Edward The Confessor Penguin Monarchs

Author : David Woodman
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2020-11-26
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780241383025

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Edward the Confessor (Penguin Monarchs) by David Woodman Pdf

Edward the Confessor, the last great king of Anglo-Saxon England, canonized nearly 100 years after his death, is in part a figure of myths created in the late middle ages. In this revealing portrait of England's royal saint, David Woodman traces the course of Edward's twenty-four-year-long reign through the lens of contemporary sources, from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Vita Ædwardi Regis to the Bayeux Tapestry, to separate myth from history and uncover the complex politics of his life. He shows Edward to be a shrewd politician who, having endured a long period of exile from England in his youth, ascended the throne in 1042 and came to control a highly sophisticated and powerful administration. The twists and turns of Edward's reign are generally seen as a prelude to the Norman Conquest in 1066. Woodman explains clearly how events unfolded and personalities interacted but, unlike many, he shows a capable and impressive king at the centre of them.

Author : James Campbell
Publisher : Allen Lane
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2016-07-26
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0141977248

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Edward the Confessor by James Campbell Pdf

Part of the Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers in a collectible format. The cultural richness of the reign of Edward the Confessor marks the high point of Anglo-Saxon England. The saintly Edward has become one of the legendary figures in English. James Campbell's brilliant little book is the most insightful look at his personality and reign yet published.

Author : Tom Licence
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 363 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2020-09-29
Category : History
ISBN : 9780300255584

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Edward the Confessor by Tom Licence Pdf

An authoritative life of Edward the Confessor, the monarch whose death sparked the invasion of 1066 One of the last kings of Anglo-Saxon England, Edward the Confessor regained the throne for the House of Wessex and is the only English monarch to have been canonized. Often cast as a reluctant ruler, easily manipulated by his in-laws, he has been blamed for causing the invasion of 1066—the last successful conquest of England by a foreign power. Tom Licence navigates the contemporary webs of political deceit to present a strikingly different Edward. He was a compassionate man and conscientious ruler, whose reign marked an interval of peace and prosperity between periods of strife. More than any monarch before, he exploited the mystique of royalty to capture the hearts of his subjects. This compelling biography provides a much-needed reassessment of Edward’s reign—calling into doubt the legitimacy of his successors and rewriting the ending of Anglo-Saxon England.

Author : Marc Morris
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2016-08-25
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780141977850

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William I (Penguin Monarchs) by Marc Morris Pdf

On Christmas Day 1066, William, duke of Normandy was crowned in Westminster, the first Norman king of England. It was a disaster: soldiers outside, thinking shouts of acclamation were treachery, torched the surrounding buildings. To later chroniclers, it was an omen of the catastrophes to come. During the reign of William the Conqueror, England experienced greater and more seismic change than at any point before or since. Marc Morris's concise and gripping biography sifts through the sources of the time to give a fresh view of the man who changed England more than any other, as old ruling elites were swept away, enemies at home and abroad (including those in his closest family) were crushed, swathes of the country were devastated and the map of the nation itself was redrawn, giving greater power than ever to the king. When, towards the end of his reign, William undertook a great survey of his new lands, his subjects compared it to the last judgement of God, the Domesday Book. England had been transformed forever.

Author : Edmund King
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2018-07-26
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780141978994

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Henry I (Penguin Monarchs) by Edmund King Pdf

'To be a medieval king was a job of work ... This was a man who knew how to run a complex organization. He was England's CEO' The youngest of William the Conqueror's sons, Henry I came to unchallenged power only after two of his brothers died in strange hunting accidents and he had imprisoned the other. He was destined to become one of the greatest of all medieval monarchs, both through his own ruthlessness, and through his dynastic legacy. Edmund King's engrossing portrait shows a strikingly charismatic, intelligent and fortunate man, whose rule was looked back on as the real post-conquest founding of England as a new realm: wealthy, stable, bureaucratised and self-confident.

Author : Christopher Given-Wilson
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2016-09-29
Category : History
ISBN : 9780141977973

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Edward II (Penguin Monarchs) by Christopher Given-Wilson Pdf

'He seems to have laboured under an almost child-like misapprehension about the size of his world. Had greatness not been thrust upon him, he might have lived a life of great harmlessness.' The reign of Edward II was a succession of disasters. Unkingly, inept in war, and in thrall to favourites, he preferred digging ditches and rowing boats to the tedium of government. His infatuation with a young Gascon nobleman, Piers Gaveston, alienated even the most natural supporters of the crown. Hoping to lay the ghost of his soldierly father, Edward I, he invaded Scotland and suffered catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn. After twenty ruinous years, betrayed and abandoned by most of his nobles and by his wife and her lover, Edward was imprisoned in Berkeley Castle and murdered - the first English king since the Norman Conquest to be deposed.

Author : Piers Brendon
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2016-04-28
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780241196427

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Edward VIII (Penguin Monarchs) by Piers Brendon Pdf

'After my death,' George V said of his eldest son and heir, 'the boy will ruin himself within twelve months.' The forecast proved uncannily accurate. Edward VIII came to the throne in January 1936, provoked a constitutional crisis by his determination to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson, and abdicated in December. He was never crowned king. In choosing the woman he loved over his royal birthright, Edward shook the monarchy to its foundations. Given the new title 'Duke of Windsor' and essentially sent into exile, he remained a visible skeleton in the royal cupboard until his death in 1972 and he haunts the house of Windsor to this day. Drawing on unpublished material, notably correspondence with his most loyal (though much tried) supporter Winston Churchill, Piers Brendon's superb biography traces Edward's tumultuous public and private life from bright young prince to troubled sovereign, from wartime colonial governor to sad but glittering expatriate. With pace and panache, it cuts through the myths that still surround this most controversial of modern British monarchs.

Author : Thomas Penn
Publisher : Allen Lane
Page : 112 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2019-04-23
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0241185343

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Edward V (Penguin Monarchs) by Thomas Penn Pdf

Author : Richard Davenport-Hines
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2016-02-25
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780241014813

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Edward VII (Penguin Monarchs) by Richard Davenport-Hines Pdf

Like his mother Queen Victoria, Edward VII defined an era. Both reflected the personalties of their central figures: hers grand, imperial and pretty stiff; his no less grand, but much more relaxed and enjoyable. This book conveys Edward's distinct personality and significant influences. To the despair of his parents, he rebelled as a young man, conducting many affairs and living a life of pleasure. But as king he made a distinct contribution to European diplomacy and - which is little known - to London, laying out the Mall and Admiralty Arch. Richard Davenport-Hines's book is as enjoyable as its subject and the age he made.

Author : Frank Barlow
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 406 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2011-06-28
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780300183825

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Edward the Confessor by Frank Barlow Pdf

Frank Barlow's magisterial biography, first published in 1970 and now reissued with new material, rescues Edward the Confessor from contemporary myth and subsequent bogus scholarship. Disentangling verifiable fact from saintly legend, he vividly re-creates the final years of the Anglo-Danish monarchy and examines England before the Norman Conquest with deep insight and great historical understanding. "Deploying all the resources of formidable scholarship, [Barlow] has recovered the real Edward." — Spectator

Author : David Cannadine
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2014-12-04
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780141976907

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George V (Penguin Monarchs) by David Cannadine Pdf

For a man with such conventional tastes and views, George V had a revolutionary impact. Almost despite himself he marked a decisive break with his flamboyant predecessor Edward VII, inventing the modern monarchy, with its emphasis on frequent public appearances, family values and duty. George V was an effective war-leader and inventor of 'the House of Windsor'. In an era of ever greater media coverage--frequently filmed and initiating the British Empire Christmas broadcast--George became for 25 years a universally recognised figure. He was also the only British monarch to take his role as Emperor of India seriously. While his great rivals (Tsar Nicolas and Kaiser Wilhelm) ended their reigns in catastrophe, he plodded on. David Cannadine's sparkling account of his reign could not be more enjoyable, a masterclass in how to write about Monarchy, that central--if peculiar--pillar of British life.

Author : Rosemary Horrox
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 106 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2020-09-24
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780141978949

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Richard III (Penguin Monarchs) by Rosemary Horrox Pdf

No English king has so divided opinion, both during his reign and in the centuries since, more than Richard III. He was loathed in his own time for the never-confirmed murder of his young nephews, the Princes in the Tower, and died fighting his own subjects on the battlefield. This is the vision of Richard we have inherited from Shakespeare. Equally, he inspired great loyalty in his followers. In this enlightening, even-handed study, Rosemary Horrox builds a complex picture of a king who by any standard failed as a monarch. He was killed after only two years on the throne, without an heir, and brought such a decisive end to the House of York that Henry Tudor was able to seize the throne, despite his extremely tenuous claim. Whether Richard was undone by his own fierce ambitions, or by the legacy of a Yorkist dynasty which was already profoundly dysfunctional, the end result was the same: Richard III destroyed the very dynasty that he had spent his life so passionately defending.

Author : John Edwards
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 112 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2016-10-27
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780241184110

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Mary I (Penguin Monarchs) by John Edwards Pdf

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?

Author : A J Pollard
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 138 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2016-07-28
Category : History
ISBN : 9780141978703

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Edward IV (Penguin Monarchs) by A J Pollard Pdf

In 1461 Edward earl of March, an able, handsome, and charming eighteen-year old, usurped the English throne from his feeble Lancastrian predecessor Henry VI. Ten years on, following outbreaks of civil conflict that culminated in him losing, then regaining the crown, he had finally secured his kingdom. The years that followed witnessed a period of rule that has been described as a golden age: a time of peace and economic and industrial expansion, which saw the establishment of a style of monarchy that the Tudors would later develop. Yet, argues A. J. Pollard, Edward, who was drawn to a life of sexual and epicurean excess, was a man of limited vision, his reign remaining to the very end the narrow rule of a victorious faction in civil war. Ultimately, his failure was dynastic: barely two months after his death in April 1483, the throne was usurped by Edward's youngest brother, Richard III.

Author : Richard Abels
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2018-10-25
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780141979502

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Aethelred the Unready (Penguin Monarchs) by Richard Abels Pdf

A major new title in the Penguin Monarchs series In his fascinating new book in the Penguin Monarchs series, Richard Abels examines the long and troubled reign of Aethelred II the 'Unraed', the 'Ill-Advised'. It is characteristic of Aethelred's reign that its greatest surviving work of literature, the poem The Battle of Maldon, should be a record of heroic defeat. Perhaps no ruler could have stemmed the encroachment of wave upon wave of Viking raiders, but Aethelred will always be associated with that failure. Richard Abels is Professor Emeritus at the United States Naval Academy. He is the author of Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England and Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.