All The Queen S Jewels 1445 1548

From Margaret of Anjou to Katherine Parr, All the Queen’s Jewels examines the jewellery collections of the ten queen consorts of England between 1445–1548 and investigates the collections of jewels a queen had access to, as well as the varying contexts in which queens used and wore jewels. The jewellery worn by queens reflected both their gender and their status as the first lady of the realm. Jewels were more than decorative adornments; they were an explicit display of wealth, majesty and authority. They were often given to queens by those who wished to seek her favour or influence and were also associated with key moments in their lifecycle. These included courtship and marriage, successfully negotiating childbirth (and thus providing dynastic continuity), and their elevation to queenly status or coronation. This book explores the way that queens acquired jewels, whether via their predecessor, their own commission or through gift giving. It underscores that jewels were a vital tool that enabled queens to shape their identities as consort, and to fashion images of power that could be seen by their households, court and contemporaries. This book is perfect for anyone interested in medieval and Tudor history, queenship, jewellery and the history of material culture.

Katheryn Parr is mainly remembered today as being the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, the one who ‘survived’. Katheryn was not only a wife but a queen, mother, reformer, and author. Katheryn would face a number of events in her lifetime including being held to ransom during the Pilgrimage of Grace, being placed as regent while Henry was in France, a role which only one of his five previous wives held, her namesake Katherine of Aragon, and overcame a plot which would have led to her arrest and execution. While Queen she was able to unite the Tudor family and establish some form of happiness for Henry VIII’s three children. Raised by her mother Maud Parr, under a humanist education, Katheryn was intelligent enough to understand her role in life and was not afraid to do her research. Although raised a Catholic, Katheryn became a reformer and went on to write a number of religious texts, being the first female in England to ever have a book published under her own name. She was loyal not only to her family but her servants and the women of her court. She loved her stepchildren and provided them with a mother's love and a role model which her stepdaughters could learn from. Her views on what was expected of her placed her into an open conflict with her brother-in-law Edward Seymour and his wife Anne. This book explores the various roles she had in her lifetime and the passion and duty she put into them, even if it meant putting others first. It will explore her love for Thomas Seymour and how it blindsided her and led to a sad end of her life, and the book will finally look at her legacy - the influence she had on Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth I.

An "impeccably researched and beautifully written" biography of Lady Margaret Beaufort, matriarch of the Tudor dynasty (Tracy Borman, author of The Private Lives of the Tudors and Elizabeth's Women). In 1485, Henry VII became the first Tudor king of England. His victory owed much to his mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort. Over decades and across countries, Margaret had schemed to install her son on the throne and end the War of the Roses. Margaret's extraordinarily close relationship with Henry, coupled with her role in political and ceremonial affairs, ensured that she was treated -- and behaved -- as a queen in all but name. Against a lavish backdrop of pageantry and ambition, court intrigue and war, historian Nicola Tallis illuminates how a dynamic, brilliant woman orchestrated the rise of the Tudors.

Bestselling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir tells the tragic story of Henry VIII’s fifth wife, a nineteen-year-old beauty with a hidden past, in this fifth novel in the sweeping Six Tudor Queens series. “A vivid re-creation of a Tudor tragedy.”—Kirkus Reviews In the spring of 1540, Henry VIII is desperate to be rid of his unappealing German queen, Anna of Kleve. A prematurely aged and ailing forty-nine, with an ever-growing waistline, he casts an amorous eye on a pretty nineteen-year-old brunette, Katheryn Howard. Like her cousin Anne Boleyn, Katheryn is a niece of the Duke of Norfolk, England’s premier Catholic peer, who is scheming to replace Anna of Kleve with a good Catholic queen. A flirtatious, eager participant in the life of the royal court, Katheryn readily succumbs to the king’s attentions when she is intentionally pushed into his path by her ambitious family. Henry quickly becomes besotted and is soon laying siege to Katheryn’s virtue. But as instructed by her relations, she holds out for marriage and the wedding takes place a mere fortnight after the king’s union to Anna is annulled. Henry tells the world his new bride is a rose without a thorn, and extols her beauty and her virtue, while Katheryn delights in the pleasures of being queen and the rich gifts her adoring husband showers upon her: the gorgeous gowns, the exquisite jewels, and the darling lap-dogs. She comes to love the ailing, obese king, enduring his nightly embraces with fortitude and kindness. If she can bear him a son, her triumph will be complete. But Katheryn has a past of which Henry knows nothing, and which comes back increasingly to haunt her—even as she courts danger yet again. What happens next to this naïve and much-wronged girl is one of the saddest chapters in English history.

Hampton Court Palace has been the locus of monarchy, revolution, religious fundamentalism, sexual scandals, and military coups. Russel moves through the rooms and the decades to focus on the people who called Hampton Court their home. From the Tudors to the present, he captures the stories of the many sovereigns and servants who lived and worked in its halls. In doing so, Russel reveals the personal tragedy and political importance of this extraordinary place. -- adapted from jacket.

Traces the history and background of crowns, brooches, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and tiaras owned by the Queen of England

The first definitive biography of the young Elizabeth I in over twenty years—drawing on a rich variety of primary sources—tracing her tumultuous path to the crown. Queen Elizabeth I is renowned for her hugely successful reign that makes her, perhaps, the most celebrated monarch in English history. But what of the trials she faced in her challenging early life? Her status as a princess didn’t last long—when she was less than three years old, her mother—the infamous Anne Boleyn—was brutally beheaded and Elizabeth was relegated to the title of bastard. After losing several stepmothers, she then faced predatory attentions and illicit flirtations from her stepfather, Thomas Seymour, which ultimately forced Elizabeth to leave her home. But these were only the beginning of Elizabeth’s problems. Later, she became implicated in a plot to overthrow her half-sister, Mary, and faced interrogation and imprisonment in the very tower in which her mother died. Adamantly protesting her innocence, Elizabeth endured the interrogation and was eventually released. Her popularity as a royal increased from that point on, and she finally became queen at the age of twenty-five. Expert historian Nicola Tallis draws on a variety of primary sources—from the queen herself as well as those closest to her—to provide an extensive and thorough study of the Virgin Queen’s perilous journey to the crown. Looking at Elizabeth as a human being rather than a political chess piece, her narrative explores the dangers and tragedies that plagued Elizabeth's early life, revealing the queen to be a young women who drew strength from her various plights as she navigated one of the most thrilling paths to the throne in the history of the monarchy.

Presents the English monarchy's family-owned jewels and details the history of the collection.