Search results for ""Author Alison Plowden""

'I delight in this work', wrote the young Victoria shortly after she became Queen. She was an engaging creature, high-spirited and eager to be 'amused'. But her early years were difficult ones. Fatherless from the age of eight months, she was brought up at Kensington Palace in an atmosphere thick with family feuds, backbiting and jealousy - the focus of conflicting ambitions. Though her uncle William IV was anxious to bring her into Court circles, her German mother and the calculating John Conroy were equally determined that she should remain under their control. The 'little Queen', who succeeded to the throne a month after her eighteenth birthday, was greeted by a unanimous chorus of praise and admiration. She embraced the independence of her position and often forced her will on those around her. She met and married Albert, marking the end of her childhood and the beginning of a glorious legend. Alison Plowden was one of the most successful and popular historians of British history. Her bestselling books include: The House of Tudor, The Young Elizabeth, Lady Jane Grey and Danger to Elizabeth, all of which are available from The History Press.

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Caroline of Brunswick, wife of George Prince of Wales and Prince Regent, and her daughter, Princess Charlotte, lived out their lives surrounded by a cast of characters who might have been lifted straight from the pages of some Gothic novel. Theirs was a saga of passion and pathos, tragedy and black comedy, feuding and fighting - all set in Regency England against a backdrop of Europe in turmoil. The marriage of the Prince of Wales - renowned for his intemperance, hedonism and plain ordinary selfishness - to his cousin Caroline of Brunswick in 1795 was a preordained disaster. The groom is said to have called for brandy when he first laid eyes on the bride, while the bride was later to swear that the groom spent most of their wedding night lying in the grate in a drunken stupor. Brought together for reasons of financial and dynastic expediencey, the couple split up within a year of the birth of their daughter, Charlotte Augusta in 1796. The colourful story of these two fiercely dependent and ultimately tragic women is brilliantly told by Alison Plowden, tapping into a wealth of contemporary correspondence, journals, memoirs and contemporary press reportage. 'Caroline & Charlotte' constitutes a real-life Regency romance which makes gripping and poignant reading.

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Using personal accounts from both Royalist and Parliamentarian supporters to reveal the untold story of the women of the English Civil War, Alison Plowden illustrates how the conflict affected the lives of women and how they coped with unfamiliar responsibilities. Some displayed a courage so far above their sex as to suprise and disconcert their men. The Royalists included Queen Henrietta, who went abroad to raise money for the cause, and Mary Bankes who held Corfe Castle for the king with her daughters, heaving stones and hot embers over the battlements at the attacking Roundheads. On the opposing side, Lady Brillia Harley guarded Brampton Bryan Castle in Herefordshire against the Royalists and Anne Fairfax, wife of Cromwell's northern general, who was taken prisoner by the Duke of Newcastle's troops after Adwalton Moor. This is a fascinating look at the little reported, yet valient actions, of the women caught up in this tumultuous age.

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The Tudor era belongs to its women. No other period of English History has produced so many notable and interesting women, and into other period have they so powerfully influenced the course of political events. Mary Tudor, Elizabeth 1 and, at moments of high drama, Mary Queen of Scots dominated the political scene for more than half a century, while in the previous fifty years Henry VIII's marital escapades brought six more women to the centre of attention. In this book the women of the royal family are the central characters; the royal women set the style and between them they provide a dazzling variety of personalities as well as illustrating almost every aspect of life as it affected women in Tudor England. We know what they ate, how they dressed, the books they read and the letters they wrote. Even the greatest of them suffered the universal legal and physiological disabilities of womanhood - some survived them, some went under. Now revised and updated, Alison Plowden's beautifully written account of the women behind the scenes and at the forefront of sixteenth-century English history will be welcomed by anyone interested in exploring this popular period of history from the point of view of the women who made it.

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A copiously illustrated guide to the monarchs of the British Isles and Ireland from pre-Saxon times to the present, complete with concise genealogical charts and details of key historical events. The book is divided into five sections, together with a Compendium at the end. Part One, presents information about Pre-Saxon rule, including details about ancient British chiefs, Roman rulers and the Roman Conquest. Part Two provides information about Scotland, Ireland and Wales, with sections on Robert I and the Wars of Independence, The Union of the Crowns, the Princes of Wales and the High Kingship of Ireland.Part Three discusses the Saxons, Normans and Plantagenets. Part Four gives details about the Tudors and Stuarts. Part Five presents an in-depth discussion of the houses from Hanover to Windsor. Parts Two to Five provide all the essential information you will need to know about Kings and Queens including details of birth, parents, accession to the throne, coronation, authority, personal status, death date and burial place for each monarch. In addition an overview is given for each reign outlining major events and personal tragedies, war, celebrations and conspiracies.

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