Victoria
Hardcover – 11 Aug 2016 (UK) & 4 October 2016 (US)
Queen of Great Britain and ruler of an empire on which the sun never set, Victoria gave her name to an age that came to represent progress, expansion and industrialization. She ruled for an unprecedented 64 years, coming to the throne in 1837 at the young age of 19 and dying in 1901. This book is an illuminating and incisive overview of Victoria’s life and reign, revealing her happy marriage to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, her subsequent friendship with the ghillie John Brown, and showing how she went on to celebrate both her Gold and Diamond Jubilees. Deborah Jaffe looks at every aspect of a remarkable era, including its politics, art, science and society and shows why, over a century after her death, Victoria’s influence endures today. Accompanied with over 200 glorious images, this is a fascinating tribute to one of the greatest British monarchs.
Catherine of Aragon: An Intimate Life of Henry VIII’s True Wife
Hardcover – 15 Oct 2016 (UK) & 10 January 2017 (US)
Catherine of Aragon continues to fascinate readers 500 years after she became Henry VIII’s first queen. Her life was one of passion and determination, of suffering and hope, but ultimately it is a tragic love story, as circumstances conspired against her. Having lost her first husband, Henry’s elder brother Prince Arthur, she endured years of ill health and penury, to make a dazzling second match in Henry VIII. There is no doubt that she was Henry’s true love, compatible with him in every respect and, for years, she presided over a majestic court as the personification of his ideal woman. However, Catherine’s body failed her in an age when fertility meant life or death. When it became clear that she could no longer bear children, the king’s attention turned elsewhere, and his once chivalric devotion became resentment. Catherine’s final years were spent in lonely isolation but she never gave up her vision: she was devoted to her faith, her husband and to England, to the extent that she was prepared to be martyred for them. One of the most remarkable women of the Tudor era, Catherine’s legendary focus may have contributed to the dissolution of the way of life she typified.
The Diary of Queen Maria Carolina of Naples, 1781-1785: New Evidence of Queenship at Court (Queenship and Power)
This work offers a new portrayal of Queen Maria Carolina of Naples as a woman of power with weaknesses and ambitions, and analyzes the Queen’s actions, from her political choices to her alliance and betrayals. A careful examination of the period (1781-1785) covered by the diary shows that the daily life of the Queen and offers key evidence of her political acumen and her personal relationships. Recca cross-analyses unpublished personal documents, which include the integral diary and private correspondence. The book focuses on the political influence that Queen Maria Carolina wielded beside her husband, King Ferdinand IV, and the criticism that has been made by contemporary historians and intellectuals who have often tended to discredit the sovereign for personal rather than political reasons
Royal Renegades: The Children of Charles I and the English Civil Wars
Hardcover- 6 October 2016 (US & UK)
The fact that the English Civil War led to the execution of King Charles I in January 1649 is well known, as is the restoration of his eldest son as Charles II eleven years later. But what happened to the king’s six surviving children is far less familiar.
Casting new light on the heirs of the doomed king and his unpopular but indefatigable Catholic queen, Henrietta Maria, acclaimed historian Linda Porter brings to life their personalities, legacies, feuds and rivalries for the first time. As their calm and loving family life was shattered by war, Elizabeth and Henry were used as pawns in the parliamentary campaign against their father; Mary, the Princess Royal, was whisked away to the Netherlands as the child bride of the Prince of Orange; Henriette Anne’s redoubtable governess escaped with the king’s youngest child to France where she grew up under her mother’s thumb and eventually married the cruel and flamboyant Philippe d’Orleans. When their ‘dark and ugly’ brother Charles eventually succeeded his father to the English throne after fourteen years of wandering, he promptly enacted a vengeful punishment on those who had spurned his family, with his brother James firmly in his shadow.
A tale of love and endurance, of battles and flight, of educations disrupted, the lonely death of a young princess and the wearisome experience of exile, Royal Renegadescharts the fascinating story of the children of loving parents who could not protect them from the consequences of their own failings as monarchs and the forces of upheaval sweeping England.
Game of Queens: The Women Who Made Sixteenth-Century Europe
Hardcover – 29 November 2016 (US) & 6 October 2016 (UK)
Sixteenth-century Europe saw an explosion of female rule. From Isabella of Castile and her granddaughter Mary Tudor, to Catherine de Medici, Anne Boleyn, and Elizabeth Tudor, women wielded enormous power over their territories for more than a hundred years. In the sixteenth century, as in our own, the phenomenon of the powerful woman offered challenges and opportunities. Opportunities, as when in 1529 Margaret of Austria and Louise of Savoy negotiated the “Ladies’ peace” of Cambrai. Challenges, as when both Mary Queen of Scots and her kinswoman Elizabeth I came close to being destroyed by sexual scandal.
A fascinating group biography of some of the most beloved (and reviled) queens in history, Game of Queens tells the story of the powerful women who drove European
Mary I (Penguin Monarchs): The Daughter of Time
Hardcover – 27 October 2016 (UK) & 24 January 2017 (US)
The elder daughter of Henry VIII, Mary I (1553-58) became England’s ruler on the unexpected death of her brother Edward VI. Her short reign is one of the great potential turning points in the country’s history. As a convinced Catholic and the wife of Philip II, king of Spain and the most powerful of all European monarchs, Mary could have completely changed her country’s orbit, making it a province of the Habsburg Empire and obedient again to Rome.
These extraordinary possibilities are fully dramatized in John Edward’s superb short biography. The real Mary I has almost disappeared under the great mass of Protestant propaganda that buried her reputation during her younger sister, Elizabeth I’s reign. But what if she had succeeded?
The Victoria Letters
Hardcover – 6 October 2016 (UK & US)
The official companion to ITV’s hotly anticipated new drama, The Victoria Letters delves into the private writings of the young Queen Victoria, painting a vivid picture of the personal life of one of England’s greatest monarchs.
From the producers of Poldark and Endeavour, ITV’s Victoria follows the early years of the young Queen’s reign, based closely on Victoria’s own letters and journals. Now explore this extensive collection in greater depth, and discover who Victoria really was behind her upright public persona.
At only 18 years old, Victoria ascended the throne as a rebellious teenager and gradually grew to become one of the most memorable, unshakeable and powerful women in history. The extensive writings she left behind document this personal journey and show how she triumphed over scandal and corruption. Written by Internationally bestselling author, historian of 12 books and Victoria historical consultant, Helen Rappaport, and including a foreword by Daisy Goodwin – acclaimed novelist and scriptwriter of the series – The Victoria Letters details the history behind the show. Revealing Victoria’s own thoughts about the love interests, family dramas and court scandals during her early reign, it also delves into the running of the royal household, the upstairs-downstairs relationships, and what it was like to live in Victorian England.
Full of beautiful photography from the series and genuine imagery from the era, come behind the palace doors and discover the girl behind the Queen.
Victoria
Paperback – 20 Oct 2016 (UK) & 22 November 2016 (US)
From the author of the bestselling MY LAST DUCHESS and THE FORTUNE HUNTER comes Victoria – to be screened on ITV, with scripts written by Daisy Goodwin. Perfect for fans of epics such as War and Peace, Poldark or Granchester and for any reader of The Paris Wife or War and Peace
‘To me, ma’am, you are every inch a Queen’
In 1837, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria – sheltered, small in stature, and female – became Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and from the moment William IV died, the young Queen startled everyone: abandoning her hated first name in favor of Victoria; insisting, for the first time in her life, on sleeping in a room apart from her mother; resolute about meeting with her ministers alone.
One of those ministers, Lord Melbourne, became Victoria’s private secretary. Perhaps he might have become more than that, except everyone argued she was destined to marry her cousin, Prince Albert . But Victoria had met Albert as a child and found him stiff and critical: surely the last man she would want for a husband?
Drawing on Victoria’s diaries as well as her own brilliant gifts for history and drama, Daisy Goodwin brings the inner life of the young queen even more richly to life in this magnificent novel.
Hardcover – 30 October 2016 (UK) & 2 February 2017 (US)
This book describes a selection of people caught up in the turmoil that presaged the reformation – a period of change instigated by a king whose desire for a legitimate son was to brutally sweep aside an entire way of life. The most famous and influential of the victims were the two people closest to Henry VIII. His mentor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, a great churchman and a diplomat of consummate skill. The other was to be the King’s second wife, Anne Boleyn. These two adversaries, equally determined to succeed, had risen above the usual expectations of their time. Wolsey, of humble birth, became a price of the church, enjoying his position to the full, before coming into conflict with a woman who had no intention of being another passing fancy for the king. She would become the mother of one of the greatest and most famous of England’s monarchs. They were brought down by the factions surrounding them and the selfish indifference of the man they thought they could trust. Though they succumbed to the forces aligned against them, their courage and achievements are remembered, and their places in history assured.
The Lives Of Tudor Women
Hardcover – 6 October 2016 (UK & US)
The turbulent Tudor age never fails to capture the imagination. But what was it actually like to be a woman during this period? This was a time when death in infancy or during childbirth was rife; when marriage was usually a legal contract, not a matter for love, and the education of women was minimal at best. Yet the Tudor century was also dominated by powerful and characterful women in a way that no era had been before.
Elizabeth Norton explores the seven ages of the Tudor woman, from childhood to old age, through the diverging examples of women such as Elizabeth Tudor, Henry VIII’s sister who died in infancy; Cecily Burbage, Elizabeth’s wet nurse; Mary Howard, widowed but influential at court; Elizabeth Boleyn, mother of a controversial queen; and Elizabeth Barton, a peasant girl who would be lauded as a prophetess. Their stories are interwoven with studies of topics ranging from Tudor toys to contraception to witchcraft, painting a portrait of the lives of queens and serving maids, nuns and harlots, widows and chaperones.
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