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Winner of THE HW FISHER BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZESPECTATOR, SUNDAY TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, TLS, FINANCIAL TIMES, GUARDIAN, DAILY MAIL and SUNDAY TELEGRAPH BOOKS OF THE YEAR'Imagine Wolf Hall rewritten by John le Carré ... gripping ... a rare achievement' Tom Holland, GuardianIt is 1501. Henry VII has won the throne of England through luck, guile and ruthlessness. But for many he remains a usurper. Now, his elder son is to marry, in a wedding upon which the fate of the country, and the entire Tudor dynasty, will hang ...'A masterpiece. Rich, resonant and utterly compelling' Helen Castor, Sunday Telegraph, Books of the Year'Gripping ... brilliant ... The enigmatic Henry is brought thrillingly to life as one of the most unlikely but tenacious kings ever to wear the English crown' Dan Jones, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year'Thrilling and sinister' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year'Enthralling ... Penn captures the weirdness, the ferocity, and a glint of unexpected tenderness' The Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year

A SUNDAY TIMES AND TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR'Fascinating and important'Natalie Haynes, author of Stone Blind'Monumental and vividly imagined'Daily Telegraph'Wonderfully entertaining'Sunday Times'Lively and engrossing 'Literary ReviewOn a sparsely populated Egyptian coastline, Alexander the Great sketched his vision of a metropolis into the sand. Situated on the cusp of three continents, it became the city where Greeks and Egyptians, Romans and Jews created a global knowledge capital that changed the face of philosophy, religion and science forever.In this sweeping biography of the great city, Islam Issa takes us on a fascinating journey across millennia. Rich in big ideas, brutal tragedies and distinctive characters, Alexandria tells the gripping story of a city that has shaped our modern world.'A multifaceted history of an enthralling city'Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, author of Persians: The Age of the Great Kings'A cornucopia of fascinating details, every page revealing a new delight'Paul Strathern, author of The Medici

This rich history of Antwerp was a Times Book of the Year and Radio 4 Book of the WeekEven before Amsterdam there was a dazzling North Sea port at the hub of the known world: the city of Antwerp.Antwerp was sensational like nineteenth-century Paris or twentieth-century New York, somewhere anything could happen or at least be believed: killer bankers, easy kisses, a market in secrets and every kind of heresy. For half the sixteenth century, it was the place for breaking rules - religious, sexual, intellectual.In Antwerp, things changed. One man cornered all the money in the city and reinvented ideas of what money meant. Another gave Antwerp a new shape purely out of his own ambition. Jews fleeing the Portuguese Inquisition needed Antwerp for their escape, thanks to the remarkable woman at the head of the grandest banking family in Europe.Thomas More opened Utopia there, Erasmus puzzled over money and exchanges, William Tyndale sheltered there and smuggled out his Bible in English until he was killed. Pieter Bruegel painted the town as The Tower of Babel.But when Antwerp rebelled with the Dutch against the Spanish and lost, all that glory was buried and its true history rewritten. The city that unsettled so many now became conformist. Mutinous troops burned the city records. Michael Pye sets out to rediscover the city that was lost and bring its wilder days to life using every kind of clue: novels, paintings, songs, schoolbooks, letters and the archives of Venice, London and the Medici. He builds a picture of a city haunted by fire, plague and violence, but learning how to be a power in its own right in the world after feudalism.This is the Antwerp which was the proud 'exception' to all of Europe.

'Consistently illuminating ... Like all the best stories, it is about the timeless tides of power and influence ... trade deals can sometimes be sexy, thrilling and epic' Sinclair McKay, SpectatorLife in Europe was fundamentally changed in the 16th century by the astonishing discoveries of the New World and of direct sea routes to Asia. To start with England was hardly involved and London remained a gloomy, introverted medieval city. But as the century progressed something extraordinary happened.Stephen Alford's evocative, original and fascinating new book uses the same skills that made his widely praised The Watchers so successful, bringing to life the network of merchants, visionaries, crooks and sailors who changed London forever. In a sudden explosion of energy English ships were suddenly found all over the world - trading with Russia and the Levant, exploring Virginia and the Arctic, and fanning out across the Indian Ocean. London's Triumph is above all about the people who made this possible - the families, the guild members, the money-men who were willing to risk huge sums and sometimes their own lives in pursuit of the rare, exotic and desirable. Their ambitions fuelled a new view of the world - initiating a long era of trade and empire, the consequences of which we still live with today.

Winner of the Franco-British Society Book Prize 2019'The ultimate biography of the Sun King' Simon Sebag Montefiore Louis XIV dominated his age. He extended France's frontiers into Netherlands and Germany, and established colonies overseas. The stupendous palace he built at Versailles became the envy of monarchs all over Europe. In his palaces, Louis encouraged dancing, hunting, music and gambling. He loved conversation, especially with women: the power of women in Louis's life and reign is a particular theme of this book. Louis was obsessed by the details of government but the cost of building palaces and waging continuous wars devastated the country's finances and helped set it on the path to revolution. Nevertheless, by his death, he had helped make his grandson king of Spain, where his descendants still reign, and France had taken essentially the shape it has today.King of the World is the most comprehensive and up-to-date biography of this hypnotic, flawed figure in English. It draws on all the latest research to paint a convincing and compelling portrait of a man who, three hundred years after his death, still epitomises the idea of le grand monarque.

History has pictured Elizabeth I as Gloriana, an icon of strength and power -- and has focused on the early years of her reign. But in 1583, when Elizabeth is fifty, there is relentless plotting among her courtiers -- and still to come is the Spanish Armada and the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. We have not, until now, had the full picture.This gripping and vivid portrait of her life and times -- often told in her own words (and including details such as her love of chess and marzipan) -- reveals a woman who was insecure, human ('You know I am no morning woman'), and unpopular even with the men who fought for her. This is the real Elizabeth, for the first time.

‘Alison Weir's sound scholarship and storyteller's gift for rich, telling detail constantly engages and enthrals the reader’ The TimesThe captivating life of Margaret Douglas - a life of scandal, political intrigue and royal romance that spanned five Tudor reigns.Royal Tudor blood ran in her veins. Some thought Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, should be queen of England. She ranked high at the court of her uncle, Henry VIII, and was lady of honour to five of his wives. Beautiful and tempestuous, she created scandal - twice - by falling in love with unsuitable men. Throughout her life her dynastic ties to two crowns proved hazardous. A born political intriguer, she was imprisoned in the Tower of London three times, once under sentence of death. Her husband and son were brutally murdered, she warred with two queens, and proved instrumental in securing the Stuart succession to the throne of England for her grandson.Alison Weir brings Margaret Douglas's captivating character out of the shadows for the first time.

The subject of a BBC TV series on Charles I The prize-winning biography of Charles I * Winner of the HWA Crown for Best Work of Historical Non-Fiction 2018 ** Times Book of the Year ** Shortlisted for the Catholic Herald Biography Award 2019 *Less than forty years after the golden age of Elizabeth I, England was at war with itself. At the head of this disintegrating kingdom was Charles I, who would change the face of the monarchy for ever. His reign is one of the most dramatic in history, yet Charles the man remains elusive. To his enemies he was the 'white tyrant of prophecy: to his supporters a murdered innocent. Today many myths still remain.It is an epic story of glamour and strong women, of populist politicians and religious terror, of mass movements and a revolutionary new media: one that speaks to our own divided and dangerous times.'This is the most gripping piece of revisionist history I have read for a long time' - The Spectator

‘A spectacular, elegant, brilliant portrait of skulduggery, murder and sex in Renaissance Florence’ Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard, Books of the Year 1531 – after years of brutal war and political intrigue, the bastard son of a Medici Duke and a ‘half-negro’ maidservant rides into Florence. Within a year, he rules the city as its Prince. Backed by the Pope and his future father-in-law the Holy Roman Emperor, the nineteen-year-old Alessandro faces down bloody family rivalry and the scheming hostility of Italy’s oligarchs to reassert the Medicis’ faltering grip on the turbulent city-state. Six years later, as he awaits an adulterous liaison, he will be murdered by his cousin in another man’s bed.‘Nothing in sixteenth-century history is more astonishing’ Hilary Mantel

King John ruled England for seventeen and a half years, yet his entire reign is usually reduced to one image: of the villainous monarch outmanoeuvred by rebellious barons into agreeing to Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215. Ever since, John has come to be seen as an archetypal tyrant. But how evil was he?In this perceptive short account, Nicholas Vincent unpicks John's life through his deeds and his personality. The youngest of four brothers, overlooked and given a distinctly unroyal name, John seemed doomed to failure. As king, he was reputedly cruel and treacherous, pursuing his own interests at the expense of his country, losing the continental empire bequeathed to him by his father Henry and his brother Richard and eventually plunging England into civil war. Only his lordship of Ireland showed some success. Yet, as this fascinating biography asks, were his crimes necessarily greater than those of his ancestors - or was he judged more harshly because, ultimately, he failed as a warlord?

Part of the Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers in a collectible format'A scholarly and highly readable account of the king who traditionally has been overshadowed by the dynasty that he founded. Henry VII emerges as a wily, skilful and often ruthless monarch who secured a precarious throne for his Tudor successors' - Tracy BormanHenry VII was one of England's unlikeliest monarchs. An exile and outsider with barely a claim to the throne, his victory over Richard III at Bosworth Field seemed to many in 1485 only the latest in the sequence of violent convulsions among England's nobility that would come to be known as the Wars of the Roses – with little to suggest that the obscure Henry would last any longer than his predecessor. To break the cycle of division, usurpation, deposition and murder, he had both to maintain a grip on power and to convince England that his rule was both rightful and effective. Here, Sean Cunningham explores how, in his ruthless and controlling kingship, Henry VII did so, in the process founding the Tudor dynasty.

George IV spent most of his life waiting to become king: as a pleasure-loving and rebellious Prince of Wales during the sixty-year reign of his father, George III, and for ten years as Prince Regent, when his father went mad. 'The days are very long when you have nothing to do' he once wrote plaintively, but he did his best to fill them with pleasure - women, art, food, wine, fashion, architecture. He presided over the creation of the Regency style, which came to epitomise the era, and he was, with Charles I, the most artistically literate of all our kings. Yet despite his life of luxury and indulgence, George died alone and unmourned. Stella Tillyard has not written a judgemental book, but a very human and enjoyable one, about this most colourful of all British kings.

Edward VI died a teenager in 1553, yet his brief reign would shape the future of the nation, unleashing a Protestant revolution that propelled England into the heart of the Reformation. This dramatic account takes a fresh look at one of the most significant and turbulent periods in English history. 'A challenging, elegant and persuasive biography of an unjustly neglected king' Jerry Brotton, author of This Orient Isle'MacCulloch puts the young Edward at the centre of the action ... as this excellent and lively study shows, his ghost continues to haunt the history of Anglicanism' Sunday Times 'This is Reformation history as it should be written, not least because it resembles its subject matter: learned, argumentative, and, even when mistaken, never dull' Eamon Duffy, author of The Stripping of the Altars'One of the best historians writing in English today' Sunday Telegraph

The acclaimed Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers - now in paperbackQueen Victoria inherited the throne at 18 and went on to become the longest-reigning female monarch in history, in a time of intense industrial, cultural, political, scientific and military change within the United Kingdom and great imperial expansion outside of it (she was made Empress of India in 1876). Overturning the established picture of the dour old lady, this is a fresh and engaging portrait from one of our most talented royal biographers.Jane Ridley is Professor of Modern History at Buckingham University, where she teaches a course on biography. Her previous books include The Young Disraeli; a study of Edwin Lutyens, The Architect and his Wife, which won the 2003 Duff Cooper Prize; and the best-selling Bertie: A Life of Edward VII.

'Stephen risked being seen as a man who never quite transcended the essential flawed-ness of his claim to be king. His actions betrayed uneasiness in his new skin' Remembered as a time in which 'Christ and his saints slept', Stephen's troubled reign plunged England into anarchy. Without clear rules of succession in the Norman monarchy, conflict within William the Conqueror's family was inevitable. But, as this resonant portrait shows, there was another problem too: Stephen himself, unable to make good the transition from nobleman to king.

'He had brought nothing but trouble to the navy: how would he fare as King?'Known as the 'Sailor King', William IV was sent to join the navy by his father to discipline him, but instead became notorious for his calamitous years of service, his debts and his relationship with the actress Mrs Jordan. Yet, as Roger Knight's biography shows, William also helped see the country through the great constitutional crisis of its age, enabling the smooth succession of his niece Victoria.

THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERGeography comes before history. Islands cannot have the same history as continental plains. The United Kingdom is a European country, but not the same kind of European country as Germany, Poland or Hungary. For most of the 150 centuries during which Britain has been inhabited it has been on the edge, culturally and literally, of mainland Europe.In this succinct book, Tombs shows that the decision to leave the EU is historically explicable - though not made historically inevitable - by Britain's very different historical experience, especially in the twentieth century, and because of our more extensive and deeper ties outside Europe. He challenges the orthodox view that Brexit was due solely to British or English exceptionalism: in choosing to leave the EU, the British, he argues, were in many ways voting as typical Europeans.