Gertrude Courtenay led a dangerous life, both in a personal and political sense. Daughter of a prominent courtier, she started her career as maid of honour and then lady-in-waiting to Katharine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife. She sided with the Queen during the Great Matter, as the divorce case between Henry VIII and Katharine of Aragon was then often known. A bitter enemy of the King’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, Gertrude plotted and intrigued with Henry VIII’s enemies, brushing with treason on many occasions. Wife and mother of the last Plantagenets of the Tudor court, Gertrude ...

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey enjoyed one of the most meteoric careers in history. His rise from humble beginnings coincided with Henry VIII’s ascension to the throne in 1509, when the king appointed him to his privy council. The two grew to be cherished friends, and by 1515 Wolsey, now a cardinal, had become the controlling figure in all matters of church and state, in spite of the jealous criticisms of the nobles, who resented him for usurping what they saw as their role as the king’s natural advisors. These were dangerous enemies to have.

Queen Victoria was a figure larger than life, and her enduring legacy has proven larger than death as well. Yet, despite countless biographies, the real woman behind the regal persona still remains elusive. This book offers a unique approach to Queen Victoria and explores her extraordinary life and long reign through the most personal objects of all – her surviving clothes and jewels. In this book, we follow Queen Victoria’s life through a unique lineup of dresses charting her journey from an oppressed teenager to the Queen who became a legend during her own lifetime and lent her name ...

The newly-wed Anne Hastings faced her husband's wrath when her affair with William Compton was made public. Mary Tudor married to satisfy her brother's political need to ally with France, but when her decrepit royal husband died, she married the dashing Charles Brandon for love. William Parr, humiliated by his wife's extramarital affair, sought a divorce to marry the woman he loved.

Margaret Tudor, the elder sister of her more famous brother Henry VIII, is the single most important Tudor figure of this era that historians have consistently overlooked. Married at thirteen to the charismatic James IV of Scotland, a man more than twice her age, she would learn the skills of statecraft that would enable her to survive his early death, and to construct a powerful position in her adopted country of Scotland as she dealt with domestic issues as well as navigating international relations with England and France.