Kategoria BISAC: Biography & Autobiography >> Royalty

This collection brings a transnational perspective to the study of early modern women rulers and female sovereignty, a topic that has until now been examined through the lens of a single nation. Contributors juxtapose rulers from different countries, including well-known sovereigns such as Isabel of Castile and Elizabeth Tudor, as well as other less widely studied figures Isabeau of Bavaria, Jeanne d'Albret, Isabel Clara Eugenia, Juana of Portugal, and Catherine of Brandenburg. Several essays also focus on the representations of foreign rulers such as Catherine de' Medici in England and...

In his desperate quest for an heir, King Henry VIII divorced one wife and beheaded another. The birth of Prince Edward on October 12, 1537, ended his father's twenty-seven-year wait. Nine years later, Edward was on the throne, a boy-king of a nation in religious limbo and in a court where manipulation, treachery, and plotting were rife.
Chris Skidmore describes how, in the six years of Edward's reign, court intrigue, deceit, and treason very nearly plunged the country into civil war while the stability that the Tudors had sought to achieve came close to being torn apart. Even today,...

Seizing the Hungarian throne at the age of fifteen, Matthias Corvinus, the "Raven King," was an effervescent presence on the fifteenth-century stage. A successful warrior and munificent art patron, he sought to leave as symbols of his strategic and humanist ambitions a strong, unified country, splendid palaces, and the most magnificent library in Christendom. But Hungary, invaded by Turkey after Matthias's death in 1490, yielded its treasures, and the Raven King's exquisite library of two thousand volumes, witness to a golden cultural age, was dispersed first across Europe and then the...

Carolingian historical texts have long stood at the base of our modern knowledge about the eighth and ninth centuries. The ninth century gave birth to a new revival of secular biography, which has come to be recognized as one of the brightest bands in the spectrum of Carolingian historical writing. This collection brings together, for the first time in one volume, the five royal/imperial biographies written during the Carolingian period.

Thomas F. X. Noble's new English translations of these five important texts--Einhard's Life of Emperor Charles, Notker's Deeds of...

Admired for her achievements and satirized for her personal life, Catherine the Great was one of the most celebrated monarchs in history, turning eighteenth-century Russia into arguably the largest and most powerful state since the fall of the Roman Empire. She promoted radical political ideas while emphasizing moderation in government. She could be ruthless when necessary, but she charmed everyone she met, joking at private dinner parties in the Hermitage, which she had built for her own use. Determined to endear herself to the Russians, she made religious devotions in which she never...

Queen Maria of Castile, wife of Alfonso V, "the Magnanimous," king of the Crown of Aragon, governed Catalunya in the mid-fifteenth century while her husband conquered and governed the kingdom of Naples. For twenty-six years, she maintained a royal court and council separate from and roughly equivalent to those of Alfonso in Naples. Such legitimately sanctioned political authority is remarkable given that she ruled not as queen in her own right but rather as Lieutenant-General of Catalunya with powers equivalent to the king's. Maria does not fit conventional images of a queen as wife and...

C.G. Tracey became a farmer at sixteen at the beginning of the Second World War. Entrepreneuer, businessman, plant-breeder, racehorse owner and breeder, sanctions-buster, chairman and director of many companies, husband, father and gentleman, C.G. was active and involved through the many unsettled years of Zimbabwe's history. This included the Central African Federation and its break-up, Ian Smith's UDI followed by sanctions and the war, Zimbabwean independence in 1980 and the search to put the country on a sound-footing. Having had considerable influence in the development of our still...

In this fascinating guide to every aspect of Queen Victoria's life, author Helen Rappaport analyzes the queen's personality, celebrates her achievements, and details the shortcomings of her empire, both in Britain, with its continuing divide between rich and poor, and overseas, where Britain's great empire was won by repression and exploitation.

A-Z entries--including topics barely touched in standard biographies--cover things like the various assassination attempts on her life, her interest in dancing and Jack the Ripper's murders, and how her husband Prince Albert introduced the...