The first book on the Wars of the Roses to centre on Richard III`s closest friend, Sir Francis Lovell.

Just how far will one man go in the name of loyalty? Set in an England beset by power wrangling and warfare at the end of the 15th century, The King’s Dogge (the first of a two book series) tells of Francis Lovell’s meteoric rise from humble squire to closest ally of King Richard III. Having courageously fought at Barnet for the great noble the Earl of Warwick, Lovell is introduced to Richard of Gloucester. Impressed by Lovell’s military acumen, Gloucester assigns him the unenviable task of fighting the Scots in the West March. His initiative wins him a knighthood and turns him into Gloucester’s most prized asset. In time, Lovell comes to respect Gloucester and a close friendship blossoms, each aware of one another’s weaknesses but together able to advance one another’s careers – military and political respectively. Lovell’s future is further shaped by Gloucester’s scheming wife Anne Neville, whose ambition exceeds that of her husband. But when their Machiavellian scheming leads to the cold-blooded murder of the princes in the tower, Lovell is forced to weigh his conscience against his sense of duty and ask himself what dark acts he is prepared to carry out in Gloucester’s name. The King’s Dogge is a fictional account of the rule of King Richard III as seen from the perspective of his closest adviser, Francis Lovell. It weaves a story around true events and throws the actions of the king into a new perspective when viewed against the ambition of his wife, Anne Neville.

Why were so many religious images and objects broken and damaged in the course of the Reformation? Margaret Aston's magisterial new book charts the conflicting imperatives of destruction and rebuilding throughout the English Reformation from the desecration of images, rails and screens to bells, organs and stained glass windows. She explores the motivations of those who smashed images of the crucifixion in stained glass windows and who pulled down crosses and defaced symbols of the Trinity. She shows that destruction was part of a methodology of religious revolution designed to change people as well as places and to forge in the long term new generations of new believers. Beyond blanked walls and whited windows were beliefs and minds impregnated by new modes of religious learning. Idol-breaking with its emphasis on the treacheries of images fundamentally transformed not only Anglican ways of worship but also of seeing, hearing and remembering.

William Shakespeare lived in violent times; his death passed without comment. By the time he was adopted as the national poet of England the details of his life had been concealed. He had become an invisible man, the humble Warwickshire lad who entertained royalty and then faded into obscurity. But his story has been carefully manipulated. In reality, he was a dissident whose works were highly critical of the regimes of Elizabeth I and James I. Who Killed William Shakespeare? examines the means, motive and the opportunity that led to his murder, and explains why Will Shakespeare had to be 'stopped'. From forensic analysis of his death mask to the hunt for his missing skull, the circumstances of Shakespeare's death are reconstructed and his life reconsidered in the light of fresh discoveries. What emerges is a portrait of a genius who spoke his mind and was silenced by his greatest literary rival.

“An engaging, fast-paced read for fans of Philippa Gregory and of dual-timeline historical fiction." —Library Journal In the winter of 1483, Francis Lovell is Richard III’s Lord Chamberlain and confidant, but the threat of Henry Tudor’s rebels has the king entrusting to Francis and his wife, Anne, his most crucial mission: protecting the young Richard of York, his brother’s surviving son and a threat to Henry’s claims to the throne. Two years later, Richard III is dead, and Anne hides the young prince of York while Francis is hunted by agents of the new king, Henry VII. Running out of options to keep her husband and the boy safe, Anne uses the power of an ancient family relic to send them away, knowing that in doing so she will never see Francis again. In the present day, Serena Warren has been haunted by her past ever since her twin sister, Caitlin, disappeared. But when Caitlin’s bones are discovered interred in a church vault that hasn’t been opened since the eighteenth century, the police are baffled. Piecing together local folklore that speaks of a magical relic with her own hazy memories of the day Caitlin vanished, Serena begins to uncover an impossible secret that her grandfather has kept hidden, one that connects her to Anne, Francis and the young Duke of York. Inspired by the enduring mystery of the Princes in the Tower, Nicola Cornick cleverly interprets the events into a dazzling novel set between a present-day mystery and a country on the brink of Tudor rule.

One of the most unfairly neglected figures in English history, who served three kings, opposed Richard III and enabled the Tudor dynasty.