**THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE STARZ MINISERIES MARY & GEORGE, STARRING JULIANNE MOORE AND NICHOLAS GALITZINE!An absorbing account of the conspiracy to kill King James I by his handsome lover, the Duke of Buckingham, an historical crime that has remained hidden for 400 years.**The rise of George Villiers from minor gentry to royal power seemed to defy gravity. Becoming gentleman of the royal bedchamber in 1615, the young gallant enraptured James, Britain’s first Stua...

From the bestselling author of ‘The Queen’s Conjuror’, comes the story of Nicholas Culpeper – legendary rebel, radical, Puritan, and author of the great ‘Herbal’. This is a powerful history of medicine’s first freedom fighter set in London during Britain’s age of revolution.In the mid-17th century, England was visited by the four horsemen of the apocalypse: a civil war which saw levels of slaughter not matched until the Somme, famine in a succession of failed harvests that reduced ...

A spellbinding portrait of Queen Elizabeth’s conjuror – the great philosopher, scientist and magician, Dr John Dee (1527–1608) and a history of Renaissance science that could well be the next ‘Longitude’.John Dee was one of the most influential philosophers of the Elizabethan Age. A close confidant of Queen Elizabeth, he helped to introduce mathematics to England, promoted the idea of maths as the basis of science, anticipated the invention of the telescope, charted the New World, ...

**"...David Timson narrates this sweeping history of the court of King James I...Timson's emotionally demonstrative tones echo throughout this complex study of Villiers and the British court, adding suspense to every turn..." — AudioFile MagazineAn absorbing account of the conspiracy to kill King James I by his handsome lover, the Duke of Buckingham, a historical crime that has remained hidden for 400 years.**The rise of George Villiers from minor gentry to royal p...

From the private world of a beloved English queen, a story of intimacy, royalty, espionage, rumor, and subterfugeQueen Elizabeth I acceded to the throne in 1558, restoring the Protestant faith to England. At the heart of the new queen's court lay her bedchamber, closely guarded by the favored women who helped her dress, looked after her jewels, and shared her bed.Elizabeth's private life was of public concern. Her bedfellows were witnesses to the face and bo...

"[A] careful and accomplished biography" of the first English king of the House of Stuart ( Literary Review, UK).As the son of Mary Queen of Scots, born into her "bloody nest," James had the most precarious of childhoods. Even before his birth, his life was threatened: it was rumored that his father, Henry, had tried to make the pregnant Mary miscarry by forcing her to witness the assassination of her supposed lover, Davi...

Did Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the Princes on the Tower, survive his imprisonment? In this revealing new book medieval historian David Baldwin presents an original and intriguing scenario.On 27 December 1550 an old man named Richard Plantagenet was buried at Eastwell in Kent. He had spent much of his life working as a bricklayer at St John's Abbey, Colchester, but, unusually for a bricklayer, he could read Latin. Reluctant to give any account of his back...

Every child has heard of Guy Fawkes and will most likely have watched a 'guy' being burnt on a bonfire and fireworks lighting up the night sky on Bonfire Night. This book answers the questions of history that lie behind the celebrations of 5 November.Who was Guy Fawkes and how to did he come to be below the chamber of the House of Lords in the first hour of 5 November 1605? What desperation drove those involved to plan a horrific massacre of the Protestant royal fa...

"Superb.... A perceptive, suspenseful account." --The New York Times Book Review"Dunn demythologizes Elizabeth and Mary. In humanizing their dynamic and shifting relationship, Dunn describes it as fueled by both rivalry and their natural solidarity as women in an overwhelmingly masculine world." --Boston HeraldThe political and religious conflicts between Queen Elizabeth I and the doomed Mary, Queen of Scots, have for centuries captured our imagination and...

Richard III, the so-called 'last English King of England' and the wicked uncle of tradition, is the most controversial and enigmatic of monarchs. Could he really have been as sinister as he was painted by Tudor chroniclers and, if he wasn't, why do some historians go on saying that he was? Why is his enlightened legislation so little noticed? Is there any real evidence that he murdered his nephews, the princes in the Tower? Did he really have a hunchback or was it invented for him after hi...

Fools have been a feature of virtually every recorded culture in the history of civilization, making significant contributions to the development of early theatre and literary drama. This book offers a reign by reign chronicle of English court fools.

In her famous speech to rouse the English troops staking out Tilbury at the mouth of the Thames during the Spanish Armada's campaign, Queen Elizabeth I is said to have proclaimed, "I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king." Whether or not the transcription is accurate, the persistent attribution of this provocative statement to England's most studied and celebrated queen illustrates some of the contradictions and cultural anxieties that dom...