Crown of a Thousand Years : A Millennium of British History Presented As a Pageant of Kings and Queens

Who had six wives? Who built Westminster Abbey? Who exactly was the Black Prince? How did Edward II die? Whose mistress was "the Elephant?' Who was "Brandy-faced Nan?' The lives and personalities of the fifty Heads of State of Britain, from King Ethelred in AD 978 to Elizabeth II, are illuminated in this handsome book. Each king and queen is illustrated with a color portrait take from contemporary sources - tenth-century coins, tapestries, manuscripts, sculpture and portraits of state. Accurate and entertaining short biographies of each sovereign by historians M. E. Hudson and Mary Clark give rounded pictures of their characters as well as leading figures of the reigns who, interwoven with the kings and queens, created the fabric of English history.