The young Princess Victoria, strictly confined within the boundaries of Kensington Palace, is being moulded for her awesome future as Queen of England. Surrounded by her dolls and closely guarded by her domineering mother and faithful governess,...
On the morning of 20th June 1837, an eighteen-year-old girl is called from her bed to be told that she is Queen of England. The Victorian age has begun.
The young queen’s first few years are beset with court scandal and malicious gossip:...
From the time they were in their cradles, Victoria and Albert were destined for each other. However, the passive Albert is well aware that marriage to a quick-tempered, demonstrative young woman like Victoria could result in unnecessary scenes...
Albert is dead and the queen is preparing to spend the rest of her life in mourning. Yet the last years of her reign are to be momentous years.
Palmerston, then Gladstone and Disraeli, govern her empire through the high noon of its heyday.
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Princess Victoria knows from a young age that she will almost certainly become Queen of England. Her mother, also acutely aware of Victoria's destiny, keep the princess under a watchful eye against dangers of scheming uncles—always, she...
ANNE BOLEYN'S CLAIM TO FAME is distinct from that of every other woman in English history. It was for the love of Anne Boleyn that Henry VIII enacted a massive schism in the Catholic Church, renouncing the authority of the Pope and setting...
Eleanor of Aquitaine remains as intriguing today as she has in centuries past. In The Courts of Love, the inimitable Jean Plaidy brings this fascinating queen to life, allowing Eleanor to tell the captivating story of her life and loves in this...
Anne Neville, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, first met and befriended Richard, Duke of Gloucester, at her father's castle, where he had been sent to learn the arts of chivalry and war. Anne's father, known as the Kingmaker, had set Richard's...
News of Thomas à Becket’s martyrdom has spread throughout Christendom and the blame is laid at the feet of Henry Plantagenet, King of England. Two years later, with Becket canonised, Henry’s position is precarious: punished at the Pope’s...
Katherine of Valois was born a princess, the daughter of King Charles VI of France, but her father was known to most of the nation as “Charles the Mad” by the time Katherine was old enough to know him. Given to unpredictable fits of insanity,...