusades, cathedrals, and chivalry; on the other, a world plunged into chao...

The riveting true story of mother-and-daughter queens Catherine de' Medici and Marguerite de Valois, whose wildly divergent personalities and turbulent relationship changed the shape of their tempestuous and dangerous century.Set in magnificent Renaissance France, this is the story of two remarkable women, a mother and daughter driven into opposition by a terrible betrayal that threatened to destroy the realm. Catherine de' Medici was a ruthless pragmatist and powe...

Acclaimed historian Helen Castor brings us afresh a gripping life of Joan of Arc. Instead of the icon, she gives us a living, breathing young woman; a roaring girl fighting the English, and taking sides in a bloody civil war that was tearing fifteenth century France apart.Here is a portrait of a 19-year-old peasant who hears voices from God; a teenager transformed into a warrior leading an army to victory, in an age that believed women should not fight. And it is also the story beh...

In the second volume of his celebrated history of the Hundred Years War, Jonathan Sumption examines the middle years of the fourteenth century and the succession of crises that threatened French affairs of state, including defeat at Poitiers and the capture of the king.

The House of Guise was one of the greatest princely families of the sixteenth century, or indeed of any age. Today they are best remembered through the tragic life of one family member, Mary Queen of Scots. But the story of her Guise uncles, aunts and cousins is if anything more gripping - and certainly of greater significance in the history of Europe. The Guise family rose to prominence as the greatest enemy of the House of Habsburg and had dreams of a great dynastic empire that included ...

The "Magna Carta" is one of the most famous constitutional documents in the world. To the Americans, it has a sacrosanct bearing and it is seen as a major source of inspiration for the US Constitution. To the British, it is a 1215 charter which twenty-five feisty Barons forced on a hated King, and it represents an important milestone in a long series of documents (Charter of Liberties, Charter of the Forest, Habeas Corpus, Petition of Right, the Bill of Right, Act of Settlement...) which t...

Richelieu died on the 5th of December 1642; on the following day Louis XIII. announced that he had chosen Mazarin to be First Minister. Giulio Mazarini, or Jules Mazarin, as the French call him, was born on July 14, 1602, at Piscina, a small village in the Abruzzi. His father was a certain Sicilian, by name Pietro Mazarini, his mother was Hortensia Buffalini, who was renowned for her beauty. To the latter the young Giulio owed much of his future success, for it was due to her efforts that ...

Chief minister to King Louis XIII, Cardinal Richelieu was the architect of a new France in the seventeenth century, and the force behind the nation's rise as a European power. Among the first statesmen to clearly understand the necessity of a balance of powers, he was one of the early realist politicians, practicing in the wake of Niccolò Machiavelli. Truly larger than life, he has captured the imagination of generations, both through his own story and through his portrayal as a ruthless p...

THE death of Concini and the fall of Mary de Medici seemed at first to effect a complete revolution. The rebellion of the nobles was at an end; in fact, they were received at court as if they had been fighting the king's battles against his enemies But they soon discovered that the change of policy was not so complete as it appeared at first. They were jealously excluded from the royal council. Condé, on whose release they had confidently reckoned, was removed from the Bastille to Vincenne...

pubOne.info present you this wonderfully illustrated edition. Occupying nearly four columns, appeared in the New York Tribune of Dec. 30th, 1879, from which the following is extracted.

Originally published in 1957, this classic work has guided generations of scholars through the arcane mysteries of medieval political theology. Throughout history, the notion of two bodies has permitted the postmortem continuity of monarch and monarchy, as epitomized by the statement, “The king is dead. Long live the king.” In The King’s Two Bodies, Ernst Kantorowicz traces the historical dilemma posed by the “King’s two bodies”—the body natural and the body politic—back to the Mi...