Who invented the House of Windsor as a royal name? Who founded Westminster Abbey? Which king had twenty-one illegitimate children? David Halliam answers all these questions & more. Here is a continuous history of the English monarchy showing how the nine dynasties rose & fell. The book describes the most memorable features of the life & times of each king or queen
- from Egbert crowned in 802 & considered the first king of England to Queen Elizabeth II
- as well as recording the extraordinary lives of their queens consorts mistresses & bastard children. It also tells the story of the Saxons describes what has happened to the monarchs mortal remains & relates many lively incidents of royal history that rarely appear in the text books. Read of the saintly Edward the Confessor who is believed to have refused to consumate his marriage; of the rumbustious Henry VIII given to beheading those who displeased him; of the little gentleman in black velvet who caused the death of William III; & of Queen Victorias strange servant the Munshi Queen Emma who endured a trial by ordeal; & Anne Boleyn widely suspected of being a witch. A complete list of the monarchs reigns & a genealogical table showing the royal descent down thirty-seven generations from Egbert to Elizabeth II adds to the volumes reference value.

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The Anglo-Saxon era is one of the most important in English history covering the period from the end of Roman authority in the British Isles to the Norman Conquest of 1066 in which the very idea of England was born. In The Kings& Queens of Anglo-Saxon England Venning examines the rulers of Anglo-Saxon England beginning with the legendary leaders of the Anglo-Saxon invasion as Hengest & Horsa or Cerdic & Cynric & moving on through such figures as Aethelbert of Kent the first king to be converted to Christianity & his daughter Aethelburh whose marriage began the conversion of Northumbria to Alfred of Wessex & his dynasty the Viking invasions & the last of the Anglo-Saxon kings Harold Godwineson. ...

Which kings guards massacred a group of his supporters by mistake? Who had an oversized tongue & had to slobber when they ate food? Who was so large when they died that they had to be buried in a square coffin? Who survived seven assassination attempts? As you can tell from the bizarre questions above it wasnt all thrones & sceptres for British kings & queens. Some of them were completely batty & others were downright vicious. On the other hand some monarchs were an icon to the people & represented the power & importance of Britain & Engl&. Kings & Queens A Very Peculiar History explores some of the most marvellous monarchs to have ruled Britain & ekes out their bizarre habits & idiosyncracies featuring quirky stories & fascinating facts & lists. ...

A considered attempt to set out what we can know about the rulers of what is now Wales in the early medieval period Timothy Vennings new book does not shy away from problems of dating & interpretation in the use of the meagre source material. Venning takes a regional approach & rather than try to provide a water-tight narrative is happy to present different possibilities & traditions weighing up their likelihood & pointing the reader in the direction of further discussion as necessary. The book starts with coverage of the Iron Age background as well as the shadowy post-Roman era finishing with the period of Anglo-Norman expansion & Welsh resistance & co-existence for which we are on much firmer ground. ...

A copiously illustrated guide to the monarchs of the British Isles & Ireland from pre-Saxon times to the present complete with concise genealogical charts & details of key historical events. The book is divided into five sections together with a Compendium at the end. Part One presents information about Pre-Saxon rule including details about ancient British chiefs Roman rulers & the Roman Conquest. Part Two provides information about Scotland Ireland & Wales with sections on Robert I & the Wars of Independence The Union of the Crowns the Princes of Wales & the High Kingship of Irel&. Part Three discusses the Saxons Normans & Plantagenets. Part Four gives details about the Tudors & Stuarts. Part Five presents an in-depth discussion of the houses from Hanover to Windsor. Parts Two to Five provide all the essential information you will need to know about Kings & Queens including details of birth parents accession to the throne coronation authority personal status death date & burial place for each monarch. In addition an overview is given for each reign outlining major events & personal tragedies war celebrations & conspiracies. ...

This is a comprehensive compendium of the British monarchy from the Anglo-Saxons to the present day. It covers the kings & queens from across Britain including biographies key events in their lifetimes their personalities style of kingship & even their hobbies & interests. It is a luxury history book & a must-have for every family bookshelf with a beautiful binding & ribbon marker. It comes with internet links to additional resources including video clips games & interactive features. ...

From the reign of Alfred the Great
- the first king of Wessex to call himself 'king of England'
- in the 9th century to the

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Spanning ten dynasties of Englands monarchs The Kings & Queens of England presents portraits & potted biographies of Englands monarchs. Spanning from the Normans through to the House of Windsor this exquisite little book captures the personalities behind the crowns & records the landmarks traditions & events of each reign. ...

In this book children will be fascinated to learn about every King & Queen of Britain from the Norman conquest to the present day by matching the stickers of important artefacts to their frames on each page. Each frame is accompanied by fascinating historical facts. Each illustrated double spread is based upon the different royal dynasties including the Plantagenets the Tudors the Stuarts & the Windsors. It contains over 100 stickers. ...

Kings Cross station was the terminus of the Great Northern Railway & was opened in 1852. Designed by Lewis Cubitt it replaced a temporary station at Maiden Lane. It established itself as the London terminus of what is now known as the East Coast Main Line to Edinburgh. From 1862 at 10 a.m. every weekday the Flying Scotsman left Kings Cross for the north initially taking over ten hours to complete the journey but now taking only four hours from Edinburgh to London. Some of Britains most famous locomotives from the Ivatt Atlantics to the A3 & A4 Pacifics Deltics & HSTs have sped north from Kings Cross. The underground station below the main line station encompasses six lines & was the scene of the disastrous Kings Cross fire in 1987 following which it was rebuilt. Kings Cross itself has been redeveloped many times over the years & a fictional platform (93/4) made famous in the Harry Potter novels. Its Grade 1 listed facade has been revamped & the station enhanced to increase capacity. ...