Queen James: The Life and Loves of Britains First King

(Hardback)

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Elizabeth was king,Then James was queen. English author (1603)James Stuart, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland did not always love wisely, but he never failed to do so boldly.

He fell in love three times once with George Villiers, the handsomest man in the whole world and he was infatuated three more times including with a Highland earl and an English spy.

We have so much on the six wives of Henry VIII, why not the six loves of James I

This groundbreaking new book puts James genius, liar, spendthrift, idealist, witch-hunter and the men he loved at the centre of one of the most dramatic stories in British royal history.

Beginning with the brutal and mysterious murder of his father in 1567, Jamess life encompassed kidnapping, witchcraft trials, torture, his mothers beheading, poison, political radicalism, religious fundamentalism, a queens alleged abortion, passionate sex, strong love, stronger hate, espionage, brothels, and a decade-long love affair that ended in assassination.

It is unquestionably one of the most gripping stories in British history, retold in Gareth Russells Queen James with scholarship, biographical insight and wit.

Reviews

PRAISE FOR THE PALACE

A fascinating chronicle brilliantly researcheda history of the British monarchy seen through the prism of Hampton Court THE TIMES

Riotously readable Russell gives a tender and affectionate account of a royal palace that is less about bricks and mortar than the men and women who down the centuries have breathed it into glamorous, scandalous and tragic life MAIL ON SUNDAY

Scintillatingits hard to imagine anyone writing a better version of the book Russell sets out to write than the racy delight we have here SPECTATOR

'If a house could gossip, this is the book that Hampton Court would whisper. An enjoyable and readable stroll through 500 years of Hampton Court history: royal residents, common visitors, thieves, invaders and ghosts PHILIPPA GREGORY

'Rollicking, gossipy and effortlessly learned, The Palace is what Hampton Court would say if its walls could talk. Gareth Russell is a born storyteller and this is a wonderful human history of one of Britains most captivating buildings' DAN JONES

Vibrant, exciting, enthralling a superb panoramic history, bursting with scholarship, wit and riveting detail. A beautifully written, fascinating book about those who have lived and loved at Hampton Court KATE WILLIAMS

With scholarly accuracy but also a novelists eye for a telling detail or anecdote, he shows how the palace constitutes a long, broad and golden thread running through over half a millennium of British history ANDREW ROBERTS

Author Bio

Gareth Russell read Modern History at St Peter's College at the University of Oxford and completed his postgraduate at Queen's University, Belfast with a study of Catherine Howard's household. He has written for the Sunday Times, Tatler and the Irish News and is the author of two novels set in his native Belfast and several books on royal history. He divides his time between Belfast and New York.