Anna Keay – författare

THE SUNDAY TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022WINNER OF THE POL ROGER DUFF COOPER PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE Eleven years when Britain had no king. In 1649 Britain was engulfed by revolution. On a raw January afternoon, the Stuart king, Charles I, was executed for treason. Within weeks the English monarchy had been abolished and the ‘useless and dangerous’ House of Lords discarded. The people, it was announced, were now the sovereign force in the land. What this meant, and where it would lead, no one knew.The Restless Republic is the story of the extraordinary decade that followed. It takes as its guides the people who lived through those years. Among them is Anna Trapnel, the daughter of a Deptford shipwright whose visions transfixed the nation. John Bradshaw, the Cheshire lawyer who found himself trying the King. Marchamont Nedham, the irrepressible newspaper man and puppet master of propaganda. Gerrard Winstanley, who strove for a Utopia of common ownership where no one went hungry. William Petty, the precocious scientist whose mapping of Ireland prefaced the dispossession of tens of thousands. And the indomitable Countess of Derby who defended to the last the final Royalist stronghold on the Isle of Man.The Restless Republic ranges from London to Leith, Cornwall to Connacht, from the corridors of power to the common fields and hillsides. Gathering her cast of trembling visionaries and banished royalists, dextrous mandarins and bewildered bystanders, Anna Keay brings to vivid life the most extraordinary and experimental decade in Britain’s history. It is the story of how these tempestuous years set the British Isles on a new course, and of what happened when a conservative people tried revolution.

‘A superb biography, which paints a vivid picture of the times and of her subject’ Daily Telegraph‘Fascinating, compelling, outrageous and ultimately tragic’ Simon Sebag Montefiore‘It is the best royal biography I have read in years’ A.N. WilsonFrom the Duff Cooper Prize-winning author of The Restless Republic, a remarkable biography of one of the most intriguing figures of the Restoration era.James, Duke of Monmouth, the favoured illegitimate son of Charles II, was born in exile the year his grandfather Charles I was executed and the English monarchy abolished. Abducted from his mother on his father’s orders, he emerged from a childhood in the backstreets of Rotterdam to command the ballrooms of Paris, the brothels of Covent Garden and the battlefields of Flanders.Such was his appeal that when the monarchy itself came under threat, the cry was for Monmouth to succeed Charles II as king. He inspired both delight and disgust, adulation and abhorrence and, in time, love and loyalty. Louis XIV was his mentor, Nell Gwyn his protector, D’Artagnan his lieutenant, William of Orange his confidant, John Dryden his censor and John Locke his comrade.In The Last Royal Rebel, Anna Keay matches rigorous scholarship with a storyteller’s gift to enrapturing effect. She paints a vivid portrait of the warm, courageous and handsome Duke of Monmouth, a man who by his own admission ‘lived a very dissolute and irregular life’, but who was ultimately prepared to risk everything for honour and justice. His story, culminating in his fateful invasion, provides a sweeping chronicle of the turbulent decades in which England as we know it was forged.Note: There is a chance the book cover you receive may differ from the cover displayed here

THE SUNDAY TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022WINNER OF THE POL ROGER DUFF COOPER PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE Eleven years when Britain had no king. In 1649 Britain was engulfed by revolution. On a raw January afternoon, the Stuart king, Charles I, was executed for treason. Within weeks the English monarchy had been abolished and the ‘useless and dangerous’ House of Lords discarded. The people, it was announced, were now the sovereign force in the land. What this meant, and where it would lead, no one knew.The Restless Republic is the story of the extraordinary decade that followed. It takes as its guides the people who lived through those years. Among them is Anna Trapnel, the daughter of a Deptford shipwright whose visions transfixed the nation. John Bradshaw, the Cheshire lawyer who found himself trying the King. Marchamont Nedham, the irrepressible newspaper man and puppet master of propaganda. Gerrard Winstanley, who strove for a Utopia of common ownership where no one went hungry. William Petty, the precocious scientist whose mapping of Ireland prefaced the dispossession of tens of thousands. And the indomitable Countess of Derby who defended to the last the final Royalist stronghold on the Isle of Man.The Restless Republic ranges from London to Leith, Cornwall to Connacht, from the corridors of power to the common fields and hillsides. Gathering her cast of trembling visionaries and banished royalists, dextrous mandarins and bewildered bystanders, Anna Keay brings to vivid life the most extraordinary and experimental decade in Britain’s history. It is the story of how these tempestuous years set the British Isles on a new course, and of what happened when a conservative people tried revolution.

The Tower of London has over two million visitors a year, with the Crown Jewels as its centrepiece. This paperback edition of the official illustrated history of the Crown Jewels, the most famous jewelry collection in the world, incorporates spectacular new photographs with stunning details. Accessible and up-to-date text, based on original research, includes the story of two of the largest and most famous diamonds in the world – the Kohi-nûr and the Cullinan. This is the perfect souvenir for visitors to the Tower of London, as well as an ideal introduction for anyone interested in English history and monarchy.

In the year that the English monarchy was abolished, the Prince of Wales's governor posed the poignant question: what was it that made kings different from their subjects? The answer to him was obvious, and the word that described it was 'ceremony'. From crown wearing in the Middle Ages to the jubilees of modern times the English Monarchy has always used the rituals of majesty to command the affection and loyalty of its subjects. This important and original book is the first to examine properly the ceremonial world of an English sovereign. In an age when the king still healed the sick and took his meals in front of a crowd of spectators, a sovereign's ability to carry off this public role could be as important to his success as his command of the army or management of parliament. Charles II lived through the period of the greatest political change English has ever known, witnessing revolution, regicide and restoration. At just 16 he was cast into exile. A poor relation at the court of the young Louis XIV and then the creature of Philip IV of Spain, he knew was it was to wrestle for recognition. This was his apprenticeship.With the Restoration Charles brought the lessons of exile home. The country was soon rocked by plague and fire, and his brother's conversion to Catholicism would bring it once again to the brink of civil war. In the crisis that developed Charles used the rituals of royalty to help save the very institution of hereditary monarchy. Using a huge range of unpublished primary material, and painting a vivid and detailed picture of the daily life of one of England's most charismatic monarchs, Anna Keay's brilliant 'ritual biography' radically reappraises Charles II as The Magnificent Monarch.