Books like Six Wives by David Starkey

Antonia Fraser examines the lives and legacies of Henry VIII’s six wives, uncovering their personalities, political influence, and the complex history of Tudor marriage and court life.

A new biography of Anne Boleyn that reexamines her life, court experiences, and relationship with Henry VIII through a comprehensive study of Tudor sources.

A scholarly biography that reexamines Anne Boleyn’s life, legacy, patronage of the arts, spirituality, and intellectual engagement during the Tudor era.

In this spirited United Kingdom bestseller, Starkey presents a brilliant examination of the formative years of the "Virgin Queen, " recreating a host of extravagant characters, mad-cap schemes, and tragic plots, while using original documents to depict the princess's tumultuous life before her accession to the throne in 1588. Two 8-page color photo inserts. An abused child, yet confident of her destiny to reign, a woman in a man's world, passionately sexual -- though, as she maintained, a virgin -- Elizabeth I is famed as England's most successful ruler. David Starkey's brilliant new biography concentrates on Elizabeth's formative years -- from her birth in 1533 to her accession in 1558 -- and shows how the experiences of danger and adventure formed her remarkable character and shaped her opinions and beliefs. From princess and heir-apparent to bastardized and disinherited royal, accused traitor to head of the princely household, Elizabeth experienced every vicissitude of fortune and extreme of condition -- and rose above it all to reign during a watershed moment in history. A uniquely absorbing tale of one young woman's turbulent, courageous, and seemingly impossible journey toward the throne, Elizabeth is the exhilarating story of the making of a queen.

A new, authoritative biography of Catherine Howard, Henry VIII’s fifth wife, that reassesses her motives, social milieu, and the courtly forces that led to her execution.