In his own time Edward IV was seen as an able and successful king who rescued England from the miseries of civil war and provided the country with firm, judicious, and popular government. The prejudices of later historians diminished this high reputation, until recent research confirmed Edward as a ruler of substantial achievement, whose methods and policies formed the foundation of early Tudor government. This classic study by Charles Ross places the reign firmly in the context of late medieval power politics, analyzing the methods by which a usurper sought to retain his throne and reassert...
In his own time Edward IV was seen as an able and successful king who rescued England from the miseries of civil war and provided the country with fir...
Founder of the Tudor dynasty, Henry VII was a crucial figure in English history. In this acclaimed study of the king's life and reign, the distinguished historian S. B. Chrimes explores the circumstances surrounding Henry's acquisition of the throne, examines the personnel and machinery of government, and surveys the king's social, political, and economic policies, law enforcement, and foreign strategy. This edition of the book includes a new critical introduction and bibliographical updating by George Bernard.
Founder of the Tudor dynasty, Henry VII was a crucial figure in English history. In this acclaimed study of the king's life and reign, the distinguish...
This engrossing biography of George IV, king of Great Britain between 1820 and 1830, provides a full and objective reassessment of the monarch's character, reputation and achievement. Previous writers have tended to accept the unfavourable verdicts of the king's contemporaries that he was a dissolute, pleasure-loving dilettante and a feeble and ineffective ruler who was responsible for the decline of the power and reputation of the monarchy in the early nineteenth century. Now E. A. Smith offers a new view of George IV, one that does not minimise the king's faults but focuses on the positive...
This engrossing biography of George IV, king of Great Britain between 1820 and 1830, provides a full and objective reassessment of the monarch's chara...
In 1714 George Ludwig, the fifty-eight year old elector of Brunswick-Luneburg became, as George I, the first of the Hanoverian dynasty to rule Britain. Until his death in 1727 George served as both elector of Hanover and British monarch. An enigmatic figure whose real character has long been concealed by anti-Hanoverian propaganda, George emerges in this ground-breaking biography as an impressive ruler who grasped the responsibilities the accession brought him and set out to bring culture to what he considered the unsophisticated English nation. Ragnhild Hatton's biography is the only...
In 1714 George Ludwig, the fifty-eight year old elector of Brunswick-Luneburg became, as George I, the first of the Hanoverian dynasty to rule Britain...
In this widely acclaimed biography, Bertram Wolffe challenges the traditional view of Henry VI as an unworldly, innocent, and saintly monarch and offers instead a finely drawn but critical portrait of an ineffectual ruler. Drawing on widespread contemporary evidence, Wolffe describes the failures of Henry's long reign from 1422 to 1471, which included the collapse of justice, the loss of the French territories, and the final disintegration of his government. He argues that the posthumous cult of Henry was promoted by Henry VII as a way of excusing his uncle's political failures while...
In this widely acclaimed biography, Bertram Wolffe challenges the traditional view of Henry VI as an unworldly, innocent, and saintly monarch and offe...
Edward VI was the son of Henry VIII and his second wife, Jane Seymour. He ruled for only six years (1547-1553) and died at the age of sixteen. But these were years of fundamental importance in the history of the English state, and in particular of the English church. This new biography reveals for the first time that, despite his youth, Edward had a significant personal impact. Jennifer Loach draws a fresh portrait of the boy king as a highly precocious, well educated, intellectually confident, and remarkably decisive youth, with clear views on the future of the English church. Loach also...
Edward VI was the son of Henry VIII and his second wife, Jane Seymour. He ruled for only six years (1547-1553) and died at the age of sixteen. But the...
Henry II was an enigma to contemporaries, and has excited widely divergent judgments ever since. Dramatic incidents of his reign, such as his quarrel with Archbishop Becket and his troubled relations with his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and his sons, have attracted the attention of historical novelists, playwrights, and filmmakers, but with no unanimity of interpretation. That he was a great king there can be no doubt. Yet his motives and intentions are not easy to divine, and it is Professor Warren's contention that concentration on the great crises of the reign can lead to distortion. This...
Henry II was an enigma to contemporaries, and has excited widely divergent judgments ever since. Dramatic incidents of his reign, such as his quarrel ...
