Biography & Autobiography : Royalty

The last medieval queens of England were Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Woodville, Anne Neville, and Elizabeth of York - four very different women whose lives and queenship were dominated by the Wars of the Roses. The book sets out to answer important questions about the nature and role of queenship in the last years of medieval England. What sort of woman was chosen to be queen? What behaviour was expected of her? What power or authority was granted to her? How did the king use. her in the exercise of his kingship? J. L. Laynesmith considers what it meant to be a queen during these turbulent times, and examines the ways in which these women interpreted their roles. - ;The last medieval queens of England were Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Woodville, Anne Neville, and Elizabeth of York - four very different women whose lives and queenship were dominated by the Wars of the Roses. This book is not a traditional biography but a thematic study of the ideology and practice of queenship. It examines the motivations behind the choice of the first English-born queens, the multi-faceted rituals of coronation, childbirth, and funeral, the divided loyalties. between family and king, and the significance of a position at the heart of the English power structure that could only be filled by a woman. It sheds new light on the queens' struggles to defend their children's rights to the throne, and argues that ideologically and politically a queen was. integral to the proper exercise of mature kingship in this period. - ;By the sensitive use of sources often neglected by more traditional historians, Laynesmith succeeds in deepening our understanding of the role and powers of queens in the context of late medieval English monarchy. - Diana Dunn, The Ricardian XVI;Weaving together institutions and personality, family and realm, intimacy and ceremony, The Last Medieval Queens, is a wise book by a young and lively scholar. It is well written and beautifully produced, and is worthy o more...

Price: $74.00

In the tradition of Jo Ann Beard's "Boys of My Youth" and Mary Karr's "The Liar's Club, " McLain has written a powerful and haunting memoir about the years she and her two sisters spent as foster children. more...

Price: $9.99

“I believe that the histories which will be written about this court after we are all gone will be better and more entertaining than any novel, and I am afraid that those who come after us will not be able to believe them and will think they are just fairytales. more...

Price: $18.00

This examines the enigma of Mary Queen of Scots by exploring the history of her representation in Britain from the late Tudor period to the end of the first World War. more...

Price: $37.95

Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette is an inside look into the life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, written by her First Lady in Waiting Madame Campan. Born in 1755 and married to Louis XVI of France at the age of 14, Antoinette was renowned for her fabled excesses. She was condemned for treason in 1793 at the zenith of the French Revolution, forfeiting her life to the razor-edge of a guillotine. more...

Price: $6.99