During the fifteenth century England was split in a bloody conflict between the Houses of York and Lancaster over who should claim the crown. This work tells the story of this complex and dangerous period of history through the lives of five men and women who experienced the conflict first hand.

Ranging over a quarter of a millenium and four continents, this book uncovers the lives, deaths and autobiographical writings of a vital but forgotten constituency: the tens of thousands of men and women who took part in Britain's rise to imperial pre-eminence but who got caught and caught out.

For over a hundred years England repeatedly invaded France on the pretext that her kings had a right to the French throne. Seward's account traces the changes that led to France's final victory and brings to life all the intrigue of the last chivalric combats as they gave way modern warfare.

This title presents an investigation that broke the deadlock that earlier research had reached. Arthur emerged from it with a firmer status in history. The author insists that if we line up the legend with the facts as we know them today, the problem of Arthur's identity can be solved.

The everyday realities and practical details of daily life in Elizabethan London, which most history books ignore - a Sunday Times bestseller.

Winston Churchill's six-volume history of the cataclysm that swept the world remains the definitive history of the Second World War.

An account of the most important naval battle in British history, which thwarted Napoleon at sea and created a national hero in Nelson.

The story of the Third Crusade, and the two men who dictated its outcome: Saladin, hero of the Islamic world, and Richard the Lionheart. Richard and the King of France led a European army of several hundred thousand warriors, but Saladin's manoeuvres resulted in the crusaders' retreat.

On the night of 10 February 1567, an explosion devastated the Edinburgh residence of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. Those arriving at the scene of devastation found, in the garden, the naked corpses of Darnley and his valet. Neither had died in the explosion, but both bodies bore marks of strangulation.

This profoundly influential book re-examines events leading up to the Reformation in England and illuminates our understanding of the period. A prize-winning account, it recreates lay people's experience of the religion of the pre-Reformation church showing that late-medieval Catholicism was neither decadent nor decayed, but was a strong and vigorous tradition, and that the Reformation ...

Written between 1919 and 1926, this text tells of the campaign aganist the Turks in the Middle East, encompassing gross acts of cruelty and revenge, ending in a welter of stink and corpses in a Damascus hospital.

'The fullest and most sophisticated account of the most charming and approachable of English kings' OBSERVER

How did Britain's power and influence decline? Seeking to answer this question, this book begins with the reign of Edward VII, when Great Britain commanded the mightiest empire in the world. It ends with the Coronation of Elizabeth II, when Britain emerged victorious from a world war, but ruined as a world power.

Covering history, attitudes to foreigners, sport, stereotypes, language and more, this book includes stories and anecdotes that provide a portrait of the English nation and its people.

Magnificent history of the common British soldier from 1700 to 1900 by one of Britain's best-known and accomplished military writers and broadcasters. Red Coat is non-fiction Sharpe, filled with anecdote and humour as well as historical analysis.

An account of the rise of the Zulu nation in southern Africa, and its fall under Cetshwayo in the Zulu war of 1879. This work sets out to be not only a history of the Zulus but also a full-scale study of the British colonial and military policy in relation to southern Africa, and of those involved.

This definitive account reveals how the political and social progress of Britain has been inextricably intertwined with the strength - and weakness - of its sea power, from the desperate early campaigns against the Vikings to the defeat of the great Spanish Armada.

Offers an account of life below the margins in the greatest Metropolis in the world and a portrait of the habits, tastes, amusements, appearance, speech, humour, earnings and opinions of the labouring poor at the time of the Great Exhibition.

Winston Churchill's six-volume history of the cataclysm that swept the world remains the definitive history of the Second World War.