'The best account in English of the early years of Elizabeth' Evening StandardA woman in a man's world, Queen Elizabeth I was to become England's most successful ruler. Confident in her destiny, intensely intelligent, passionately sexual yet (she said) a virgin, Elizabeth's reign was characterised by a self-assurance unusual for the time. Finding her way through the labyrinthine plots that surrounded the court, she had to live by her wits, surrounded by betrayal and suspicion, not knowing who to trust with her desire to be queen, or her desire to be a lover.David Starkey's portrait of the first female ruler of England is an enlightening account. Filled with lucid and clear scenes with fascinating insight throughout, Elizabeth is a truly masterful retelling of the life of a legendary monarch.'What a page turner!' Time Out'Fresh and lively... Vividly told' Sunday Times Read more

Elizabeth Woodville has been portrayed as an enchantress; as an unprincipled advancer of her family's fortunes and a plucky but pitiful queen in Shakespeare's histories. She has been alternatively championed and vilified by her contemporaries and five centuries of historians, dramatists and novelists, but what was she really like? Elizabeth Woodville's role in the conflicts and dynastic struggles of the Wars of the Roses makes her a figure of importance and an assessment of her true place in these struggles is overdue. Read more

A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR A DAILY MAIL BOOK OF THE YEAR ‘I honked so loudly the man sitting next to me dropped his sandwich’ Observer She made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando clam up. She cold-shouldered Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Jack Nicholson offered her cocaine and Pablo Picasso lusted over her. To her friends Princess Margaret was witty and regal, to her enemies, she was rude and demanding. Ma’am Darling looks at her from many angles, creating a kaleidoscopic biography, and a witty meditation on fame and art, snobbery and deference, bohemia and high society. Read more

Definitive, concise, and very interesting... From William Shakespeare to Winston Churchill, the Very Interesting People series provides authoritative bite-sized biographies of Britain's most fascinating historical figures - people whose influence and importance have stood the test of time. Each book in the series is based upon the biographical entry from the world-famous Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Read more

An acclaimed biography of Elizabeth I and an examination of the politics and intrigues of her Tudor court.Elizabeth I ruled England in defiance of convention, exercising supreme authority in a man's world. With courage, brilliance and style, she reigned for nearly forty-five years. Anne Somerset's penetrating biography of this complex and uniquely gifted woman is unrivalled in its analysis of both Elizabeth's personal life and her career as leader. Read more

This lavishly illustrated book ties in with a major international exhibition opening at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich on 1 May 2003. Timed to commemorate the 400th anniversary since the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, and sponsored by Morgan Stanley, the exhibition brings together a wealth of paintings, manuscripts, fine art objects and personal effects which illuminate Elizabeth's fascinating history. Elizabeth was born at Greenwich and spent her first months at Greenwich Palace, on the site of what is now a World Heritage Site, Maritime Greenwich. The book, containing contributions from a number of well-known experts on Tudor history, will focus on Elizabeth's Court as well as her relationship with the City of London and its increasingly influential mercantile class. It will also reflect the importance of Elizabeth's maritime adventurers, and their role in creating wealth for the crown, burgeoning maritime enterprise and the beginnings of an overseas empire. Read more

Sarah Bradford's Elizabeth is the definitive biography of the Queen, revealing the real woman behind the public figure The Queen lived through nearly a century of immense change and upheaval. Her own family experiences, a mixture of happiness and crisis, weddings and divorces, and, in the case of Diana, violent death, have been lived in the glare of tabloid headlines. More than 2 billion people watched the wedding of her grandson Prince William to Catherine Middleton in 2010 shortly before she made the first State Visit to Ireland by a British monarch for 100 years. Our world has changed more in her lifetime than in any of her predecessors': and before her death, the Queen remained a calm presence at the centre, earning the respect of monarchists and republicans. How did she do it?__________________________'The only book that could overtake it is the autobiography, which in this case will never be written' Spectator'Bradford has a real grasp of history and the ability to make it spark into new life' Sunday Telegraph'Bradford's forte, ever since she was a history-mad girl, is thinking herself into other lives' Daily Telegraph Read more

We are honoured to announce the re-release of the first ever Pitkin title, published by Mr Pitkin in 1947 to celebrate the magical wedding day of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip in Westminster Abbey on 20 November 1947. It was a day of colourful pageantry and heartfelt rejoicing for the British people in the grey aftermath of war and rationing. The young couple took with them down the aisle the hopes and aspirations of the whole nation.Now, 70 years on, Pitkin has great pleasure in publishing this souvenir facsimile edition to celebrate the royal couple’s platinum wedding anniversary. For most of the UK population, Queen Elizabeth II is the only monarch we have known and the world has watched her flourish into not only a loving wife and mother, but the longest reigning living monarch in history. Prince Philip has been her ‘strength and stay’ for the duration of her reign and, in her own words, we ‘owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim.’ Their long and happy marriage has been one of the deepest in love and affection, echoing the Archbishop’s blessing on 20 November 1947: ‘May God’s unfailing love always surround and protect you. May He, day by day, now and always, give you joy in all your married life, every blessing, peace and happiness.’This beautifully illustrated book is part of the Pitkin Royal Collection series, celebrating the lives of the British royal family. Other notable titles in this insightful series include Royal Babies, The Queen and Her Family and Queen Elizabeth II. Read more

The reign of Elizabeth I was one of the most important periods of expansion and growth in British history - the "Golden Age". This celebrated and influential study reconsiders how Elizabeth achieved this, and the ways in which she exercised her power. It analyses the nature of her power through an examination of her relations with Parliament, the Council of Ministers, the Church, the nobility, military and the English people themselves. Read more

In this study, the author shows how the Queen used her sex as a source of strength, playing on chivalry to inspire loyalty and devotion. The greatest men in the kingdom competed for her favour. Though "but" a woman, Elizabeth was to leave behind her a united nation and the legend of a golden age. Read more

The relationship between Queen Elizabeth I of England and her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, is one of the most complex, tempestuous and fascinating in history. United in blood but divided by religion, the two women were in some ways uniquely close; in others, poles apart. Championed by English Catholics as the rightful Queen of England, Mary was nevertheless given protection by her cousin after she was deposed amid outrage at her immoral behaviour. Rumours of papist plots involving Mary were rife and Elizabeth was put under extreme pressure to be rid of this dangerous threat to her sovereignty and to the Protestant church in England. After much reluctance and procrastination Elizabeth finally signed Mary's death warrant. Alison Plowden shows how political fear brought out the worst and yet the best in these women, and how history was overshadowed for centuries afterwards. Read more

In her highly-praised The Six Wives of Henry V111 and its sequel Children of England, Alison Weir examinrd the private lives of the earlier Tudor Monarchs. Here she completes the series with the first book for forty years on the personal life of Elizabeth 1. Read more

A dramatic narrative of the career of Queen Elizabeth I's intelligence operative documents how he helped the monarch to outmaneuver Catholic Spain and France by pioneering techniques that served to expose double agents, spread disinformation, and decipher codes. By the author of Battle of Wits. 20,000 first printing. Read more

Elizabeth Wydeville, Queen consort to Edward Iv, has traditionally been portrayed as a scheming opportunist. But was she a cunning vixen or a tragic wife and mother? As this extraordinary biography shows, the first queen to bear the name Elizabeth lived a life of tragedy, love, and loss that no other queen has since endured. This shocking revelation about the survival of one woman through vilification and adversity shows Elizabeth as a beautiful and distraught mother of the two lost Princes in the Tower and an innocent queen slandered by politicians. Read more

Penelope Devereux was the brightest star who ever shone in the court of Queen Elizabeth I in sixteenth-century England. She was the most beautiful woman of her generation and muse to countless poets and musicians, yet her story ended in tragedy: she died in disgrace on 7th July 1607, a widow, outcast from court, and stripped of all her titles.Her life touched on every great event of the age - the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the arrival of King James and the Gunpowder Plot - and she knew many of the celebrated artistic figures of the day including William Shakespeare."The Lady Penelope" is a dramatic, visual, emotional and ultimately tragic story set against the character of Queen Elizabeth I and the staged pageantry of her Court, and will have immediate appeal to lovers of historical biographies. Read more

This is the first biography of the fateful relationship between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. It was the defining relationship of their lives, and marked the intersection of the great Tudor and Stuart dynasties, a landmark event in British history.Distinguished biographer Jane Dunn reveals an extraordinary story of two queens ruling in one isle, both embodying opposing qualities of character, ideals of womanliness and of divinely ordained kingship. Theirs is a drama of sex and power, recklessness, ambition and political intrigue, with a rivalry that could only be resolved by death.As regent queens in an overwhelmingly masculine world, they were deplored for their femininity, compared unfavourably with each other, and courted by the same men. By placing this dynamic and ever-changing relationship at the centre of the book, Dunn throws new light and meaning on the complexity of their natures. She reveals an Elizabeth revolutionary in her insistence on ruling alone, while Mary is not the romantic victim of history, but a courageous adventurer with a reckless heart. Vengeful against her enemies and the more ruthless of the two, she was untroubled by plotting Elizabeth’s murder. Elizabeth, however, was in anguish at having to sanction Mary’s death warrant for treason.Working almost exclusively from contemporary letters and writings, she lets them speak to us across more than four hundred years, their voices and responses surprisingly familiar to our own, their characters vivid, by turns touching and terrible. Read more

Extravagant, whimsical, and hot-tempered, Elizabeth was the epitome of power, both feared and admired by her enemies. Dubbed the "pirate queen" by the Vatican and Spain's Philip II, she employed a network of daring merchants, brazen adventurers, astronomer philosophers, and her stalwart Privy Council to anchor her throne―and in doing so, planted the seedlings of an empire that would ultimately cover two-fifths of the world. In 'The Pirate Queen', historian Susan Ronald offers a fresh look at Elizabeth I, relying on a wealth of historical sources and thousands of the queen's personal letters to tell the thrilling story of a visionary monarch and the swashbuckling mariners who terrorized the seas to amass great wealth for themselves and the Crown. Read more

The tragic story of the real-life Shylockwas highly acclaimed in all its reviews on publication'The dramatic life and the horrifying traitor's death at Tyburn of Elizabeth I's personal physician, Roderigo Lopez, is the pivot on which Dominic Green spins an elaborate narrative of Elizabethan court life, dramatic political intrigues and Spanish spying tied into rivalry between Lord Burghley and the Earl of Essex, and a possible plot to poison the Queen. It's wonderfully robust, double-dealing stuff, tricked out from original research and coloured by fascinating period detail' The Times Read more

Born a crypto-Jew in Portugal in 1525, Roderigo Lopez studied medicine in Spain before moving to London in 1559. A talented surgeon, Lopez soon rose to prominence at court, displaying a capacity for intrigue and espionage. In the service of spy networks, he became deeply entwined in English foreign policy. When the 1st Earl of Essex was poisoned to death, Lopez numbered amongs those suspected. But in 1586, undeterred by the scandal, he was appointed personal physician to the Queen. However, Lopez was financially over-extended and became so desperate he embarked on a high-risk enterprise as freelance diplomat and spymaster, contacting the Spanish in an attempt to se up peace talks. Suspicious of Lopez, the 2nd Earl of Essex began an investigation. The case against Lopez was damning with stories of botched abortions and murder, sa houses and mail drops, double agents and triple identities. Lacking vital corroboration of his story by the Spanish, and despite the Queen's support, amidst an atmosphere of anti-Semitism stirred up by Essex, Lopez was hung drawn and quartered in 1594. He protested his loyalty and Christianity to the last, and provided the young Shakespeare with inspiration for a topical new play. Read more

A narrative history of one of England's best known and most colourful Royal leaders, illustrated with authentic original records from her reign. Read more