A journey into the 15th century, as the heir to the throne and his brother are imprisoned in the Tower of London—their fate a mystery to this day. The story of the Princes in the Tower is well known—the grim but dramatic events of 1483, when the twelve-year-old Edward Plantagenet was taken into custody by his uncle, Richard of Gloucester, and imprisoned in the Tower of London along with his younger brother, have been told and retold. The true events of that year remain shrouded in mystery, and the end of the young princes’ lives are an infamous part of the Wars of the Roses and Richard III’s reign. Yet little about their lives is commonly known. Following the Footsteps of the Princes of the Tower tells the story in a way that is wholly new: through the places where the events actually unfolded. It reveals the lives of the princes through the places they lived and visited. From Westminster Abbey to the Tower of London itself, and from the remote English castles of Ludlow and Middleham to the quiet Midlands town of Stony Stratford, the trail through some of England’s most historic places throws a whole new light on this most compelling of historical dramas.

“Informed and informative . . . a meticulous example of outstanding scholarship, and an inherently fascinating read.” —Midwest Book Review Edward II is famously one of England’s most unsuccessful kings, as utterly different from his warlike father Edward I as any man possibly could be, and the first English king to suffer the fate of deposition. Highly unconventional, even eccentric, he was an intriguing personality, and his reign of nineteen and a half years, from 1307 to 1327, was a turbulent period of endless conflict and the king’s infatuation with his male favorites, which ended when his own queen led an invasion of his kingdom. Following in the Footsteps of Edward II presents a new take on this most unconventional and puzzling of kings, from the magnificent Caernarfon Castle where he was born in 1284 shortly after his father conquered North Wales, to his favorite residences at King’s Langley in Hertfordshire and Westminster, to the castle of Berkeley in Gloucestershire where he supposedly met his brutal death in September 1327, to Gloucester Cathedral, where his tomb and alabaster effigy still exist and are among the greatest glories surviving from medieval England.

The dramatic life and mysterious death of the reviled Edward II, focusing on the vivid personality of the erratic and contradictory king, his unorthodox lifestyle and his passionate relationships with his male favourites, including Piers Gaveston

Edward II's murder at Berkeley Castle in 1327 is one of the most famous and lurid tales in all of English history. But is it true? For over five centuries, few people questioned it, but with the discovery in a Montpellier archive of a remarkable document, an alternative narrative has presented itself: that Edward escaped from Berkeley Castle and made his way to an Italian hermitage. In Long Live the King, medieval historian Kathryn Warner explores in detail Edward's downfall and forced abdication in 1326/27, the role possibly played by his wife Isabella of France, the wide variation in chronicle accounts of his murder at Berkeley Castle and the fascinating possibility that Edward lived on in Italy for many years after his official funeral was held in Gloucester in December 1327.

“A great book to introduce you to three fascinating sisters whose marriages during the reign of the infamous Edward II transformed England.” —Adventures of a Tudor Nerd The de Clare sisters Eleanor, Margaret and Elizabeth were born in the 1290s as the eldest granddaughters of King Edward I of England and his Spanish queen Eleanor of Castile, and were the daughters of the greatest nobleman in England, Gilbert “the Red” de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. They grew to adulthood during the turbulent reign of their uncle Edward II, and all three of them were married to men involved in intense, probably romantic or sexual, relationships with their uncle. When their elder brother Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, was killed during their uncle’s catastrophic defeat at the battle of Bannockburn in June 1314, the three sisters inherited and shared his vast wealth and lands in three countries, but their inheritance proved a poisoned chalice. Eleanor and Elizabeth, and Margaret’s daughter and heir, were all abducted and forcibly married by men desperate for a share of their riches, and all three sisters were imprisoned at some point either by their uncle Edward II or his queen Isabella of France during the tumultuous decade of the 1320s. Elizabeth was widowed for the third time at twenty-six, lived as a widow for just under forty years, and founded Clare College at the University of Cambridge. “Another enjoyable read on women in history that don’t always get the limelight that they deserve. Kathryn Warner has done it once again by providing a well-written, well-researched, informative and engaging read.” —Where There’s Ink There’s Paper

Hugh Despenser the Younger and Edward II tells the story of the greatest villain of the fourteenth century, his dazzling rise as favorite to the king and his disastrous fall.Born in the late 1280s, Hugh married King Edward I of Englands eldest granddaughter when he was a teenager. Ambitious and greedy to an astonishing degree, Hugh chose a startling route to power: he seduced his wifes uncle, the young King Edward II, and became the richest and most powerful man in the country in the 1320s. For years he dominated the English government and foreign policy, and took whatever lands he felt like by both quasi-legal and illegal methods, with the kings connivance. His actions were to bring both himself and Edward II down, and Hugh was directly responsible for the first forced abdication of a king in English history; he had made the horrible mistake of alienating and insulting Edwards queen Isabella of France, who loathed him, and who had him slowly and grotesquely executed in her presence in November 1326.

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

Packed with dramatic true stories from one of European history’s most romantic and turbulent eras, this epic narrative chronicles the five vividly rendered queens of the Plantagenet kings who ruled England between 1299 and 1409. “A thorough and illuminating survey of the Plantagenet dynasty.”—Publishers Weekly The Age of Chivalry describes a period of medieval history dominated by the social, religious, and moral code of knighthood that prized noble deeds, military greatness, and the game of courtly love between aristocratic men and women. It was also a period of high drama in English history, which included the toppling of two kings, the Hundred Years War, the Black Death, and the Peasants’ Revolt. Feudalism was breaking down, resulting in social and political turmoil. Against this dramatic milieu, Alison Weir describes the lives and reigns of five queen consorts: Marguerite of France was seventeen when she became the second wife of sixty-year-old King Edward I. Isabella of France, later known as “the She-Wolf,” dethroned her husband, Edward II, and ruled England with her lover. In contrast, Philippa of Hainault was a popular queen to the deposed king’s son Edward III. Anne of Bohemia was queen to Richard II, but she died young and childless. Isabella of Valois became Richard’s second wife when she was only six years old, but was caught up in events when he was violently overthrown. This was a turbulent and brutal age, despite its chivalric color and ethos, and it stands as a vivid backdrop to the extraordinary stories of these queens’ lives.

The first biography to tell the personal story of the wealthiest, most powerful and most hated man in medieval England.

The Oxford History of Poetry in English is designed to offer a fresh, multi-voiced, and comprehensive analysis of 'poetry': from Anglo-Saxon culture through contemporary British, Irish, American, and Global culture, including English, Scottish, and Welsh poetry, Anglo-American colonial and post-colonial poetry, and poetry in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, India, Africa, Asia, and other international locales. The series both synthesises existing scholarship and presents cutting-edge research, employing a global team of expert contributors for each of the volumes. Sixteenth-Century British Poetry features a history of the birth moment of modern 'English' poetry in greater detail than previous studies. It examines the literary transitions, institutional contexts, artistic practices, and literary genres within which poets compose their works. Each chapter combines an orientation to its topic and a contribution to the field. Specifically, the volume introduces a narrative about the advent of modern English poetry from Skelton to Spenser, attending to the events that underwrite the poets' achievements: Humanism; Reformation; monarchism and republicanism; colonization; print and manuscript; theatre; science; and companionate marriage. Featured are metre and form, figuration and allusiveness, and literary career, as well as a wide range of poets, from Wyatt, Surrey, and Isabella Whitney to Ralegh, Drayton, and Mary Herbert. Major works discussed include Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, Spenser's Faerie Queene, Marlowe's Hero and Leander, and Shakespeare's Sonnets.