Monarchy Books

The Duchess

Amanda Foreman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Superb! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Georgina was a women beyond her time. She had an adventureous and emotionally sad go with relationships. The author brings her to life. Read the book before you see the movie. Much more vivid picture painted of her life by the author.

Editorial Review:

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

Now a major motion picture starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes

Lady Georgiana Spencer was the great-great-great-great-aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales, and was nearly as famous in her day. In 1774 Georgiana achieved immediate celebrity by marrying William Cavendish, fifth duke of Devonshire, one of England’s richest and most influential aristocrats. She became the queen of fashionable society and founder of the most important political salon of her time. But Georgiana’s public success concealed an unhappy marriage, a gambling addiction, drinking, drug-taking, and rampant love affairs with the leading politicians of the day. With penetrating insight, Amanda Foreman reveals a fascinating woman whose struggle against her own weaknesses, whose great beauty and flamboyance, and whose determination to play a part in the affairs of the world make her a vibrant, astonishingly contemporary figure.

A Year with the Queen

Robert Hardman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

What really happens when the most powerful man in the world invites the most famous woman in the world to dinner? What is life really like in the 650 rooms beyond the gates of Buckingham Palace? Who are the 50 people in the line of succession to the throne? What does a Lady-in-Waiting do? What do you actually say when it's your turn to meet royalty?

A Year with the Queen tells the story from the inside. No Monarch in history has travelled as far and met as many people as Queen Elizabeth II. And no book has revealed the workings of the Monarchy like this -- with members of the Royal Family and world leaders telling their own stories, too.

Like the brilliant television series it accompanies, A Year with the Queen shows the extraordinary world of the Monarch and her family -- from sacred constitutional talks with the Prime Minister to the razzmatazz of a stay at the White House and from a seaside stroll with the Prince of Wales to a weekend in Iraq with Prince Philip. Equally extraordinary is the work of the Royal Household team -- the man who carries the Crown around in a box, the team who counts out the medals, the chef who paints the chocolates, the in-house royal agony aunt....

The result is a book packed with fabulous photographs, important insights, wonderful anecdotes -- and plenty of advice, too. Ever wondered how to reply to a royal invitation? Or how to get one...?

Doomed Queens: Royal Women Who Met Bad Ends, From Cleopatra to Princess Di

Kris Waldherr

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Illicit love, madness, betrayal--it isn’t always good to be the queen

Marie Antoinette, Anne Boleyn, and Mary, Queen of Scots. What did they have in common? For a while they were crowned in gold, cosseted in silk, and flattered by courtiers. But in the end, they spent long nights in dark prison towers and were marched to the scaffold where they surrendered their heads to the executioner. And they are hardly alone in their undignified demises. Throughout history, royal women have had a distressing way of meeting bad ends--dying of starvation, being burned at the stake, or expiring in childbirth while trying desperately to produce an heir. They always had to be on their toes and all too often even devious plotting, miraculous pregnancies, and selling out their sisters was not enough to keep them from forcible consignment to religious orders. From Cleopatra (suicide by asp), to Princess Caroline (suspiciously poisoned on her coronation day), there’s a gory downside to being blue-blooded when you lack a Y chromosome. Kris Waldherr’s elegant little book is a chronicle of the trials and tribulations of queens across the ages, a quirky, funny, utterly macabre tribute to the dark side of female empowerment. Over the course of fifty irresistibly illustrated and too-brief lives, Doomed Queens charts centuries of regal backstabbing and intrigue. We meet well-known figures like Catherine of Aragon, whose happy marriage to Henry VIII ended prematurely when it became clear that she was a starter wife--the first of six. And we meet forgotten queens like Amalasuntha, the notoriously literate Ostrogoth princess who overreached politically and was strangled in her bath. While their ends were bleak, these queens did not die without purpose. Their unfortunate lives are colorful cautionary tales for today’s would-be power brokers--a legacy of worldly and womanly wisdom gathered one spectacular regal ruin at a time.

Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England

Alison Weir

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Total reviews: 43 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Isabella arrived in London in 1308, the spirited twelve-year-old daughter of King Philip IV of France. Her marriage to the heir to England’s throne was designed to heal old political wounds between the two countries, and in the years that followed, she would become an important figure, a determined and clever woman whose influence would come to last centuries. But Queen Isabella’s political machinations led generations of historians to malign her, earning her a reputation as a ruthless schemer and an odious nickname, “the She-Wolf of France.”

Now the acclaimed author of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Alison Weir, reexamines the life of Isabella of England, history’s other notorious and charismatic medieval queen. Praised for her fair looks, the newly wed Isabella was denied the attentions of Edward II, a weak, sexually ambiguous monarch with scant taste for his royal duties. As their marriage progressed, Isabella was neglected by her dissolute husband and slighted by his favored male courtiers. Humiliated and deprived of her income, her children, and her liberty, Isabella escaped to France, where she entered into a passionate affair with Edward II’s mortal enemy, Roger Mortimer. Together, Isabella and Mortimer led the only successful invasion of English soil since the Norman Conquest of 1066, deposing Edward and ruling in his stead as co-regents for Isabella’s young son, Edward III. Fate, however, was soon to catch up with Isabella and her lover.

Many mysteries and legends have been woven around Isabella’s story. She was long condemned as an accessory to Edward II’s brutal murder in 1327, but recent research has cast doubt on whether that murder even took place.

Isabella’s reputation, then, rests largely on the prejudices of monkish chroniclers and prudish Victorian scholars. Here Alison Weir gives a startling, groundbreaking new perspective on Isabella, in this first full biography in more than 150 years. In a work of extraordinary original research, Weir effectively strips away centuries of propaganda, legend, and romantic myth, and reveals a truly remarkable woman who had a profound influence upon the age in which she lived and the history of western Europe.

Engaging, vibrant, alive with breathtaking detail and unforgettable characters, Queen Isabella is biographical history at its finest.


From the Hardcover edition.

Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe

Nancy Goldstone

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Popular History in Search of a Fact Checker 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

My love of medieval history and soft-spot for popular history made this book a natural for me. The story of four daughters of the Count of Provence who became "queens" is set in an era I've study quite a bit yet (back in college!) I know relatively little about Marguerite, Eleanor, Sanchia and Beatrice.

Any biography of a major figure from the 13 century has hurdles: few contemporaneous first-hand accounts, few to none documents written by the figures themselves, etc. These problems are compounded exponentially when the figure in question is female. All too often, women just didn't rate making it into the chronicles. So Goldstone has her work cut out for her. She makes a valiant effort to piece together the careers and characters of these women drawing conclusions from the smattering of available facts. The reader can take issues with these conclusions but that, to me, is one of the rewards of reading about this era.

All that said, this book was a disappointment. Other reviewers have noted the multitude of factual errors in this book and I have to add my voice to the chorus. Silly, stupid mistakes are present in every single chapter. Were all the fact checkers on vacation when this book was being edited? Did Goldstone get her index cards mixed up? Popular history often needs to tread lightly on the details but never on the facts.

The narrative starts well but writing starts to become heavy going before youngest sister Beatrice hits the stage. Goldstone starts overwhelming the reader with "events" that aren't particularly telling about the four sisters or illuminating of their times. She also over does the adjectives; Sanchia is too frequently "gentle Sanchia", for example. The last quarter of the book was a real trial for me to finish.

I've given this book three stars, the writing and the factual errors would make this book a two but the decent start and the relative obscurity of the topic earn it an extra star from me. If you want an intro to the period this is not the best place to start. If you are immersed in this period, you may find the errors too annoying to bear. If you are interested in learning about these four under-known sisters and their times and are comfortable skipping judiciously, this book may be for you.

Kindle note: photos are included.

Editorial Review:

Set against the backdrop of the turbulent thirteenth century, a time of chivalry and crusades, poetry, knights, and monarchs comes the story of the four beautiful daughters of the count of Provence whose brilliant marriages made them the queens of France, England, Germany, and Sicily. A compulsively readable narrative, Four Queens shatters the myth that women were helpless pawns in a society that celebrated physical prowess and masculine intellect. A riveting historical saga for fans of Alison Weir and Antonia Fraser.

The Diana Chronicles

Tina Brown

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 131 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A biography of both Diana and the media coverage that shaped her 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I started THE DIANA CHRONICLES by Tina Brown by reading it in the store in parts. I figured it was ANOTHER Diana book, and I could pass some pleasant hours in the bookstore sitting in a chair going over some familiar ground. But I was surprised: Brown is an insightful, clear and unflinching writer who has the ability, due to her experience in print journalism, to view the famous through a cynical but knowledgeable media lens. This book was so good, that when I got 300 pages in to the 500-plus-page book, I bought it. It was getting hard to find, and I NEEDED to finish it.

The plotline of Diana's life does not need to be repeated here. What this book is good for is the way it examines her life and her responses to the events of her life as influenced by the media and the media coverage of the her every move. It's as if it weren't Diana and the media professionals who were in a relationship, but Diana and the media coverage who influenced each other. This study is a fascinating examination of how media attention can become a character in the narrative of a famous person's life. According to Brown, Diana made decisions not just in response to the other people in her life, but in reaction to press and how her actions might be reported and perceived. She lost the goal, at some points, of how press attention can influence individuals and became focused on the press itself.

This book presents a strong narrative, a plotline of a life that is compelling and cogent. Though we know the story well, Brown's reportage is complete and portrays not only a whole Diana, but a complete Charles and other royals who had to orbit her star while she was alive.

This was a fascinating book to read as an examination of a woman of fame who could not help but respond to the expectations of women in the times in which she lived. Reading THE DIANA CHRONICLES, one cannot help but think of the price some women pay to be the feminine, compassionate women the world wants them to be. When that world is personified by papparazzi and reporters in fragile woman's day-to-day life, her response can be astonishing.

Editorial Review:

Ten years after her death, Princess Diana remains a mystery. Was she “the people’s princess,” who electrified the world with her beauty and humanitarian missions? Or was she a manipulative, media-savvy neurotic who nearly brought down the monarchy? Only Tina Brown, former editor-in-chief of Tatler, England’s glossiest gossip magazine; Vanity Fair; and The New Yorker could possibly give us the truth.

Versailles: A Biography of a Palace

Tony Spawforth

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The behind-the-scenes story of the world’s most famous palace, painting a picture of the way its residents truly lived and examining the palace’s legacy, from French history through today

The story of Versailles is one of historical drama, under the last three kings of France’s old regime, mixed with the high camp and glamour of the European courts, all in an iconic home for the French arts. The palace itself has been radically altered since 1789, and the court was long ago swept away. Versailles sets out to rediscover what is now a vanished world: a great center of power, seat of royal government, and, for thousands, a home both grand and squalid, bound by social codes almost incomprehensible to us today.

Using eyewitness testimony as well as the latest historical research, Spawforth offers the first full account of Versailles in English in over thirty years. Blowing away the myths of Versailles, he analyses afresh the politics behind the Sun King’s construction of the palace and shows how Versailles worked as the seat of a royal court. He probes the conventional picture of a “perpetual house party” of courtiers and gives full weight to the darker side: not just the mounting discomfort of the aging buildings but also the intrigue and status anxiety of its aristocrats. The book brings out clearly the fateful consequences for the French monarchy of its relocation to Versailles and also examines the changing place of Versailles in France’s national identity since 1789.

 Many books have told the stories of the royals and artists living in Versailles, but this is the first to turn its focus on the palace itself---from architecture and politics to scandal and restoration.

Privilege and Scandal: The Remarkable Life of Harriet Spencer, Sister of Georgiana

Janet Gleeson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The Other Spencer Girl 4 out of 5 stars.
11 of 12 people found this review helpful.

History, especially that which is viewed through the eyes of women, has always fascinated me. Over the last decade, one period of history that has really started to interest me is that of Georgian England, during the reigns of the five Hannoverian kings -- George I, George II, George III, George IV, and William IV.

While at the time, women could not vote, directly own property, and legally were considered to be children -- they were able to have influence on, and at times manipulate, the world around them. In Privilege and Scandal author Janet Gleeson shows the life of one woman who did just that.

Henrietta Frances Spencer, the youngest surviving daughter of the Earl Spencer and his wife, was beautiful, smart and possessed of a great deal of charm. As with her elder sister, Georgiana, she was expected to marry well, produce children, and be a credit to both her family and her new husband. She grew up very close to her older sister, a bond that would last all of their lives together. But Harriet, as she was known, was also passionate, determined and craved excitement in her life, all of which would eventually prove her undoing.

She married, after several failed courtships, Lord Duncannon, the heir to the Earl of Bessborough and a wealthy Irish peer. And Harriet, with the help of her sister, Georgiana, now the Duchess of Devonshire, entered into London political society with full abandon. Once she had produced the necessary heirs to her husband, two sons and a daughter, she also gave into the admiration of the gentlemen around her, affairs that she tried to keep discreet, but sometimes got a bit out of hand, especially when it came to the playwright and politician Richard Sheridan.

If this sounds shocking to twentieth first century readers, in a time when marriage was made more for financial gains and family connections, if the partners were discreet, and quiet about it, affairs could be tolerated. Unluckily for Harriet, her husband was very possessive and jealous, and Harriet did her best to keep things quiet. That is, until she met Lord Granville Gower, the younger son of a noble family who was possessed of outrageous good looks, a great deal of charm and brains to boot. While Harriet tried not to give in -- by this time she had given birth to a fourth son -- soon enough there were whispers of an affair, and Harriet was terrified that word would get back to her husband.

And that marriage was shaky. There were rumours that there would be a divorce, and Harriet's health was already undermined from stress, several miscarriages, and what appears to be a series of strokes. She had already courted scandal by overspending, a bad habit of living and gambling on credit -- enough to where the Bessborough estates were mortgaged to the hilt, and the family was about to declare bankruptcy -- and her outspoken support of liberal politicians such as Fox and Sheridan. The pamphleteers and cartoonists of the day found both Georgiana and Harriet prime targets for satire and there were times when both women, with sometimes children, mother and servants in tow, would escape to the Continent to evade scrutiny.

Then the worst happened -- Harriet found herself pregnant by Lord Granville....

I'm not going to reveal much more of this story, as how it all worked out for Harriet, Georgiana, their husbands and children does make for remarkable reading. I had always wondered why the women of the Regency period had such loose reputations, especially with the later Victorians, but now, it becomes much more clear. Women were finding a new freedom, in the press, in the arts and in politics. And Harriet, determined to enjoy it all, did just that.

Author Janet Gleeson creates a vivid portrait of Harriet Spencer, using Harriet's letters, those of her contemporaries, and the history of the times to write this story. The depictions of high society life in London and France are particularly strong, and compelling to read. The writing style and pacing get somewhat dry at times, and slow the book down about a third of the way through, but once Harriet meets Lord Granville, the story truly picks up again.

I found Harriet to be a very interesting woman to read about, complex and at times maddening, but also very sympathetic. Gleeson, to her credit, doesn't go too far in making her subject unbelievable or overly romantic, but stays within what is known, and only rarely goes and makes conjectures about Harriet.

If the name Spencer is familiar, yes, this particular Spencer family were the ancestors of that Lady Diana Spencer who would live and die so tragically.
For those who would like to learn more about the Spencers and the world that they lived and moved in, I would recommend two other biographies, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman (republished as The Duchess and made into a film starring Kiera Knightley) and Elizabeth and Georgiana: The Duke of the Devonshire and His Two Duchesses by Caroline Chapman and Jane Dormer. All three books provide a well-rounded picture of turbulent times and a fascinating group of people.

As well as the story itself, there are ample notes, two inserts of black and white photos showing portraits and places, as well a bibliography that gives hints for further reading. Happily, a genealogical chart unsnarls the complicated relationships.

Four stars overall, and recommended for those interested in this period of time.

Editorial Review:

A revealing portrait of one of the most glamorous, influential, and notorious members of the Spencer family

Intelligent, attractive, and born into wealth, Harriet Spencer, ancestor of Princess Diana, married Frederick, Viscount Duncannon, at the age of nineteen. But it was her affair with Lord Granville Leveson Gower that resulted in the birth of two children and all but consumed Harriet’s life.

The first comprehensive biography of Lady Harriet Spencer, Privilege & Scandal gives readers an inside look at the British aristocracy during the decadent eighteenth century, while bringing one of the era’s most intriguing women to life.

Murder of a Medici Princess

Caroline P. Murphy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In Murder of a Medici Princess, Caroline Murphy illuminates the brilliant life and tragic death of Isabella de Medici, one of the brightest stars in the dazzling world of Renaissance Italy, the daughter of Duke Cosimo I, ruler of Florence and Tuscany.
Murphy is a superb storyteller, and her fast-paced narrative captures the intrigue, the scandal, the romantic affairs, and the violence that were commonplace in the Florentine court. She brings to life an extraordinary woman, fluent in five languages, a free-spirited patron of the arts, a daredevil, a practical joker, and a passionate lover. Isabella, in fact, conducted numerous affairs, including a ten-year relationship with the cousin of her violent and possessive husband. Her permissive lifestyle, however, came to an end upon the death of her father, who was succeeded by her disapproving older brother Francesco. Considering Isabella's ways to be licentious and a disgrace upon the family, he permitted her increasingly enraged husband to murder her in a remote Medici villa. To tell this dramatic story, Murphy draws on a vast trove of newly discovered and unpublished documents, ranging from Isabella's own letters, to the loose-tongued dispatches of ambassadors to Florence, to contemporary descriptions of the opulent parties and balls, salons and hunts in which Isabella and her associates participated. Murphy resurrects the exciting atmosphere of Renaissance Florence, weaving Isabella's beloved city into her story, evoking the intellectual and artistic community that thrived during her time. Palaces and gardens in the city become places of creativity and intrigue, sites of seduction, and grounds for betrayal.
Here then is a narrative of compelling and epic proportions, magnificent and alluring, decadent and ultimately tragic.

Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King

Antonia Fraser

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

GREAT BOOK 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

this is a great book. the photos inside are great and its quality is amazing

VIVE LE ROI 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Excellent thorough book. Easy read full of great
info on the kings personal life

Maybe I have lost my ardor for this genre 2 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I used to be fascinatged by these portraits of historical figures, but this one left me bored and skeptical. I have read a few of Ms Fraser's other books and enjoyed them. Particularly her Marie Antoinette. But this one I found dull by the second chapter and now after chapter 7 have set it aside to move on to something else. I will go back and finish, and if my review changes, I will be back to amend this review, but I just felt there is so much interesting history to touch with Louis XIV and this book ignores a lot of it. In addition, her recreations of events as if she is there left me skeptical of their veracity. Obviously this is well researched, but does she really know that court "rushed" to someones side". I guess I shoudl have deduced form the title that this woudl really focus on Louis love life. I just was hoping for something else. There is enough television and movies telling us about the love lives of famous individuals of the present and past. I was more interested in his intellectual persuits, and his accomplishments in architecture and development of France that earned him the nickname of the Sun King.

Editorial Review:

Louis XIV, the highly-feted “Sun King”, was renowned for his political and cultural influence and for raising France to a new level of prominence in seventeenth-century Europe. And yet, as Antonia Fraser keenly describes, he was equally legendary in the domestic sphere. Indeed, a panoply of women — his wife Anne; mistresses such as Louise de la Vallière, Athénaïs de Montespan, and the puritanical Madame de Maintenon; and an array of courtesans — moved in and out of the court. The highly visible presence of these women raises many questions about their position in both Louis XIV’s life and in France at large. With careful research and vivid, engaging prose, Fraser makes the multifaceted life of one of the most famous European monarchs accessible and vibrantly current.