Kings and Queens of England

Overview From the reign of Alfred the Great—the first king of Wessex to call himself ‘king of England’—in the ninth century, to the shock of the Norman invasion in the 11th, and from the brutal vicissitudes of late medieval kingship to the comfortable ceremonial of modern-day constitutional monarchy, the story of England’s kings and queens is to a large degree that of England herself. The Kings & Queens of England offers elegant portraits of 59 English monarchs from Harold II to Henry VIII, and from Æthelred the Unready to Elizabeth II. Each sovereign is concisely and memorably profiled and the impact of his or her rule on wider English, and indeed world history, clearly described and yzed. For every king and queen there is a detailed timeline of key events, and the narrative is further amplified by quotations, feature boxes, panels of key biographical facts, and—last but not least—by 135 lavish full-color images. Author Ian Crofton recounts a 1000-year tale of murder, invasion, usurpation, adultery, divorce, civil war, and revolution in a manner that is as entertaining as it is informative. The Kings & Queens of England is the perfect choice for anyone looking for an illustrated and accessible history of the English monarchy from the Anglo-Saxon era to the present.