The Kings and Queens of England

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I know that there are more detailed works out there, but sometimes a quick bio is all I want or need.

There are lots of funny anecdotes like how William I (The Conqueror) was so fat he couldn't fit in his coffin. Will they be her 'at home' knickers - adorned with corgis - or her 'garden party' knickers, or perhaps her woolly Balmoral ones. Readers looking for reference material on the island's Anglo-Saxon days do be aware that they will need to look elsewhere.I really enjoyed every one of these mini biographies, despite the complexity of sorting one king from another, who was related to who, who married who, and who was on who's side! The noble ones who loved their subjects interspersed with the ones who were power mad, or just mad, and other who only wanted to make and spend their money on luxury or sin.

She has written five highly praised books which focus on women in history, The Weaker Vessel: Women's Lot in Seventeenth Century Britain (Wolfson Award for History, 1984), The Warrior Queens: Boadecia's Chariot, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Marie Antoinette: The Journey (Franco-British Literary Prize 2001), which was made into a film by Sofia Coppola in 2006 and most recently Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King. But after watching The King’s Speech and being also in the midst of working my way through Shakespeare's historical plays (to which this makes an excellent companion), I decided to dive in and read it cover to cover. There were gradual advances toward the establishment and reliance on parliament and a prime minister.The various authors did excellent work providing just enough information to keep the story moving and whet readers' appetites for more while still maintaining brevity. I bought it as a bedside read and because the book is divided into easy-to-chew sections for that purpose.