A man she encountered on the street turned out to be her fated prince! Sharon recently lost her father and his will dictated that she must marry someone within a month or his death, otherwise she won’t be able to inherit the company! He recommended Glen, the company’s attorney, as a suitable husband, but she couldn’t accept him. That’s when she happened to meet the classy and mysterious Arbela. She then makes up her mind to marry him…!

The princes étrangers, or the foreign princes, were an influential group of courtiers in early modern France, who maintained their unofficial status as 'foreigners' due to membership in sovereign ruling families. Arguably the most influential of these were the princes of Lorraine, a sovereign state on France's eastern border. During the sixteenth century the Lorraine-Guise dominated the culture and politics of France, gaining a reputation as a powerful, manipulative family at the head of the Catholic League in the Wars of Religion and with close relationships with successive Valois monarchs and Catherine de Medici. After the traumas of 1588, however, although they faded from the narrative history of France, they nevertheless remained at the pinnacle of political culture until the end of the eighteenth century. This book examines the lesser-known period for the Guise at the later stages of the ancien régime, focusing on the recovery of lost fortunes, prestige, favour and influence that began towards the end of the reign of Louis XIII and continued through that of Louis XIV. Central to the work is the question of what it meant to be a member of a family of princely rank whose dynastic links outside the state guaranteed privileges and favours at the highest level. Jonathan Spangler investigates how an aristocratic family operated within that political culture, including facets of patronage (political, ecclesiastical, military, and the arts) and the meaning of dynasticism itself (marriages, testaments, women's roles, multiplicity of loyalties). The result is a thorough examination of the nature of crown-noble relations in the era of absolutism as seen through the example of the Lorraine-Guise. It sheds light on how the family which had so threatened the equilibrium of the late Valois monarchy became one of the strongest pillars supporting the regime of the later Bourbons.

The Georgian era, we are told, was a “polite and commercial” era. The supposedly refined aristocracy governed the nation while the bourgeoisie, at the center of the largest empire the world had ever known, expanded the nation’s overseas trading interests while currying royal favors. It was an era which witnessed the flowering of art, literature, and music. But at the heart of the British Empire was something rotten: Vice, corruption, and crime reigned supreme. Someone had had enough and decided to expose this and so, in 1832, a curious book appeared for sale titled The Secret History of the Court of England. Written by Olivia Serres under the pseudonym of “Lady Anne Hamilton,” this was a sensational chronicle of the crime, vice, and debauchery designed to shock and titillate its reader. It contained a number of accusations against establishment figures: Was George IV guilty of bigamy? What was the Prince’s true relationship with one Mrs Robinson? Did the Duke of Cumberland’s servant Mr Sellis really commit suicide or was he MURERED IN COLD BLOOD? All these questions, and more, will be answered in Lady Anne Hamilton’s Secret History of the Court of England, originally published in 1832 and reprinted at long last!

Early modern European monarchies legitimized their rule through dynasty and religion where ideally the divine right of the ruler corresponded with the official confession of the territory. It has thus been assumed that at princely courts only a single confession was present. However, the reality of the confessionalization paradigm commonly involved more than one faith. Religious Plurality at Princely Courts explores the reverberations of bi-confessional or multi-confessional intra-Christian settings at courts on dynastic, symbolic, diplomatic, artistic, and theological levels addressing a significant neglected understanding of interreligious dialogue, religious change, and confessional blending. Incorporating perspectives across European studies such as domestic and international politics, dynastic strategies, the history of ideas, women's and gender history, and material culture, the contributions to this volume highlight the intersections of religious plurality at court.