For a decade, beginning in 1660, an ambitious young London civil servant kept an astonishingly candid account of his life during one of the most defining periods in British history. In Samuel Pepys, Claire Tomalin offers us a fully realized and richly nuanced portrait of this man, whose inadvertent masterpiece would establish him as the greatest diarist in the English language. Against the backdrop of plague, civil war, and regicide, with John Milton composing diplomatic correspondence for Oliver Cromwell, Christopher Wren drawing up plans to rebuild London, and Isaac Newton advancing the empirical study of the world around us, Tomalin weaves a breathtaking account of a figure who has passed on to us much of what we know about seventeenth-century London. We witness Pepys’s early life and education, see him advising King Charles II before running to watch the great fire consume London, learn about the great events of the day as well as the most intimate personal details that Pepys encrypted in the Diary, follow him through his later years as a powerful naval administrator, and come to appreciate how Pepys’s singular literary enterprise would in many ways prefigure our modern selves. With exquisite insight and compassion, Samuel Pepys captures the uniquely fascinating figure whose legacy lives on more than three hundred years after his death.

In sixteenth-century England Robert Devereux, 2nd earl of Essex, enjoyed great domestic and international renown as a favourite of Elizabeth I. He was a soldier and a statesman of exceptionally powerful ambition. After his disastrous uprising in 1601 Essex fell from the heights of fame and favour, and ended his life as a traitor on the scaffold. This interdisciplinary account of the political culture of late Elizabethan England explores the ideological contexts of Essex's extraordinary career and fall from grace, and the intricate relationship between thought and action in Elizabethan England. By the late sixteenth century, fundamental political models and vocabularies that were employed to legitimise the Elizabethan polity were undermined by the strains of war, the ambivalence that many felt towards the church, continued uncertainty over the succession, and the perceived weaknesses of the rule of the aging Elizabeth. Essex's career and revolt threw all of these strains into relief. Alexandra Gajda examines the attitude of the earl and his followers to war, religion, the structures of the Elizabethan polity, and Essex's role within it. She also explores the classical and historical scholarship prized by Essex and his associates that gave shape and meaning to the earl's increasingly fractured relationship with the Queen and regime. She addresses contemporary responses to the earl, both positive and negative, and the earl's wider impact on political culture. Political and religious ideas in late sixteenth-century England had an important impact on political events in early modern England, and played a vital role in shaping the rise and fall of Essex's career.

Shakespeare's largely misunderstood narrative poems contain within them an explosive commentary on the political storms convulsing his country The 1590s were bleak years for England. The queen was old, the succession unclear, and the treasury empty after decades of war. Amid the rising tension, William Shakespeare published a pair of poems dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton: Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece a year later. Although wildly popular during Shakespeare's lifetime, to modern readers both works are almost impenetrable. But in her enthralling new book, the Shakespearean scholar Clare Asquith reveals their hidden contents: two politically charged allegories of Tudor tyranny that justified-and even urged-direct action against an unpopular regime. The poems were Shakespeare's bestselling works in his lifetime, evidence that they spoke clearly to England's wounded populace and disaffected nobility, and especially to their champion, the Earl of Essex. Shakespeare and the Resistance unearths Shakespeare's own analysis of a political and religious crisis which would shortly erupt in armed rebellion on the streets of London. Using the latest historical research, it resurrects the story of a bold bid for freedom of conscience and an end to corruption that was erased from history by the men who suppressed it. This compelling reading situates Shakespeare at the heart of the resistance movement.

"On This Day in Tudor History" gives a day-by-day look at events from the Tudor era, including births, deaths, baptisms, marriages, battles, arrests, executions and more. This must-have book for Tudor history lovers is perfect for: - Dipping into daily over your morning coffee - Using in the classroom - Trivia nights and quizzes - Finding out what happened on your birthday or special day - Wowing friends and family with your Tudor history knowledge - Researching the Tudor period Written by best-selling Tudor history author Claire Ridgway, "On This Day in Tudor History" contains a wealth of information about your favourite Tudor monarchs, their subjects and the times they lived in. Did you know: on 17th January 1569 Agnes Bowker gave birth to a cat?

Despite widespread interest in Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, little has been written about him in decades past. In Elizabeth I's Last Favourite, Sarah-Beth Watkins brings the story of his life, and death, back into the public eye. In the later years of Elizabeth I's reign, Robert Devereux became the ageing queen's last favourite. The young upstart courtier was the stepson of her most famous love, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Although he tried, throughout his life, to live up to his stepfather's memory, Essex would never be the man he was. His love for the queen ran in tandem with undercurrents of selfishness and greed. Yet, Elizabeth showered him with affection, gifts and the tolerance only a mother could have for an errant son. In return, for a time, Essex flattered her and pandered to her every whim. But, one disastrous commission after another befell the earl, from his military campaigns, to voyages seeking treasure, to his stint as spymaster. Ultimately, his relationship with the queen would suffer and his final act of rebellion would force Elizabeth I to ensure her last favourite troubled her no more.

A revisionist 1999 account of the career of Elizabeth I's 'favourite', the 2nd Earl of Essex.