Henry Ii Penguin Monarchs

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Henry II (Penguin Monarchs)

Richard Barber
Henry II Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : Richard Barber
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 112 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2015-04-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780141977096

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Henry II (Penguin Monarchs) by Richard Barber Pdf

Henry II (1154-89) through a series of astonishing dynastic coups became the ruler of an enormous European empire. One of the most dynamic, restless and clever men ever to rule England, he was brought down both by his catastrophic relationship with his archbishop Thomas Becket and his debilitating arguments with his sons, most importantly the future Richard I and King John. His empire may have ultimately collapsed, but in Richard Barber's vivid and sympathetic account the reader can see why Henry II left such a compelling impression on his contemporaries.

Henry I (Penguin Monarchs)

Edmund King
Henry I Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : Edmund King
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 45,7 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.

Henry V (Penguin Monarchs)

Anne Curry
Henry V Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : Anne Curry
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2015-08-27
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780141978727

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Henry V (Penguin Monarchs) by Anne Curry Pdf

Foremost medieval historian Anne Curry offers a new reinterpretation of Henry V and the battle that defined his kingship: Agincourt Henry V's invasion of France, in August 1415, represented a huge gamble. As heir to the throne, he had been a failure, cast into the political wilderness amid rumours that he planned to depose his father. Despite a complete change of character as king - founding monasteries, persecuting heretics, and enforcing the law to its extremes - little had gone right since. He was insecure in his kingdom, his reputation low. On the eve of his departure for France, he uncovered a plot by some of his closest associates to remove him from power. Agincourt was a battle that Henry should not have won - but he did, and the rest is history. Within five years, he was heir to the throne of France. In this vivid new interpretation, Anne Curry explores how Henry's hyperactive efforts to expunge his past failures, and his experience of crisis - which threatened to ruin everything he had struggled to achieve - defined his kingship, and how his astonishing success at Agincourt transformed his standing in the eyes of his contemporaries, and of all generations to come.

Edward VIII (Penguin Monarchs)

Piers Brendon
Edward VIII Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : Piers Brendon
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 40,7 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.

William II (Penguin Monarchs)

John Gillingham
William II Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : John Gillingham
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2015-08-27
Category : History
ISBN : 9780141978567

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William II (Penguin Monarchs) by John Gillingham Pdf

William II (1087-1100), or William Rufus, will always be most famous for his death: killed by an arrow while out hunting, perhaps through accident or perhaps murder. But, as John Gillingham makes clear in this elegant book, as the son and successor to William the Conqueror it was William Rufus who had to establish permanent Norman rule. A ruthless, irascible man, he frequently argued acrimoniously with his older brother Robert over their father's inheritance - but he also handed out effective justice, leaving as his legacy one of the most extraordinary of all medieval buildings, Westminster Hall.

Henry VIII (Penguin Monarchs)

John Guy
Henry VIII Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : John Guy
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2014-12-04
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780141977133

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Henry VIII (Penguin Monarchs) by John Guy Pdf

Charismatic, insatiable and cruel, Henry VIII was, as John Guy shows, a king who became mesmerized by his own legend - and in the process destroyed and remade England. Said to be a 'pillager of the commonwealth', this most instantly recognizable of kings remains a figure of extreme contradictions: magnificent and vengeful; a devout traditionalist who oversaw a cataclysmic rupture with the church in Rome; a talented, towering figure who nevertheless could not bear to meet people's eyes when he talked to them. In this revealing new account, John Guy looks behind the mask into Henry's mind to explore how he understood the world and his place in it - from his isolated upbringing and the blazing glory of his accession, to his desperate quest for fame and an heir and the terrifying paranoia of his last, agonising, 54-inch-waisted years.

Stephen (Penguin Monarchs)

Carl Watkins
Stephen Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : Carl Watkins
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2015-08-27
Category : History
ISBN : 9780141977157

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Stephen (Penguin Monarchs) by Carl Watkins Pdf

Known as 'the anarchy', the reign of Stephen (1135-1141) saw England plunged into a civil war that illuminated the fatal flaw in the powerful Norman monarchy, that without clear rules ordering succession, conflict between members of William the Conqueror's family were inevitable. But there was another problem, too: Stephen himself. With the nobility of England and Normandy anxious about the prospect of a world without the tough love of the old king Henry I, Stephen styled himself a political panacea, promising strength without oppression. As external threats and internal resistance to his rule accumulated, it was a promise he was unable to keep. Unable to transcend his flawed claim to the throne, and to make the transition from nobleman to king, Stephen's actions betrayed uneasiness in his role, his royal voice never quite ringing true. The resulting violence that spread throughout England was not, or not only, the work of bloodthirsty men on the make. As Watkins shows in this resonant new portrait, it arose because great men struggled to navigate a new and turbulent kind of politics that arose when the king was in eclipse.

Elizabeth I (Penguin Monarchs)

Helen Castor
Elizabeth I Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : Helen Castor
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2018-03-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780141980898

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Elizabeth I (Penguin Monarchs) by Helen Castor Pdf

Part of the Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers in a collectible format In the popular imagination, as in her portraits, Elizabeth I is the image of monarchical power. The Virgin Queen ruled over a Golden Age: the Spanish Armada was defeated and England's enemies scattered; English explorers reached almost to the ends of the earth; a new Church of England rose from the ashes of past conflict, and the English Renaissance bloomed in the genius of Shakespeare, Spenser and Sidney. But the image is also armour. In this illuminating new account of Elizabeth's reign, Helen Castor shows how England's iconic queen was shaped by profound and enduring insecurity-an insecurity which was both a matter of practical political reality and personal psychology. From her precarious upbringing at the whim of a brutal, capricious father and her perilous accession after his death, to the religious division that marred her state and the failure to marry that threatened her line, Elizabeth lived under constant threat. But, facing down her enemies with a compellingly inscrutable public persona, the last and greatest of the Tudor monarchs would become a timeless, fearless queen.

Elizabeth II (Penguin Monarchs)

Douglas Hurd
Elizabeth II Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : Douglas Hurd
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2015-08-27
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780141979427

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Elizabeth II (Penguin Monarchs) by Douglas Hurd Pdf

In September 2015 Queen Elizabeth II becomes Britain's longest-reigning monarch. During her long lifetime Britain and the world have changed beyond recognition, yet throughout she has stood steadfast as a lasting emblem of stability, continuity and public service. Historian and senior politician Douglas Hurd has seen the Queen at close quarters, as Home Secretary and then on overseas expeditions as Foreign Secretary. Here he considers the life and role of Britain's most greatly admired monarch, who, inheriting a deep sense of duty from her father George VI, has weathered national and family crises, seen the end of an Empire and heard voices raised in favour of the break-up of the United Kingdom. Hurd creates an arresting portrait of a woman deeply conservative by nature yet possessing a ready acceptance of modern life and the awareness that, for things to stay the same, they must change. With a preface by HRH Prince William, Duke of Cambridge

Edward II (Penguin Monarchs)

Christopher Given-Wilson
Edward II Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : Christopher Given-Wilson
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 44,9 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.

George II (Penguin Monarchs)

Norman Davies
George II Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : Norman Davies
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 201 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2021-05-27
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780141978437

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George II (Penguin Monarchs) by Norman Davies Pdf

From the celebrated historian and author of Europe: A History, a new life of George II George II, King of Great Britain and Ireland and Elector of Hanover, came to Britain for the first time when he was thirty-one. He had a terrible relationship with his father, George I, which was later paralleled by his relationship to his own son. He was short-tempered and uncultivated, but in his twenty-three-year reign he presided over a great flourishing in his adoptive country - economic, military and cultural - all described with characteristic wit and elegance by Norman Davies. (George II so admired the Hallelujah chorus in Handel's Messiah that he stood while it was being performed - as modern audiences still do.) Much of his attention remained in Hanover and on continental politics, as a result of which he was the last British monarch to lead his troops into battle, at Dettingen in 1744.

James II (Penguin Monarchs)

David Womersley
James II Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : David Womersley
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2015-04-30
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780141977072

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James II (Penguin Monarchs) by David Womersley Pdf

The short, action-packed reign of James II (1685-88) is generally seen as one of the most catastrophic in British history. James managed, despite having access to tremendous reserves of good will and deference, to so alienate his supporters that he had to flee for his life. And yet, most of that life was spent not as king but first as heir to Charles II, as Duke of York (after whom New York is named) and then in the last part of his life as the first Jacobite 'Pretender', starting a problem that would haunt Britain's rulers for generations.

Richard II (Penguin Monarchs)

Laura Ashe
Richard II Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : Laura Ashe
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2016-01-28
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780141979908

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Richard II (Penguin Monarchs) by Laura Ashe Pdf

Richard II (1377-99) came to the throne as a child, following the long, domineering, martial reign of his grandfather Edward III. He suffered from the disastrous combination of a most exalted sense of his own power and an inability to impress that power on those closest to the throne. Neither trusted nor feared, Richard battled with a whole series of failures and emergencies before finally succumbing to a coup, imprisonment and murder. Laura Ashe's brilliant account of his reign emphasizes the strange gap between Richard's personal incapacity and the amazing cultural legacy of his reign - from the Wilton Diptych to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman and The Canterbury Tales.

Charles II (Penguin Monarchs)

Clare Jackson
Charles II Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : Clare Jackson
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2016-03-31
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780141979779

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Charles II (Penguin Monarchs) by Clare Jackson Pdf

Charles II has always been one of the most instantly recognisable British kings - both in his physical appearance, disseminated through endless portraits, prints and pub signs, and in his complicated mix of lasciviousness, cynicism and luxury. His father's execution and his own many years of exile made him a guarded, curious, unusually self-conscious ruler. He lived through some of the most striking events in the national history - from the Civil Wars to the Great Plague, from the Fire of London to the wars with the Dutch. Clare Jackson's marvellous book takes full advantage of its irrepressible subject.

John (Penguin Monarchs)

Nicholas Vincent
John Penguin Monarchs Book PDF

Author : Nicholas Vincent
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 121 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2020-07-30
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780141977706

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John (Penguin Monarchs) by Nicholas Vincent Pdf

King John ruled England for seventeen and a half years, yet his entire reign is usually reduced to one image: of the villainous monarch outmanoeuvred by rebellious barons into agreeing to Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215. Ever since, John has come to be seen as an archetypal tyrant. But how evil was he? In this perceptive short account, Nicholas Vincent unpicks John's life through his deeds and his personality. The youngest of four brothers, overlooked and given a distinctly unroyal name, John seemed doomed to failure. As king, he was reputedly cruel and treacherous, pursuing his own interests at the expense of his country, losing the continental empire bequeathed to him by his father Henry and his brother Richard and eventually plunging England into civil war. Only his lordship of Ireland showed some success. Yet, as this fascinating biography asks, were his crimes necessarily greater than those of his ancestors - or was he judged more harshly because, ultimately, he failed as a warlord?