The so-called 'Assassins' are one of the most spectacular legends of medieval history. In the popular imagination they are drug-crazed fanatics who launched murderous attacks on their enemies, terrorising the medieval world. Since the tales of Marco Polo and others, the myths surrounding them have been fantastically embellished and the truth has become ever more obscure. Universally loathed and feared, they were especially frightening because they apparently had no fear of death. Bartlett'...

In the space of 200 hundred years, the Mongols built the greatest empire that the world had ever known and then lost it again. At its greatest extent, the lands they held dwarfed those under the control of Rome at its prime whilst the conquests of its founder, Genghis Khan, outshone those of even Alexander the Great. There were few parts of the known world that were not touched by the Mongols in one way or another: China, India, the Middle East, Europe, Egypt. This was truly a world empire...

The Crusades continue to exert a fascination in the West as a story of perceived gallantry and battles against impossible odds. Yet what is less often considered is their effect on the Holy Land, and in particular the response of the Muslim world to the invasions of European Crusaders. In this book, W. B. Bartlett, author of four books on the Crusades, looks at these great events from the Muslim point of view. One of the effects was to unite a previously divided Islamic wo...

The Zulu War grabs attention in a way that no other of Queen Victoria's "Little Wars" does. It is a story rich in the extremes of human experience: gallantry, cowardice, savagery, hubris, and sheer, stark terror amongst others. The way the campaign unfolded was a consequence of the actions of Britain's commander in the field, Lord Chelmsford, who thought that the outcome would be a foregone conclusion, but then found himself faced with one of the most shocking dis...

A major new history of the disaster that weaves into the narrative the first-hand accounts of those who survived. It was twenty minutes to midnight on Sunday 14 April, when Jack Thayer felt the Titanic lurch to port, a motion followed by the slightest of shocks. Seven-year old Eva Hart barely noticed anything was wrong. For Stoker Fred Barrett, shovelling coal down below, it was somewhat different; the side of the ship where he was working caved in. For the next nine hours, Jack, Eva and F...

Although the answer appears obvious, there is far more to the sinking of the Titanic than is popularly understood. On 10 April 1912 Titanic - the largest and most luxurious ocean liner in the world - left Southampton on her maiden voyage. The only headlines she expected to make were on her triumphant arrival in New York. But just five days later, she was a wreck at the bottom of the North Atlantic, taking over 1500 lives with her. Why? The answer to this question is a set of circumstances ...

The Viking Conquest of England in 1016 – a far tougher and more brutal campaign than the Norman Conquest exactly half a century later – saw two great warriors, the Danish prince Cnut and his equally ruthless English opponent King Edmund Ironside, fight an epic campaign. Cnut sailed in two hundred longboats, landing first in September 1015 on the Wessex coast with 10,000 soldiers. The two forces fought each other to the point of exhaustion for the next fourteen months. It was a war of terri...

Henry V, King of England and claimant to the throne of France, looked out across the field of Agincourt, the site of a remarkable victory, but there were few scenes of glory that met his eyes. Heaps of the dead and dying, the cream of French chivalry, were piled high. The stench of death permeated the air, rising above the muddy carnage and assaulting the senses. But this was not a victory for Henry’s knights but first and foremost for his humble archers, men like Thomas Pokkeswell from Do...

The Battle of Agincourt, fought on 25 October 1415, has gone down in history as one of the most iconic events in the story of England. Yet, dramatic though it was, it was only the beginning of a long and gruelling campaign that brought Henry V to the verge of greatness. The second invasion of France post-Agincourt often receives little more than a sideways glance, yet it is a fascinating example of a medieval military campaign. Characterised by sieges and diplomatic and political manoeuvri...

Harald Hardrada had a career that spanned much of the known world of the eleventh century. Here was a man who was born in Norway, was exiled to Russia, spent time as a mercenary leader in Constantinople, journeyed to Jerusalem and won military campaigns in Sicily. In later life he became king of Norway, but this was not enough for him. For years he fought a series of campaigns to try and add Denmark to his dominions before launching an attempt to conquer England.Harald ultimately d...

In the early middle ages the Christian presence in the Middle East took a series of blows from often superior Muslim forces, only for a fresh wave of Crusaders to regain territory. But the Fall of Acre in 1291 was the dramatic event that finally brought dreams of a Christian Holy Land crashing down. The city had first been captured by Crusaders under Richard the Lionheart in 1189–91. The aftermath was a horrific massacre of 3,000 Muslim prisoners on Richard’s orders – which contrasted vivi...

The year 1066: a battlefield in England, a mighty king lies prone on the ground, his lifeblood ebbing out of him. As he draws his last breath, the world of which he is the greatest figurehead also moves towards its end, its existence about to pass from history into legend and later into myth. This is not Hastings; it is Stamford Bridge, and the dying king is Harald Hardrada, one of the greatest figures of the Viking age. It was a bolt from the blue when Viking raiders descended on the defe...