James II (Penguin Monarchs) - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook James II (Penguin Monarchs) write by David Womersley. This book was released on 2015-04-30. James II (Penguin Monarchs) available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The short, action-packed reign of James II (1685-88) is generally seen as one of the most catastrophic in British history. James managed, despite having access to tremendous reserves of good will and deference, to so alienate his supporters that he had to flee for his life. And yet, most of that life was spent not as king but first as heir to Charles II, as Duke of York (after whom New York is named) and then in the last part of his life as the first Jacobite 'Pretender', starting a problem that would haunt Britain's rulers for generations.
James II
James II - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook James II write by John Miller. This book was released on 2008-10-01. James II available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. James II (1633–1701) lacked the charisma of his father, Charles I, but shared his tendency to dismiss the views of others when they differed from his own. Failing to understand his subjects, James was also misunderstood by them. In this highly-regarded biography, John Miller reassesses James II and his reign, drawing on a wide array of primary sources from France, Italy, and Ireland as well as England. Miller argues that the king had many laudable attributes--he was brave, loyal, honorable, and hard-working, and he was at least as benevolent toward his people as his father had been. Yet James’s conversion to Catholicism fueled the distrust of his Protestant subjects who placed the worst possible construction on his actions and statements. Although James came to see the securing of religious freedom for Catholics in the wider context of freedom for all religious minorities, his people naturally doubted the sincerity of his commitment to toleration. The book explores James’s relations with the state and society, focusing on the political, diplomatic, and religious issues that shaped his reign. Miller discusses the human failings, the gulf of understanding between the king and his subjects, and the sheer bad luck that led to James’s downfall. He also considers the reasons for James’s lack of interest in recovering his kingdom after his flight to France in 1688. This revised edition of the book includes a substantial new foreword assessing recent work on the reign. “This is a first-class essay in historical biography. . . . It must displace all previous lives of James II.”—J. P. Kenyon, Observer
Oliver Cromwell (Penguin Monarchs)
Oliver Cromwell (Penguin Monarchs) - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Oliver Cromwell (Penguin Monarchs) write by David Horspool. This book was released on 2017-02-23. Oliver Cromwell (Penguin Monarchs) available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Although he styled himself 'His Highness', adopted the court ritual of his royal predecessors, and lived in the former royal palaces of Whitehall and Hampton Court, Oliver Cromwell was not a king - in spite of the best efforts of his supporters to crown him. Yet, as David Horspool shows in this illuminating new portrait of England's Lord Protector, Cromwell, the Puritan son of Cambridgeshire gentry, wielded such influence that it would be a pretence to say that power really lay with the collective. The years of Cromwell's rise to power, shaped by a decade-long civil war, saw a sustained attempt at the collective government of England; the first attempts at a real Union of Britain; the beginnings of empire; a radically new solution to the idea of a national religion; atrocities in Ireland; and the readmission to England of the Jews, a people officially banned for over three and a half centuries. At the end of it, Oliver Cromwell had emerged as the country's sole ruler: to his enemies, and probably to most of his countrymen, his legacy looked as likely to last as that of the Stuart dynasty he had replaced.
Charles II (Penguin Monarchs)
Charles II (Penguin Monarchs) - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Charles II (Penguin Monarchs) write by Clare Jackson. This book was released on 2016-03-31. Charles II (Penguin Monarchs) available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Charles II has always been one of the most instantly recognisable British kings - both in his physical appearance, disseminated through endless portraits, prints and pub signs, and in his complicated mix of lasciviousness, cynicism and luxury. His father's execution and his own many years of exile made him a guarded, curious, unusually self-conscious ruler. He lived through some of the most striking events in the national history - from the Civil Wars to the Great Plague, from the Fire of London to the wars with the Dutch. Clare Jackson's marvellous book takes full advantage of its irrepressible subject.
Edward VIII (Penguin Monarchs)
Edward VIII (Penguin Monarchs) - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Edward VIII (Penguin Monarchs) write by Piers Brendon. This book was released on 2016-04-28. Edward VIII (Penguin Monarchs) available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 'After my death,' George V said of his eldest son and heir, 'the boy will ruin himself within twelve months.' The forecast proved uncannily accurate. Edward VIII came to the throne in January 1936, provoked a constitutional crisis by his determination to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson, and abdicated in December. He was never crowned king. In choosing the woman he loved over his royal birthright, Edward shook the monarchy to its foundations. Given the new title 'Duke of Windsor' and essentially sent into exile, he remained a visible skeleton in the royal cupboard until his death in 1972 and he haunts the house of Windsor to this day. Drawing on unpublished material, notably correspondence with his most loyal (though much tried) supporter Winston Churchill, Piers Brendon's superb biography traces Edward's tumultuous public and private life from bright young prince to troubled sovereign, from wartime colonial governor to sad but glittering expatriate. With pace and panache, it cuts through the myths that still surround this most controversial of modern British monarchs.
