England Britain

During the spring of 1536 in Tudor England, events conspire to bring down Anne Boleyn, the Queen of England. The coup against the Queen results in the brutal executions of six innocent people - Anne Boleyn herself, her brother, and four courtiers - and the rise of a new Queen. Drawing on 16th-century letters, eye witness accounts, and chronicles, Claire Ridgway leads the listener through the sequence of chilling events one day at a time, telling the true story of Anne Boleyn's fall.

The Boer War was the defining conflict of South African history and one of the most important conflicts in the history of the British Empire. Naturally, complicated geopolitics underscored it, going back centuries. In fact, the European history of South Africa began with the 1652 arrival of a small Dutch flotilla in Table Bay, at the southern extremity of the African continent, which made landfall with a view to establishing a victualing station to service passing Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) ships.

Spanning the end of the Regency, Ackroyd takes listeners from the accession of the profligate George IV, whose government was steered by Lord Liverpool, whose face was set against reform, to the "Sailor King" William IV, whose reign saw the modernization of the political system and the abolition of slavery. But it was the accession of Queen Victoria, at only 18 years old, that sparked an era of enormous innovation. Technological progress - from steam railways to the first telegram - swept the nation, and the finest inventions were showcased at the first Great Exhibition in 1851.

The year was 1935: the twilight of the English aristocracy. It was a time of wealth and glamour; of lavish balls and evening gowns; of tiaras and a coronation. As personal maid to Lady Coventry, Hilda Newman had a unique insight into the leisured life of one of Britain's most noble families. In her fascinating memoir of life upstairs and down, Hilda takes us back to this period between the wars; a gilded era which would soon be dramatically changed by the Second World War.

In Seize the Fire, Adam Nicolson, author of the widely acclaimed God's Secretaries, takes the great naval battle of Trafalgar, fought between the British and Franco-Spanish fleets in October 1805, and uses it to examine our idea of heroism and the heroic. Is violence a necessary aspect of the...

In a personal but objective narrative based on the Bounty's log, Bligh himself tells of the stormy voyage to Tahiti, his crew's insatiable attachment to the island paradise, and the incredible 3,600-mile journey to safety after the mutineers cast him, and 18 loyal crew members, adrift in a small, open boat with few supplies. Bligh's detractors say this narrative has many distortions and omissions; others judge it a remarkably dispassionate record.

The reign of Richard III, the last Yorkist king and the final monarch of the Plantagenet dynasty, marked a turning point in British history. But despite his lasting legacy, Richard only ruled as king for the final two years of his life. While much attention has been given to his short reign, Michael Hicks explores the whole of Richard's fascinating life and traces the unfolding of his character and career from his early years as the son of a duke to his violent death at the battle of Bosworth.

The opening of the pioneering Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830 marked the beginning of the railway network's vital role in changing the face of Britain. Fire & Steam celebrates the vision of the ambitious Victorian pioneers who developed this revolutionary transport system and the navvies who cut through the land to enable a country-wide railway to emerge.

This small book looks at some of the strange things that make England unique, starting with the English language itself and looking at concepts such as sports, ghosts and the English love for eccentricity - like the sportsman who rode his horse naked. As well as strange people, the book looks at strange places. For example, there is the canal across Southern England that was dug to keep back Bonaparte’s hordes in the invasion that never took place. There is also the impressively masculine Cerne Abbas Giant, to which women once flocked when they wished to become pregnant.

To understand what it is to be a Princess Royal, Helen Cathcart skillfully portrays the lives of the foremost royal daughters from the days when princesses were "ladyes" and the King's eldest son was styled Prince Royal, through to our present Princess Royal.

Venture into the shadowy heart of the United Kingdom with "Haunted Britain" a spine-chilling collection of ghost stories woven into the tapestry of real paranormal encounters. This captivating anthology combines both the factual and the fantastical, taking you on an unforgettable journey through the isles' most haunted locations.

Here is the whole of recorded British royal history, from the legendary King Alfred the Great onwards, including the monarchies of England, Scotland, Wales and the United Kingdom for over a thousand years. Fascinating portraits are expertly woven into a history of division and eventual union of the British Isles - even royals we think most familiar are revealed in a new and sometimes surprising light.This edition includes biographies of the royals of recorded British history, plus an overview of the semi-

A quixotic journey through London's past, Mudlark plumbs the banks of the Thames to reveal the stories hidden behind the archaeological remnants of an ancient city. Long heralded as a city treasure herself, expert "mudlarker" Lara Maiklem is uniquely trained in the art of seeking. Tirelessly trekking across miles of the Thames' muddy shores, where others only see the detritus of city life, Maiklem unearths evidence of England's captivating, if sometimes murky, history - with some objects dating back to 43 AD, when London was but an outpost of the Roman Empire.

London, 1857: Two teenage girls holding a sign that says "Fugitive Slaves" ask for money on the corner of Blackman Street. After a constable accosts them and charges them with begging, they end up in court, where newspapers pick up their story. Are the girls truly escaped slaves from Kentucky? Or will the city's dystopian Mendicity Society catch them in a lie, exposing them as born-and-raised Londoners and endangering their safety? With its many accounts of people like these who lived and made their living on the streets, Vagabonds forms a moving picture of London's most compelling period.

From USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Robson—author of Moonlight Over Paris and Somewhere in France—comes a lush historical novel that tells the fascinating story of Ruby Sutton, an ambitious American journalist who moves to London in 1940 to report on the Second World War, and to start...

Balford-le-Nez is a dying seatown on the coast of Essex. But when a member of the town's small but growing Asian community, is found dead on its beach, his neck broken, sleepy Balford-le-Nez ignites. Working solo, without her long-time partner Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley, Sergeant Barbara...

In the second novel of the New York Times bestselling Temeraire series, the Napoleonic Wars take Captain Will Laurence and his dragon to China on a perilous mission. “Full of wonderful characters with real heart.”—Peter Jackson When Britain intercepted a French ship and its precious...

The Scots-Irish were 40 percent of the Revolutionary War army; they included the pioneers Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, Davy Crockett, and Sam Houston; they were the writers Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain; and they have given America numerous great military leaders, including Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Audie Murphy, and George S. Patton, as well as most of the soldiers of the Confederacy (only five percent of whom owned slaves, and who fought against what they viewed as an invading army).

The secrets of Queen Victoria's sixth child, Princess Louise, may be destined to remain hidden forever. What was so dangerous about this artistic, tempestuous royal that her life has been documented more by rumor and gossip than hard facts? When Lucinda Hawksley started to investigate, often thwarted by inexplicable secrecy, she discovered a fascinating woman, modern before her time, whose story has been shielded for years from public view.

Even before Jack the Ripper haunted its streets for prey, London's East End had earned a reputation for immorality, filth, and vice. John Bennett, a writer and tour guide who has walked and researched the area for more than 30 years, delves into four centuries of history to chronicle the crimes, their perpetrators, and the circumstances that made the East End an ideal breeding ground for illegal activity.