History is not created in a vacuum, and no leader comes to power without influences from the past and an impact on the future. In this look at ten royals, beginning with Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt and ending with Catherine the Great, each leader's biography is linked with another based on influences, events, and geography. By uncovering these unique and often overlooked connections, history emerges as a chain of patterns and relationships, and readers will understand how these ten leaders shaped the course of human civilization.

Despite its reputation as the longest established in Europe, the history of the English monarchy is punctuated by scandal, murders, betrayals, plots, and treason. Since William the Conqueror seized the crown in 1066, England has seen three civil wars; six monarchs have been murdered or executed; the throne of England has been usurped four times, and won in battle three times; and personal scandals and royal family quarrels abound.

From the reign of Alfred the Great - the first king of Wessex to call himself 'king of England' - in the ninth century, to the shock of Norman invasion in the 11th, and from the brutal vicissitudes of late medieval kingship to the comfortable ceremonial of modern-day constitutional monarchy, the story of England's kings and queens is to a large degree that of England herself. The Kings and Queens of England offers elegant portraits of 59 English monarchs from Harold II to Henry VIII, and from Æthelred the Unready to Elizabeth II. Each sovereign is concisely and memorably profiled and the impact of his or her rule on wider English history clearly described and analysed. For every king and queen there is a detailed timeline of key events, and the narrative is further amplified by display quotations, feature boxes, panels of key biographical facts, and - last but not least - by 150 lavish full-colour images. Author Ian Crofton recounts a 1000-year tale of murder, invasion, usurpation, adultery, divorce, civil war and revolution in a manner that is as entertaining as it is informative. The Kings and Queens of England is the perfect choice for anyone looking for an illustrated and accessible history of the English monarchy from the Anglo-Saxon era to the present.

A compendium of illustrated biographies of the British monarchs, revised throughout and updated to include the recent history of the Windsors.

Who invented The ``House of Windsor'' as a royal name? Who founded Westminster Abbey? Which king had twenty-one illegitimate children? David Hilliam answers all these questions plus many, many, more, covering unusual incidents of royal history which rarely appear in The text books!