Title: Elizabeth: Fortune's Bastard

Author: Richard Rex

Publisher: Tempus

Price: £9.99

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Elizabeth I

Category: The Monarchy

Elizabeth I stands in the English imagination for one of the formative phases of English history. Her reign saw England transformed, at her command, from a Catholic to a Protestant country, with incalculable consequences for the history of Europe and of the world - starting with the attempted invasion by the Spanish Armada, beaten off by the Queen's legendary naval captains. Of the five monarchs who trod the political stage of sixteenth-century England, Elizabeth was the most accomplished and versatile performer. And it is ultimately this which accounts for her enduring fascination. Richard Rex highlights the vivid and contrary personality of a Queen who could both baffle and bedazzle her subjects, her courtiers, and her rivals: at one moment flirting outrageously with a favourite or courting some foreign prince, and at another vowing perpetual virginity; at one time agonising over the execution of her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, then ordering the slaughter of hundreds of poor men after a half-cock rebellion. Too many biographies of Elizabeth merely perpetuate the flattery she enjoyed from her courtiers, as if her dramatic repertoire was limited to the role of 'Gloriana'. This biography also reflects more critical voices, such as those of the Irish, the Catholics and those who lived on the wrong side of the emerging North/South divide. To them she showed a different face.

Title: Queen Elizabeth's Wooden Teeth

Author: Andrea Barham

Publisher: Michael O'Mara

Price: £9.99

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: The Tudors

Category: The Monarchy

"Queen Elizabeth's Wooden Teeth" focuses on the erroneous facts that continue to distort the annals of world history. To counter all those fabricated facts you have learnt through the years, here is a guide to the truth behind the myths, including: Sir Walter Raleigh did not bring the potato nor tobacco back from the New World; Abraham Lincoln did not write the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope; King Ethelred the Unready was not unprepared; St George was not English; and of course Queen Elizabeth did not have wooden teeth! Written with wit and fascinating insight, and covering numerous subjects from royalty to religion, saints to statesmen, inventors to explorers, "Queen Elizabeth's Wooden Teeth" is guaranteed to astonish and inform, amuse and entertain.

Title: The Prince in the Tower

Author: Michael Hicks

Publisher: Tempus

Price: £9.99

Bookshop: Amazon

Spartacus Website: Edward V

Category: The Monarchy

This is the first biography of the king whose fate remains one of the greatest mysteries in English history. Memorable not for his life but his death, Edward V is probably better known as one of the Princes in the Tower, the supposed victim of his uncle, Richard III. Though he was never crowned, Edward reigned for 77 days until Richard made himself his nephew's Lord Protector before imprisoning him and his younger brother Richard in the Tower of London. Michael Hicks presents to us the backdrop to this tragically short life - Edward's parents, the contemporary political scenery, his own remarkable achievements - and reveals how he was both the hope of a dynasty and an integral cause of that dynasty's collapse.

Educational Websites

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