The English Monarchy

Today in history - February 6th, 1952 - Princess Elizabeth becomes Queen of England.  Here are 10 books about the British Monarchy in various points in history.

Becoming Queen Victoria: The Tragic Death of Princess Charlotte and the Unexpected Rise of Britain's Greatest Monarch by Kate Williams - Toward the end of the eighteenth century, monarchies across Europe found themselves in crisis. With mad King George III and his delinquent offspring tarnishing the realm, the English pinned their hopes on the only legitimate heir to the throne: the lovely and prudent Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince of Wales and granddaughter of the king. Sadly, those dreams faded when, at age twenty-one, she died after a complicated pregnancy and stillbirth. While a nation grieved, Charlotte's power-hungry uncles plotted quickly to produce a new heir. Only the Duke of Kent proved successful in his endeavor, with the birth of a girl named Victoria.
Writing with a combination of novelistic flair and historical precision, Williams reveals an energetic and vibrant woman in the prime of her life, while chronicling the byzantine machinations behind Victoria's struggle to occupy the throne--scheming that continued even after the crown was placed on her head.
Upon hearing of the death of her predecessor, King William IV, Victoria--in her bold first act as queen--banished her overambitious mother from the room, a simple yet resolute move that would set the tone for her reign. The queen clashed constantly not only with her mother and her mother's adviser, the Irish adventurer John Conroy, but with her ministers and even her beloved Prince Albert, all of whom, in one way or another, attempted to seize control from her.
By connecting Charlotte's sad fate to Victoria's majestic rule, Kate Williams lays bare the passions that swirled around the throne--the court secrets, the sexual repression, and the endless intrigue. The result is a grand and satisfying tale of a woman whose destiny began long before she was born and whose legacy lives on.

Counting One's Blessings: The Selected Letters of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother edited by William Shawcross - William Shawcross's official biography of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, published in September 2009, was a huge critical and commercial success. One of the great revelations of the book was Queen Elizabeth's insightful, witty private correspondence. Indeed, The Sunday Times described her letters as "wonderful ... brimful of liveliness and irreverence, steeliness and sweetness." Now, Shawcross has put together a selection of her letters, drawing on the vast wealth of material in the Royal Archives and at Glamis Castle. Queen Elizabeth was a prolific correspondent from her earliest childhood before the First World War to the very end of her long life at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and her letters offer readers a vivid insight into the real person behind the public face.

Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey by Nicola Tallis - 'Good people, I am come hither to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same.' These were the heartbreaking words of a seventeen-year-old girl, Lady Jane Grey, as she stood on the scaffold on a cold February morning in 1554. Her death for high treason sent shockwaves through the Tudor world and served as a gruesome reminder to all who aspired to the Crown that the axe could fall at any time. Jane is known to history as 'the Nine-Day Queen,' but her reign lasted, in fact, for thirteen days. The human and emotional aspects of her story have often been ignored, although she is remembered as one of the Tudor Era's most tragic victims. While this is doubtlessly true, it is only part of the complex jigsaw of Jane's story. She was a remarkable individual with a charismatic personality who earned the admiration and affection of many of those who knew her. Furthermore, the recent trend of trying to highlight her achievements has actually further obscured the real Jane: a young religious radical who saw herself as an advocate of the reformed faith--Protestantism--and ultimately became a martyr for it.

A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain by Marc Morris - Edward I is familiar to millions as "Longshanks," conqueror of Scotland and nemesis of Sir William Wallace (in "Braveheart"). Yet this story forms only the final chapter of the king's action-packed life. Earlier, Edward had defeated and killed the famous Simon de Montfort in battle; travelled to the Holy Land on crusade; conquered Wales, extinguishing forever its native rulers and constructing a magnificent chain of castles. He raised the greatest armies of the Middle Ages and summoned the largest parliaments; notoriously, he expelled all the Jews from his kingdom. The longest-lived of England's medieval kings, he fathered fifteen children with his first wife, Eleanor of Castile. In this book, Marc Morris examines afresh the forces that drove Edward throughout his relentless career: his character, his Christian faith, and his sense of England's destiny--a sense shaped in particular by the tales of the legendary King Arthur. He also explores the competing reasons that led Edward's opponents (including Robert Bruce) to resist him. The result is a sweeping story and a vivid picture of medieval Britain at the moment when its future was decided.

The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England by Dan Jones - The first Plantagenet king inherited a blood-soaked kingdom from the Normans and transformed it into an empire stretched at its peak from Scotland to Jerusalem. In this epic history, Dan Jones vividly resurrects this fierce and seductive royal dynasty and its mythic world. We meet the captivating Eleanor of Aquitaine, twice queen and the most famous woman in Christendom; her son, Richard the Lionheart, who fought Saladin in the Third Crusade; and King John, a tyrant who was forced to sign Magna Carta, which formed the basis of our own Bill of Rights. This is the era of chivalry, of Robin Hood and the Knights Templar, the Black Death, the founding of Parliament, the Black Prince, and the Hundred Year's War. It will appeal as much to readers of Tudor history as to fans of Game of Thrones.

Princes at War: The Bitter Battle Inside Britain's Royal Family in the Darkest Days of WWII by Deborah Cadbury - In 1936, the British monarchy faced the greatest threats to its survival in the modern era--the crisis of abdication and the menace of Nazism. The fate of the country rested in the hands of George V's sorely unequipped sons:
*a stammering King George VI, terrified that the world might discover he was unfit to rule
*a dull-witted Prince Henry, who wanted only a quiet life in the army
*the too-glamorous Prince George, the Duke of Kent--a reformed hedonist who found new purpose in the RAF and would become the first royal to die in a mysterious plane crash
*the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, deemed a Nazi-sympathizer and traitor to his own country--a man who had given it all up for love
Princes at War is a riveting portrait of these four very different men miscast by fate, one of whom had to save the monarchy at a moment when kings and princes from across Europe were washing up on England's shores as the old order was overturned. Scandal and conspiracy swirled around the palace and its courtiers, among them dangerous cousins from across Europe's royal families, gold-digging American socialite Wallis Simpson, and the King's Lord Steward, upon whose estate Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess parachuted (seemingly by coincidence) as London burned under the Luftwaffe's tireless raids.
Deborah Cadbury draws on new research, personal accounts from the royal archives, and other never-before-revealed sources to create a dazzling sequel to The King's Speech and tell the true and thrilling drama of Great Britain at war and of a staggering transformation for its monarchy.

The Private Lives of the Tudors: Uncovering the Secrets of Britain's Greatest Dynasty by Tracy Borman - England's Tudor monarchs--Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I--are perhaps the most celebrated and fascinating of all royal families in history. Their love affairs, their political triumphs, and their overturning of the religious order are the subject of countless works of popular scholarship. But for all we know about Henry's quest for male heirs, or Elizabeth's purported virginity, the private lives of the Tudors remain largely beyond our grasp.
In The Private Lives of the Tudors, Tracy Borman delves deep behind the public face of the monarchs, showing us what their lives were like beyond the stage of court. Drawing on the accounts of those closest to them, Borman examines Tudor life in fine detail. What did the monarchs eat? What clothes did they wear, and how were they designed, bought, and cared for? How did they practice their faith? And in earthlier moments, who did they love, and how did they give birth to the all-important heirs?
Delving into their education, upbringing, sexual lives, and into the kitchens, bathrooms, schoolrooms, and bedrooms of court, Borman charts out the course of the entire Tudor dynasty, surfacing new and fascinating insights into these celebrated figures.

A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III by Janice Hadlow - The surprising, deliciously dramatic, and ultimately heartbreaking story of King George III's radical pursuit of happiness in his private life with Queen Charlotte and their 15 children. In the U.S., Britain's George III, the protagonist of A Royal Experiment, is known as the king from whom Americans won their independence and as "the mad king," but in Janice Hadlow's groundbreaking and entertaining new biography, he is another character altogether--compelling and relatable. He was the first of Britain's three Hanoverian kings to be born in England, the first to identify as native of the nation he ruled. But this was far from the only difference between him and his predecessors. Neither of the previous Georges was faithful to his wife, nor to his mistresses. Both hated their own sons. And, overall, their children were angry, jealous, and disaffected schemers, whose palace shenanigans kick off Hadlow's juicy narrative and also made their lives unhappy ones. Pained by his childhood amid this cruel and feuding family, George came to the throne aspiring to be a new kind of king--a force for moral good. And to be that new kind of king, he had to be a new kind of man. Against his irresistibly awful family background--of brutal royal intrigue, infidelity, and betrayal--George fervently pursued a radical domestic dream: he would have a faithful marriage and raise loving, educated, and resilient children.The struggle of King George--along with his wife, Queen Charlotte, and their 15 children--to pursue a passion for family will surprise history buffs and delight a broad swath of biography readers and royal watchers.

She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor - In the tradition of Antonia Fraser, David Starkey, and Alison Weir, prize-winning historian Helen Castor delivers a compelling, eye-opening examination of women and power in England, witnessed through the lives of six women who exercised power against all odds--and one who never got the chance. Exploring the narratives of the Empress Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Margaret of Anjou, and other "she-wolves," as well as that of the Nine Days' Queen, Lady Jane Grey, Castor invokes a magisterial discussion of how much--and how little--has changed through the centuries.

Young and Damned and Fair: The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of King Henry VIII by Gareth Russell - Written with narrative flair and historical authority, this biography of the tragic life of Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, breaks new ground in our understanding of the young, doomed woman who became queen at a time of unprecedented social and political tension. On the morning of July 28, 1540, as King Henry VIII's former confidant Thomas Cromwell was being led to his execution, a teenager named Catherine Howard began her reign as queen of a country simmering with rebellion and terrifying uncertainty. Nineteen months later, she was on the scaffold, accused of adultery and high treason. Until now, Catherine 's story has been incomplete. Unlike previous accounts of her life, which portray her as a naive victim of an ambitious family, this compelling and authoritative biography reexamines her motives and social milieu, including both fellow aristocrats and the servants who eventually conspired against her. By illuminating Catherine's entwined upstairs/downstairs worlds and societal tensions beyond the palace walls, Gareth Russell offers a fascinating portrait of court life and the forces that led to Catherine 's execution--from diplomatic pressure and international politics to the long-festering resentments against the queen's household at court. Including a forgotten text of Catherine 's confession, Young and Damned and Fair changes our understanding of one of history's most famous women while telling the compelling and very human story of complex individuals attempting to survive in a dangerous age.