The fascinating story of the exceptional woman who wrested power from Edward II and changed the course of English history

In this examination of Isabelle of France's career, Field addresses significant issues in medieval religious history, including the possibilities for women's religious authority, the creation and impact of royal sanctity.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Alison Weir's Mary Boleyn. In this vibrant biography, acclaimed author Alison Weir reexamines the life of Isabella of England, one of history’s most notorious and charismatic queens. 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 became an important figure, a determined and clever woman whose influence would come to last centuries. Many myths and legends have been woven around Isabella’s story, but in this first full biography in more than 150 years, Alison Weir gives a groundbreaking new perspective.

Never before have the women of the Capetian royal dynasty in France been the subject of a study in their own right. The new research in Capetian Women challenges old paradigms about the restricted roles of royal women, uncovering their influence in social, religious, cultural and even political spheres. The scholars in the volume consider medieval chroniclers' responses to the independent actions of royal women as well as modern historians' use of them as vehicles for constructing the past. The essays also delineate the creation of reginal identity through cultural practices such as religious patronage and the commissioning of manuscripts, tomb sculpture, and personal seals.

Obey your husband. Make him love you. This is your duty to me and to France. With these words, King Philippe of France sent Princess Isabella to marry the dashing King Edward of England. She's determined to fulfill her father's injunction, but once wed, the young queen quickly abandons her romantic illusions: her husband has a secret, one that will stand between them and threatens to plunge England into civil war. As lonely Isabella grows into womanhood amid the deadly maelstrom of Edward's court, she rises above her despair and uses her clever mind and political acumen to unite the country. But when tensions with France rise, the young queen faces an impossible choice. From bestselling author Colin Falconer comes the little-known story of a queen who took control of her destiny--and the throne.

Weir revisits the life of Isabella, Edward II's Queen. A pawn in 14th century European politics she was married to Edward at the age of 12 and so began a turbulent and eventful life.

The first full-length biography of William Still, one of the most important leaders of the Underground Railroad. William Still: The Underground Railroad and the Angel at Philadelphia is the first major biography of the free Black abolitionist William Still, who coordinated the Eastern Line of the Underground Railroad and was a pillar of the Railroad as a whole. Based in Philadelphia, Still built a reputation as a courageous leader, writer, philanthropist, and guide for fugitive enslaved people. This monumental work details Still’s life story beginning with his parents’ escape from bondage in the early nineteenth century and continuing through his youth and adulthood as one of the nation’s most important Underground Railroad agents and, later, as an early civil rights pioneer. Still worked personally with Harriet Tubman, assisted the family of John Brown, helped Brown’s associates escape from Harper’s Ferry after their famous raid, and was a rival to Frederick Douglass among nationally prominent African American abolitionists. Still’s life story is told in the broader context of the anti-slavery movement, Philadelphia Quaker and free black history, and the generational conflict that occurred between Still and a younger group of free black activists led by Octavius Catto. Unique to this book is an accessible and detailed database of the 995 fugitives Still helped escape from the South to the North and Canada between 1853 and 1861. The database contains twenty different fields—including name, age, gender, skin color, date of escape, place of origin, mode of transportation, and literacy—and serves as a valuable aid for scholars by offering the opportunity to find new information, and therefore a new perspective, on runaway enslaved people who escaped on the Eastern Line of the Underground Railroad. Based on Still’s own writings and a multivariate statistical analysis of the database of the runaways he assisted on their escape to freedom, the book challenges previously accepted interpretations of the Underground Railroad. The audience for William Still is a diverse one, including scholars and general readers interested in the history of the anti-slavery movement and the operation of the Underground Railroad, as well as genealogists tracing African American ancestors.