I was not one to dream of growing up to be a princess. If anything, my preference laid in being the mythological medieval Queen to King Arthur, Guinevere. In 1986, I got a hold of my mother's baby name book and learned that Jennifer is a derivative of Guinevere, which I considered to be a much better name. After all, I knew several other Jennifer's but I didn't know any Guinevere's. This is also about the time, when I first watched Disney's Sword in the Stone and fell in love with the legends of King Arthur. A passion that I have sadly neglected over time.
As I've gotten older, my fascination with royalty centers on misdeeds and the gross behaviors as exemplified by the documentary VERSAILLES' DIRTY SECRETS - Toute L'Histoire
"Packed with incredible true stories and legendary medieval intrigue, this epic narrative history chronicles the first five queens from the powerful royal family that ruled England and France for over three hundred years. This remarkable recreation of the action-packed century that saw the murder of Thomas Becket and the signing of the Magna Carta covers the lives and reigns of the first five Plantagenet queens, who ruled England and France throughout the bloody 1200s, a particularly dramatic and violent period of European history. Wars, crusades, treachery, murder, passion, and the interplay between rival monarchs of Britain and France provide a surprising picture of these five ambitious women and their struggle for power. The queens covered in the book are Eleanor of Aquitaine, Berengaria of Navarre, Isabella of Angouleme, Alienor of Provence and Eleanor of Castile. One of these queens became legendary when, accompanying her husband on crusade, she saved his life by sucking the blood from his poisoned-arrow wound. Equally intriguing are the descriptions of their marriages, including one that was extremely tempestuous, and one that was a love match turned sour when the jealous husband discovered his queen's infidelity and retaliated by killing her lovers and hanging their bodies from the canopy of her bed. This second volume of historian Alison Weir's critically acclaimed Medieval Queens series brings these unfamiliar, fascinating royals to life, demonstrating how very much they resemble self-determining women of our own time"--. Provided by publisher.
From a hunchbacked dwarf to a paranoid poet assassin, a history of Victorian England as seen through the numerous assassination attempts on Queen Victoria. During Queen Victoria's 64-year reign, no fewer than eight attempts were made on her life. Murphy follows each would-be assassin and the repercussions of their actions, illuminating daily life in Victorian England, the development of the monarchy under Queen Victoria and the evolution of the attacks in light of evolving social issues and technology.
The Romanovs were the most successful dynasty of modern times, ruling a sixth of the world's surface for three centuries. How did one family turn a war-ruined principality into the world's greatest empire? And how did they lose it all? This is the intimate story of twenty tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition. Simon Sebag Montefiore's chronicle reveals their secret world of unlimited power and ruthless empire-building, overshadowed by palace conspiracy, family rivalries, sexual decadence and wild extravagance. Drawing on new archival research, Montefiore delivers an enthralling epic of triumph and tragedy, love and murder, that is both a universal study of power and a portrait of empire that helps define Russia today.--Page [4] of cover.
"Based on years of original research in the archives, Robert Hutchinson's new account of Henry's final years includes many startling revelations and dramatic eyewitness testimony. He has unearthed death warrants, confessions, desperate pleas for clemency as well as evidence of blackmail, treason and heresy; there are even the lost love letters between Henry's last queen and the Lord High Admiral."--Jacket.
"More goes wrong than could be imagined when Iris Sparks and Gwendolyn Bainbridge of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau are unexpectedly engaged to dig into the past of a suitor of a royal princess in Allison Montclair's delightful second novel, A Royal Affair. In London 1946, The Right Sort Marriage Bureau is just beginning to take off. The proprietors, Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge are in need of a bigger office and a secretary to handle the growing demand. Unfortunately, they don't yet have the necessary means. So when a woman arrives - a cousin of Gwen's - with an interesting and quite remunerative proposition, the two of them are all ears. The cousin, one Lady Matheson, works for the Queen in "some capacity" and is in need of some discreet investigation. It seems that Princess Elizabeth has developed feelings for a dashing Greek prince and a blackmail note has arrived, alluding to some potentially damaging information about said prince. Wanting to keep this out of the palace gossip circles, but also needing to find out what skeletons might lurk in the prince's closet, the palace has quietly turned to Gwen and Iris. Without causing a stir, the two of them must now find out what secrets lurk in the prince's past, before his engagement to the future Queen of England is announced. And there's more at stake than the future of the Empire - there is their potential new office that lies in the balance"--Provided by publisher.
Spring, 2016. Queen Elizabeth is at Windsor Castle in advance of her 90th birthday celebrations. When a guest is found dead in one of the Castle bedrooms, the scene suggests the young Russian pianist strangled himself, but a badly tied knot leads MI5 to suspect foul play was involved. Unhappy at the handling of the case and concerned for her staff's morale, the monarch-- with help from her Assistant Private Secretary, Rozie Oshodi, a British Nigerian and recent officer in the Royal Horse Artillery-- begins making inquiries to bring a murderer to justice. -- adapted from jacket
"Drawing on Victoria's own diaries, which she first started reading when she was a student at Cambridge University, Daisy Goodwin brings us the brilliantly imagined life of a young woman about to make her mark on her nation--and the world."--Jacket.
The Arthurian legend is one of the most enduring and powerful of myths, and Mary Stewart's classic The Merlin Trilogy is one of its most beloved and acclaimed retellings. In prose that is as vividly, achingly real as it is poetic, New York Times bestselling author Mary Stewart brings to life the man behind the myth: Myrddin Emrys ... Merlinus Ambrosius ... Merlin.
It is 1454 and for over a year King Henry VI has remained all but exiled in Windsor Castle, struck down by his illness, his eyes vacant, his mind a blank. His fiercely loyal wife and Queen, Margaret of Anjou, safeguards her husband's interests, hoping that her son Edward will one day come to know his father. With each month that Henry is all but absent as king, Richard, the Duke of York, Protector of the Realm, extends his influence throughout the kingdom. The Trinity--Richard and the earls of Salisbury and Warwick--are a formidable trio, and together they seek to break the support of those who would raise their colors and their armies in the name of Henry and his Queen. But when the king unexpectedly recovers his senses and returns to London to reclaim his throne, the balance of power is once again plunged into turmoil. The clash of the Houses of Lancaster and York may be the beginning of a war that can tear England apart.
"Bestselling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir brings her Tudor Queens series to a close with the remarkable story of Henry VIII's sixth and final wife, who manages to survive him and remarry, only to be thrown into a romantic intrigue that threatens the very throne of England. Having sent his much-beloved but deceitful young wife Katheryn Howard to her beheading, King Henry fixes his lonely eyes on a more mature woman, thirty-year-old, twice-widowed Katharine Parr. She, however, is in love with Sir Thomas Seymour, brother to the late Queen Jane. Aware of his rival, Henry sends him abroad, leaving Katharine no choice but to become Henry's sixth queen in 1543. Fearing that she is unlikely to bear the King a child, Katharine gladly mothers his three children, Mary, Elizabeth, and the longed-for male heir, Edward. Four years into the marriage, Henry dies, leaving England's throne to nine-year-old Edward--a puppet in the hands of ruthlessly ambitious royal councilors--and Katharine's life takes a more complicated turn. Thrilled at this renewed opportunity to wed her first love, Katharine doesn't realize that Sir Thomas now sees her as a mere stepping stone to the throne, his eye actually set on bedding and wedding fourteen-year-old Elizabeth. The princess is innocently flattered by his attentions, but then he persistently invades her bedchamber, to the shock of her household. The result is a tangled tale of love and a struggle for power, bringing to a close the dramatic and violent story of Henry VIII's six wives."--. Provided by publisher.
A fictional account of the life and times of Richard III captures the pageantry, passion, intrigue, and, above all, tragedy of the War of the Roses, in the story of the last Plantagenet ruler of England.
"Before there was Catherine the Great, there was Catherine Alexeyevna: the first woman to rule Russia in her own right. Ellen Alpsten's rich, sweeping first-person narrative is the story of her rise to power. St. Petersburg, 1725. Peter the Great lies dying in his magnificent Winter Palace. The weakness and treachery of his only son has driven his father to an appalling act of cruelty and left the empire without an heir. Russia risks falling into chaos. Into the void steps the woman who has been by his side for decades: his second wife, Catherine Alexeyevna, as ambitious, ruthless and passionate as Peter himself. Born into devastating poverty, Catherine used her extraordinary beauty and shrewd intelligence to ingratiate herself with Peter's powerful generals, finally seducing the Tsar himself. But even amongst the splendor and opulence of her new life-the lavish feasts, glittering jewels, and candle-lit hours in Peter's bedchamber-she knows the peril of her position. Peter's attentions are fickle and his rages powerful; his first wife is condemned to a prison cell, her lover impaled alive on a stake in Red Square. And now Catherine faces the ultimate test: can she keep the Tsar's death a secret as she plays a lethal game to destroy her enemies and take the Crown for herself? From the sensuous pleasures of a decadent aristocracy, to the incense-filled rites of the Orthodox Church and the terror of Peter's torture chambers, the intoxicating and dangerous world of Imperial Russia is brought to vivid life. Tsarina is the story of one remarkable woman whose bid for power would transform the Russian Empire"-- Provided by publisher...
Marrying the Romanov heir, nineteen-year-old Danish princess Minnie becomes empress of Russia and treads a perilous path of compromise in a beloved but resistance-torn country where her son becomes the last tsar.
Alexandria, 47 BC. Cleopatra shares the throne with her brother Ptolemy under the auspices of Julius Caesar, by whom Cleopatra is heavily pregnant. A shipment of new coins meant to reset the shaky Egyptian economy has been stolen and the Queen's Eye has been murdered, so Queen Cleopatra turns to childhood friend Tetisheri to find the missing shipment and bring the murderer to justice.
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