Product Description

Here is the whole of recorded British royal history, from the legendary King Alfred the Great onwards, including the monarchies of England, Scotland, Wales and the United Kingdom for over a thousand years. Fascinating portraits are expertly woven into a history of division and eventual union of the British Isles - even royals we think most familiar are revealed in a new and sometimes surprising light. This revised and shortened edition of "The Mammoth Book of British Kings & Queens" includes biographies of the royals of recorded British history, plus an overview of the semi-legendary figures of pre-history and the Dark Ages - an accessible source for students and general readers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #130821 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

About the Author
Mike Ashley is the author and editor of over sixty books including the bestselling Mammoths Comic Fantasy, Seriously Comic Fantasy and Fantasy, and the crime-fiction collections The Mammoth Book of Locked Room Mysteries, The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits and The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits. He lives in Chatham, Kent.

Customer Reviews

A very good read
A solid book for anybody with an interest in British history.

Easy to read, which I think is a great attribute (especially when it comes to historical books).

Fantastic depth throughout - enough to impress even the most keen history buffs!

Who had the most illegitimate children?
In all its awful detail the history of the monarchy of these British Isles of ours is full of provoking and fascinating stories. Quite often the fascination lies in how often tradition gets a thorough debunking. Did you know, for instance, that the psychological trait most commonly found in any English or Scottish king is a vicious temper? The competition for who had the most illegitimate children is probably won by Henry I, who had at least 25 by eight or more women, and then there are the Hanover kings - womanisers to a man. This book is a real eye-opener when it comes to the cherished legends of yore. Take for instance Richard the Lionheart, revered as a gallant soldier-king who returned from the Crusades to save his Kingdom from the ravages of his younger brother, John. It's rubbish - Richard was a brilliant soldier, but totally useless at statesmanship and managed to make enemies of most of Europe's rulers. He actually spent less than six months in England, being far more concerned about his French affairs (and, too, with his love affairs with other men). John was a much more successful king and was enduringly popular with the masses when he supported them against the Barons, although the story about him losing the crown jewels in the Wash has some basis in fact.

On the subject of royal unpalatability, the prime contender for worst king ever must be Henry VIII - who lately got soft-focus treatment by the BBC in a series called The Tudors (in which case it should have started with Henry VII - but perhaps there wasn't enough bonking in the earlier Henrician narrative). The list of his crimes starts with his abandonment of Katherine of Aragon, the dissolution of the monasteries, often the only institutions that gave succour to the poor, and continues with the hanging of the York rebels of the Pilgrimage of Grace fame, to the reality that his sex-addiction led to him passing on congenital syphilis to both his daughter Mary and his son Edward VI, though his other daughter Elizabeth managed to escape that fate.

Ashley's book does an excellent job of highlighting the salient factors of each monarch's rule and explaining how the joints of history all fit together, if in a less than seamless pattern. It is a good read, but the sheer weight and relentlessness means this book is probably better to dip into when you want to know about a particular king or queen than to read straight through. However, it is a great book to have on your shelves.