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In 1845, European potato fields from Spain to Scandinavia were attacked by a novel pathogen. But it was only in Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom, that the blight’s devastation reached apocalyptic levels, leaving more than a million people dead and forcing millions more to emigrate. In Rot, historian Padraic X. Scanlan offers the definitive account of the Great Famine, showing how Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom and the British Empire made it uniquely vulnerable to starvation.

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 ...

For almost two decades before her execution at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was a prisoner. From her chambers, she wrote countless letters, many encrypted using complex ciphers to prevent her communications from being intercepted. In this way, she used language to exert her will and her influence, even while incarcerated. More than four hundred years after Mary's death, the discovery of further encoded letters has led to renewed interest in the breadth of her correspondence while in captivity.

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 ...

Anne Seymour, Jane Dudley and Elisabeth Parr all have their own unique stories to tell. Born into the most turbulent period of England’s history, these women’s lives interplayed with the great dramas of the Tudor age, and their stories deserve to be told independently of their husbands. Anne Seymour served all of Henry VIII’s six wives and brushed with treason more than once, but she died in her bed as a wealthy old matriarch. Jane Dudley was a wife and mother who fought for her family until her last breath. Elisabeth Parr, sister-in-law of Queen Katherine Parr, married for love and ...

The Tudor dynasty traditionally starts with Henry VII’s victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. In reality, however, the story of England’s most popular dynasty starts much earlier—and it starts with three courageous women who shaped their own destiny. The Tudor dynasty traces its origin to Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth of York—women who waged through blood and loss in order to finally emerge as the ultimate female survivors of the Wars of the Roses. Their posthumous images, however, couldn't be more different, and their lives are still shrouded in ...

Drawing on a variety of sixteenth-century sources such as manuscripts, household accounts, chronicles and personal letters, Victoria Sylvia Evans explores the role of ladies-in-waiting at the Tudor court. - What responsibilities did ladies-in-waiting and maids of honour have? - What was required to be selected as a lady-in-waiting? - What did an ordinary day at court look like? - What role did ladies-in-waiting play in the fall of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard? - Who are some of the most famous ladies to have served the Tudor queens? These and many other topics are covered in Ladies-in-...

Uncovering the echoes of female heroism, one secret at a time. In The Echo of Valor, book 2 in the Timeless Agents series, the secrets of the past meet the recognition of the present. Torquay, 2007 In the seaside town of Torquay on England’s south coast, Dr Mia Thompson’s encounter with her reclusive client, Eileen Nearne, sparks an unexpected discovery. Eileen’s quiet life belies her extraordinary past as an SOE secret agent in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. From daring missions to capture by the Gestapo and survival in a concentration camp, Eileen’s story is one of ...

Everyone knows that Henry VIII had six wives, two sisters and two daughters. All of these women received attention in academic circles and are the subjects of countless biographies. Not many people, however, realize that Henry VIII also had a niece, a daughter-in-law and a mistress, who were close friends, but who today remain on the fringes of history. Margaret Douglas was the daughter of Henry VIII’s elder sister Margaret, Queen of Scotland. She was imprisoned thrice, and each time, as she admitted, “not for matters of treason, but for love matters”. Her legacy includes marrying her...

Richard III's reputation and appearance has dominated the media since the discovery of his skeleton was confirmed on 4 February 2013. Even before the discovery, the legacy of Richard III was a hotly debated issue with myths and misconceptions surrounding his person. In this book, we’re going to concentrate on busting or confirming the most popular myths surrounding Richard III: • What did he really look like? • Did he poison his wife so he could marry his niece? • Did he murder his nephews, the Princes in the Tower? • What led to his death and what happened to his body? Richard ...

“Partners both in throne and grave, here rest we two sisters Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of one resurrection.” This inscription is visible on the tomb where Elizabeth I and her half sister, Mary I, lie buried together in one vault in the North Aisle of Henry VII’s Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey. It is the relationship between Elizabeth and her Scottish cousin Mary Stuart that is often discussed and pondered over while the relationship between Elizabeth and her own half sister is largely forgotten. Yet it is the relationship with Mary Tudor that forged Elizabeth’s personality ...

In this book, we examine Anne Boleyn’s wardrobe in relation to the chronology of her lifetime because—luckily for us—we have records of Anne's clothes at every stage of her life. From her glittering debut in the Chateau Vert pageant to her final walk to the scaffold, everything is right there in the historical record. We may never know what Anne Boleyn truly looked like, but we can peek into her coffers and chests to admire her furs, velvets, satins and damasks, her headdresses, girdles and slippers—even her nightgowns—allowing us to effectively re-imagine the clothes worn by this...

“Two such courts as those of France and England have not been witnessed for the last fifty years.” Niccolo Sagudino, 1515 They had to be strong if they wanted to make it in a man’s world. They lived on the brink of the golden age of the European Renaissance and witnessed social and religious upheavals as the medieval world they knew crumbled to dust, replacing the old with the new. In this new book, Sylvia Barbara Soberton paints a vivid picture of the rivalry between the courts of England and France during the reigns of Henry VIII and Francis I. Set against the backdrop of sixteenth-...

Victory, betrayal and revenge. "I heartily recommend this very readable and enjoyable journey into the England's history and look forward with great anticipation to the next volume in the series." The year is 1069. The Norman invaders are stealing the land of the English people, building castles to subdue them and relentlessly making a once free people into serfs. But the English will not submit. Armed resistance flares across the land. Yet, to become effective, it needs a leader who can unite the nation. That leader is Edgar Atheling, heir of Alfred the Great, a young man born to be king. ...

Anne Boleyn was raised in Belgium and France, spending seven years at the most glittering and progressive courts of Europe. Her mentors were the most brilliant and fascinating women of the sixteenth century: Margaret of Austria, Louise of Savoy, Claude of Valois and Margaret of Navarre. It is from them that Anne received a spiritual and humanistic education and learned how women could wield power and use it for greater good. When she returned to England, Anne was equipped with knowledge and Continental gloss that most of her female contemporaries lacked. In The Forgotten Years of Anne ...

Vampires did not originate with the Twilight series. They did not begin with Bram Stoker's Dracula either, but it is—and will probably remain—the most iconic vampire book ever written. Ever since Dracula became a bestseller, its main character has been the subject of much speculation. Numerous articles and books have been dedicated to finding Dracula’s real-life prototype, and several historical figures—including Vlad the Impaler, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, and Jack the Ripper—have been proposed as the inspiration behind the most famous vampire in the world. - Was there a real-...

Jacquetta Woodville, Margaret of Anjou and Cecily Neville are among the best-known female figures during the Wars of the Roses, a dynastic conflict that raged in England from 1455 to 1485. Jacquetta was the mother of Edward IV’s much-hated commoner queen, Elizabeth Woodville, and she is most prominent in this triple biography. Jacquetta’s story is inevitably linked to the lives of two other women: Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI’s queen, and Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, mother of Edward IV and Richard III. Set against the rich background of fifteenth-century court life are the ...

In Rot, Padraic Scanlan reinterprets the history of this time and the result is a revelatory account of Ireland's Great Famine. In the first half of the nineteenth century, nowhere in Europe - or the world - did the working poor depend as completely on potatoes as in Ireland. To many British observers, potatoes were evidence of a lack of modernity among the Irish. However, Ireland before the famine more closely resembled capitalism's future than its past.