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Book Mistresses

Download or read book Mistresses written by Linda Porter and published by Picador. This book was released on 2021-04-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to the great diarist, John Evelyn, Charles II was 'addicted to women', and throughout his long reign a great many succumbed to his charms. Clever, urbane and handsome, Charles presided over a hedonistic court, in which licence and licentiousness prevailed.Mistresses is the story of the women who shared Charles's bed, each of whom wielded influence on both the politics and cultural life of the country. From the young king-in-exile's first mistress and mother to his first child, Lucy Walter, to the promiscuous and ill-tempered courtier, Barbara Villiers. From Frances Teresa Stuart, 'the prettiest girl in the world' to history's most famous orange-seller, 'pretty, witty' Nell Gwynn and to her fellow-actress, Moll Davis, who bore the last of the king's fifteen illegitimate children. From Louise de Kéroualle, the French aristocrat - and spy for Louis XIV - to the sexually ambiguous Hortense Mancini. Here, too, is the forlorn and humiliated Queen Catherine, the Portuguese princess who was Charles's childless queen. Drawing on a wide variety of original sources, including material in private archives, Linda Porter paints a vivid picture of these women and of Restoration England, an era that was both glamorous and sordid.

Book Memoirs of a Dwarf at the Sun King s Court

Download or read book Memoirs of a Dwarf at the Sun King s Court written by Paul Weidner and published by Terrace Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in the over-scaled, decadent Versailles of Louis XIV, Memoirs of a Dwarf is the story of Hugues, an impoverished dwarf who maneuvers his way up into the very highest of court circles by clandestinely serving the needs of a mob of unscrupulous gamblers, of a priest notorious for saying black Masses at midnight, and--from under the gaming tables--of a number of sex-starved society women, including Louis's mistress. Along the way, Hugues finally discovers the truth of his own identity, a revelation which is a political bombshell and which subjects him to a grisly turn. The story combines historical events and characters--Louis, his mistresses, his outrageous brother Philippe, and many other baroque personalities--with fictitious ones. Hugues's tale reaches its climax during the famous affaire des poisons, the sexual and political scandal that thundered through the royal court and threatened wholesale destruction.

Book Family and Feuding at the Court of James I

Download or read book Family and Feuding at the Court of James I written by Johanna Luthman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-12 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In early 1618, Anne Cecil (nee Lake), Lady Roos, accused Frances Cecil, countess of Exeter, of having committed adultery and incest with her husband, the countess's step grandson, William Cecil, Lord Roos. The countess had attempted to poison her twice, first with a poisoned enema, and later with a poisoned syrup of roses. With the help of the countess, Lord Roos secretively fled England for Catholic Italy, leaving his wife and family behind. Now, the murderous countess was again planning to poison Lady Roos, and perhaps also her father, Sir Thomas Lake, the king's Secretary of State. The countess vehemently denied these sensational charges, fell on her knees before the king, and asked for justice and restoration of her damaged honour. The accusations and the countess's defence quickly became a public scandal. The king and council investigated and ordered the matter be solved in the Court of Star Chamber. The Lake and Cecil families promptly sued and counter-sued each other for slander. The trials attracted much attention, not least because Lake's position as Secretary hung in the balance, and because King James decided to emulate the Biblical King Solomon and sit as a judge himself. While the feud and entangled scandals make for sensational reading, they also offer unexplored windows into the culture, society, and politics of Jacobean England. These were events with resounding reverberations and profound impacts on the Jacobean court, involving both its domestic and foreign spheres. Here Johanna Luthman scrutinises the scandals in detail for the first time. Employing a diverse range of methodologies and critical lenses, including those from the history of medicine and gender, and an analysis of several court cases that have not yet been studied, Luthman demonstrates the importance of incorporating the history of these scandals into an understanding of complex and fraught world of the court of King James VI. In so doing, the book offers new perspectives from which to understand the period, and will be necessary reading for all those interested in Jacobean history, as well as the history of gender, family, medicine, and scandal more generally.

Book The Politics of Court Scandal in Early Modern England

Download or read book The Politics of Court Scandal in Early Modern England written by Alastair Bellany and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-29 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a detailed 2002 study of the political significance of the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, 1613.

Book An Account of the King s Court of Great Sessions in Wales

Download or read book An Account of the King s Court of Great Sessions in Wales written by W. Llewelyn Williams and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Reunited at the King s Court

Download or read book Reunited at the King s Court written by Helen Dickson and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2020-01-01 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kept apart by duty… Reunited by love? Arlette Dryden has never forgotten William Latham, the Royalist soldier who accompanied her to safety while the Battle of Worcester raged. Or how her heart broke when he left. Now it’s the exiled king’s return parade, and stunned Arlette locks eyes with her charismatic cavalier again. She’s still irresistibly drawn to him, but as both have convenient betrothals beckoning, can their long-held passion conquer all?

Book Scandalmonger

    Book Details:
  • Author : William Safire
  • Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • Release : 2001
  • ISBN : 9780156013239
  • Pages : 500 pages

Download or read book Scandalmonger written by William Safire and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2001 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historical novel based on five scandals in 1790's America.

Book Scandalous Liaisons

Download or read book Scandalous Liaisons written by R. E. Pritchard and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of the most hedonistic, loose-living court in English history

Book The Madiai

Download or read book The Madiai written by Edward Steane and published by . This book was released on 1853 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book The Pocket Guide to Royal Scandals

Download or read book The Pocket Guide to Royal Scandals written by Andy K. Hughes and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2012-02-02 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A must-buy book for everyone interested in history and skeletons in the regal cupboards. Discover fascinating facts about lust, greed, murder, envy and just plain stupidity. Read King Henry VIIIs scurrilous letters to Anne Boleyn (thought he was interested in her mind? Think again). Whilst King Charles II was known as the Merry Monarch and Queen Elizabeth Is nickname, the Virgin Queen was rumored to be a misnomer, there was a darker side to the royal family, including murder and regicide was Queen Victorias son really Jack the Ripper or did her surgeon do it? History will come alive with this fact-filled book.

Book Justice for Sale

    Book Details:
  • Author : William Aylor Berry
  • Publisher : Macedon Production Company
  • Release : 1996
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 232 pages

Download or read book Justice for Sale written by William Aylor Berry and published by Macedon Production Company. This book was released on 1996 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Shocking scandal of the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

Book The Test Or Tryal of the Goodness Value of Spiritual Courts     The Second Edition  Corrected

Download or read book The Test Or Tryal of the Goodness Value of Spiritual Courts The Second Edition Corrected written by Edmund Hickeringill and published by . This book was released on 1683 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book The Countess and the King

Download or read book The Countess and the King written by Susan Holloway Scott and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-09-07 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Katherine Sedley lived by her own rules and loved who she pleased- until she became the infamous mistress of King James II... London, 1675: Born to wealth and privilege, Katherine is introduced to the decadent court of King Charles II, and quickly becomes a favorite from the palace to the bawdy playhouses. She gleefully snubs respectable marriage to become the Duke of York's mistress. But Katherine's life of carefree pleasure ends when Charles II dies, and her lover becomes King James II. Suddenly she is cast into a tangle of political intrigue, religious dissent, and ever-shifting alliances, where a wrong step can mean treason, exile, or death at the executioner's block. As the risks rise, Katherine is forced to make the most perilous of choices: to remain loyal to the king, or to England.

Book The Equitable Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery

Download or read book The Equitable Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery written by George Spence and published by . This book was released on 1846 with total page 832 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book A King s Ransom

    Book Details:
  • Author : Simon Burrows
  • Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
  • Release : 2010-03-03
  • ISBN : 1441178961
  • Pages : 305 pages

Download or read book A King s Ransom written by Simon Burrows and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-03-03 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If Charles Théveneau de Morande was a character in a novel, he would be considered the ultimate anti-hero. Morande's historical significance far transcends his success as a blackmailer and scandalous pamphleteer. Having extorted the French monarchy he turned coat and during the War of American Independence and throughout the 1780s was France's leading political spy in London. In addition, he was a highly successful police agent among his fellow exiles and one of the most influential journalists of his time. His enemies or victims - who invariably suffered intense damage to their reputations - included many of the most colourful figures of his day. Nevertheless, Morande survived the wrath of both Louis XV and the revolution, outlived his enemies, and died peacefully in his bed. Morande's life story is a tale of intrigue, blackmail, espionage, duels, kidnap, murder, politics, conspiracy and crime. At the same time, it offers a chance to examine some of the most important issues of French history and revolution.

Book The Golden Age

    Book Details:
  • Author : Chris Murray
  • Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
  • Release : 2016-09-23
  • ISBN : 1443816477
  • Pages : 165 pages

Download or read book The Golden Age written by Chris Murray and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-23 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume investigates the diverse applications and conceptions of the term ‘The Golden Age’. The phrase resonates with the theme of nostalgia, which is popularly understood as a wistful longing for the past, but which also denotes homesickness and the unrecoverability of the past. While the term ‘Golden Age’ typically conjures up idealised visions of the past and gestures forward to utopian visions of future golden ages, the idea of nostalgia is suggestive of a discontented present. The Golden Age and nostalgia are therefore related ideas, but are also partly in conflict with one another, as many nostalgic sentiments are not idealised, and may indeed be dark, ironic or self-aware. There are, of course, many other ways to characterise the relationship between the Golden Age and nostalgia, and the tension between the two can produce myths and romantic idylls, or, in religious terms, images of pre-lapsarian innocence, or dogmas relating to values associated with childhood. The Golden Age is also often used to refer to specific, respected periods of cultural production in all kinds of literature and visual media. Indeed, nearly every period, genre, nation, and cultural form has some kind of mythic, often illusory, Golden Age against which it is defined, and in which nostalgia often plays a part. This collection interrogates the notion of the Golden Age and its connection to feelings of nostalgia from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives, with a strong focus on the relationship between word and image. It will interest scholars working on the subject of the Golden Age/nostalgia, particularly in English literature, film studies, comics studies, history, and the fine arts.

Book The Routledge History of Monarchy

Download or read book The Routledge History of Monarchy written by Elena Woodacre and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-12 with total page 1031 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge History of Monarchy draws together current research across the field of royal studies, providing a rich understanding of the history of monarchy from a variety of geographical, cultural and temporal contexts. Divided into four parts, this book presents a wide range of case studies relating to different aspects of monarchy throughout a variety of times and places, and uses these case studies to highlight different perspectives of monarchy and enhance understanding of rulership and sovereignty in terms of both concept and practice. Including case studies chosen by specialists in a diverse array of subjects, such as history, art, literature, and gender studies, it offers an extensive global and interdisciplinary approach to the history of monarchy, providing a thorough insight into the workings of monarchies within Europe and beyond, and comparing different cultural concepts of monarchy within a variety of frameworks, including social and religious contexts. Opening up the discussion of important questions surrounding fundamental issues of monarchy and rulership, The Routledge History of Monarchy is the ideal book for students and academics of royal studies, monarchy, or political history.