The story of the Scottish ruler—and the mysterious death of her ambitious and controversial husband.In the early hours of February 10, 1567, a large explosion ripped through the lodgings at Kirk o' Field, Edinburgh, where Mary Queen of Scotland's consort, Henry, Lord Darnley, was staying. Darnley's body was found with that of his valet in a neighboring garden the next morning.The queen's husband had been murdered—and the ramifications for Mary and Scottish ...

"It's as good as a Philippa Gregory, and tells you so much more about Mary Queen of Scots and the people with whom she surrounded herself." —Books MonthlyWilliam Maitland of Lethington was the most able politician and diplomat during the lifetime of Mary Queen of Scots. It was he who masterminded the Scottish Reformation by breaking the 'Auld Alliance' with France, which presaged Scotland's lasting union with England.Although he gained English support to de...

The author of Elizabeth I's Secret Lover " places Ireland into a much wider context and takes it beyond the simplistic Catholic v Protestant dichotomy" ( The British Empire Blog ).Over the course of three decades in the late twentieth century, Northern Ireland was embroiled in the Troubles, a conflict characterized by the violent and bitter struggle between nationalists and unioni...

A study of the later years of the English monarch as seen through the men she surrounded herself with in her court.Elizabeth I's Final Years outlines the interwoven relationships and rivalries between politicians and courtiers surrounding England's omnipotent queen in the years following the Earl of Leicester's death in 1588. Elizabeth now surrounded herself with magnetically attractive younger men with the courtly graces to provide her with what Alison Wei...

On April 17, 1581, shots ring out in a Roman garden and a young man falls dead in an ambush. Within days, a powerful baron weds the lovely widow. Everyone knows the baron ordered the hit. But how much did the victim’s wife know? Vittoria Accoramboni, the most beautiful girl in Rome, chafed under the financial limitations of her husband’s family. She waited eight years for Pope Gregory XIII to die so that her husband’s uncle, Cardinal Montalto, could become the new pope and bring the family...

A revealing glimpse into the tumultuous history of England’s medieval period, full of knights in shining armor and terrible peasant suffering.Covering the violent and disease-ridden period between 1272 to 1399, England in the Age of Chivalry. . . And Awful Diseases covers the events, personages and ideas most commonly known as "medieval". This includes Geoffrey Chaucer, the Peasants revolt, the Scottish wars of independence, the Great Famine of 1315, the Black Death...

"An ethical and accessible introduction to a historical period often implicated in racist narratives of nationalism and imperialism." —Sierra Lomuto, Assistant Professor of Global Medieval Literature, Rowan UniversityA collection of twenty-two essays, Whose Middle Ages? gives nonspecialists access to the richness of our historical knowledge while debunking damaging misconceptions about the medieval past. Myths about the medieval period are especially belove...

The remarkable story of Gudrid, the female explorer who sailed from Iceland to the New World a millennium ago.Five hundred years before Columbus, a Viking woman named Gudrid sailed off the edge of the known world. She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say. Even after archaeologists found a Viking longhouse in Newfoundland, no one believed that the details of Gudrid's story ...

Gold digging, adultery, and a slaying on Valentine's Day, 1923, in this "juicy . . . page-turner" of a true crime story ( Chicago Tribune).It was a Roaring Twenties fatal attraction. Nettie Herskovitz was wealthy and widowed when she met Harry Diamond. The attentive, irresistibly sexy twenty-three-year-old suitor would become Nettie's fifth husband. He was also a bootlegger, pimp, and first-class hustler who thought he'd wed a goldmine. What Harry found in...

This "taut narrative" of the fourteenth-century conflict between England and France offers "a detailed, climactic account of a legendary battle" ( Publishers Weekly).The epic fourteenth-century Battle of Poitiers marked a major turn in the Hundred Years' War between England and France. Prince Edward, known to all as the Black Prince, not only won a surprising victory in his first campaign as commander, but managed the nearly impossible feat of taking the F...

This lively history of Europe's royal families through the 18th and early 19th centuries reveals the decadence and danger of court life.As the glittering Hanoverian court gives birth to the British Georgian era, a golden age of royalty dawns in Europe. Houses rise and fall, births, marriages and scandals change the course of history. Meanwhile, in France, Revolution stalks the land. Life in the Georgian Court pulls back the curtain on the opulent court of t...

The historian and author of The Shanghai Massacre presents an in-depth chronicle of Hitler's plot to eliminate political rivals and his own SA Brownshirts.In the summer of 1934, Adolf Hitler conducted a ruthless purge of his own fascist colleagues, many of whom had helped the Nazi Party rise to power. The brawling street thugs of the SA had bludgeoned Hitler's political opposition into submission and played a significant role in transforming Germany into a...