The intensity of intra-familial hatred in many periods of royal history makes the William and Harry rift look like a tersely raised eyebrow over a Boxing Day game of Trivial Pursuit.’ Photograph: FD/Francis Dias/Newspix International I found this book more tantalizing than anything. It doesn't content itself with being a book of short biographies, but it never quite manages to be anything else. The result was that it was constantly mentioning entire, fascinating issues in passing, as though I already knew everything about them. Moreover, it ignored questions which I consider important in the history of a monarchy. What, exactly was the role of an English monarch in 984? In 1370? Did England make a sudden shift to a completely symbolic monarchy with George I, or was that just the beginning of a more gradual process? When and how did the tension between parliament and the monarchy originate? Surely it wasn't unique to the reigns of the Charleses. What were the respective powers of monarch and parliament during, say the reign of Elizabeth I?

Brother of Edward IV. The ruthless extinction of all those who opposed him and the alleged murders of his nephews made his rule very unpopular. In 1485 Henry Richmond, descendant of John of Gaunt, father of Henry IV, landed in west Wales, gathering forces as he marched into England. At the Battle of Bosworth Field in Leicestershire, Richard was defeated and killed in what was to be the last important battle in the Wars of the Roses. Archaeological investigations at a car park in Leicester during 2012 revealed a skeleton which was thought to have been that of Richard III, and this was confirmed on the 4th February 2013. His body was re-interred at Leicester Cathedral on 22nd March 2015. THE TUDORS The son of James I and Anne of Denmark, Charles believed that he ruled by Divine Right. He encountered difficulties with Parliament from the beginning, and this led to the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642. The war lasted four years and following the defeat of Charles’s Royalist forces by the New Model Army, led by Oliver Cromwell, Charles was captured and imprisoned. The House of Commons tried Charles for treason against England and when found guilty he was condemned to death. His death warrant states that he was beheaded on 30th January 1649. Following this the British monarchy was abolished and a republic called the Commonwealth of England was declared. THE COMMONWEALTH Aethelred succeeded his brother Aethelbert. His reign was one long struggle with the Danes who had occupied York in 866, establishing the Viking kingdom of Yorvik . When the Danish Army moved south Wessex itself was threatened, and so together with his brother Alfred, they fought several battles with the Vikings at Reading, Ashdown and Basing. Aethelred suffered serious injuries during the next major battle at Meretun in Hampshire; he died of his wounds shortly after at Witchampton in Dorset, where he was buried. A later ruler, King Stephen, owed his throne to the time he spent quivering in a bog – and in this case I mean a privy. Had he, as an ambitious minor prince, not suffered a sudden, violent bout of food poisoning while on board a ship in Barfleur harbour in 1120, he wouldn’t have disembarked before it headed into the Channel and sank. Everyone on the ship died except for a solitary Norman butcher, and among the watery dead was the heir to the throne. So, when King Henry I died 15 years later, Stephen’s path to kingship had been cleared by diarrhoea. He hurried to Westminster and got himself crowned, then had one of the most unsuccessful reigns in English history, entirely dominated by a savage civil war. The second son of Aethelwulf, Æthelbald was born around 834. He was crowned at Kingston-upon-Thames in southwest London, after forcing his father to abdicate upon his return from pilgrimage to Rome. Following his father’s death in 858, he married his widowed stepmother Judith, but under pressure from the church the marriage was annulled after only a year. He is buried at Sherbourne Abbey in Dorset.Perhaps the most undignified English king, though, was John. The extent of his indignity was a surprise to me when I was researching my new book about the kings and queens of England, because posterity has focused so much on how bad he was – bad as in dastardly. And he was dastardly – dishonest and brutal. During the reign of his predecessor, his elder brother Richard the Lionheart, he tried to steal the throne by pretending Richard was dead. Once Richard had genuinely died, he murdered the only rival claimant, his nephew Arthur, possibly with his bare hands, which feels like unnecessary attention to detail. The daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was a remarkable woman, noted for her learning and wisdom. From first to last she was popular with the people and had a genius for the selection of capable advisors. Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins, the Cecils, Essex and many many more made England respected and feared. The Spanish Armada was decisively defeated in 1588 and Raleigh’s first Virginian colony was founded. The execution of Mary Queen of Scots marred what was a glorious time in English history. Shakespeare was also at the height of his popularity. Elizabeth never married. British Monarchs THE STUARTS

King of Britain for sixty years and the last king of what would become the United States, George III inspired both hatred and loyalty and is now best known for two reasons: as a villainous tyrant for America's Founding Fathers, and for his madness, both of which have been portrayed on stage and screen.The son of Aethelred II, Edmund had led the resistance to Canute’s invasion of England since 1015. Following the death of his father, he was chosen king by the good folk of London. The Witan (the king’s council) however elected Canute. Following his defeat at the Battle of Assandun, Edmund made a pact with Canute to divide the kingdom between them. This treaty ceded control of all of England, with the exception of Wessex, to Canute. It also stated that when one of the kings died the other would take all of England… Edmund died later that year, probably assassinated.

William was married to Mary, James II’s Protestant daughter. William landed in England and James fled to France where he died in exile in 1701. The ruler of a kingdom is known as the king or queen. Throughout history, monarchs who have sat upon a throne have been given enormous power and have been able to change their country's fortune. Aethelred returned in 1014 after Sweyn’s death. The remainder of Aethelred’s reign was one of a constant state of war with Sweyn’s son Canute.

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This is an excellent book with which start learning about the British monarchy, particularly the very early Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman Kings. Cromwell was born at Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire in 1599, the son of a small landowner. He entered Parliament in 1629 and became active in events leading to the Civil War. A leading Puritan figure, he raised cavalry forces and organised the New Model Army, which he led to victory over the Royalists at the Battle of Naseby in 1645. Failing to gain agreement on constitutional change in government with Charles I, Cromwell was a member of a ‘Special Commission’ that tried and condemned the king to death in 1649. Cromwell declared Britain a republic ‘The Commonwealth’ and he went on to become its Lord Protector. The son of Edward the Elder by his third marriage to Eadgifu, Eadred succeeded his brother Edmund following his premature death. He followed in the family tradition of defeating Norsemen, expelling the last Scandinavian King of York, Eric Bloodaxe, in 954. A deeply religious man, Eadred suffered a serious stomach ailment that would eventually prove fatal. Eadred died in his early 30s, unmarried and without an heir, at Frome in Somerset. He is buried in Winchester.