"A heroic biography of one of Scotland's legendary leaders, by a British novelist and former literary critic for the London Sunday Times" (Kirkus). Robert the Bruce had himself crowned King of Scots at Scone on a frozen March morning in 1306. After years of struggle, Scotland had been reduced to a vassal state by Edward I of England. Its people lived in abject poverty. But on the day he seized the crown, Bruce renewed the fight for Scotland's freedom,...

As the son of Mary Queen of Scots, born into her 'bloody nest,' James had the most precarious of childhoods. Even before his birth, his life was threatened: it was rumored that his father, Henry, had tried to make the pregnant Mary miscarry by forcing her to witness the assassination of her supposed lover, David Riccio. By the time James was a one-year-old, Henry was murdered, possibly with the connivance of his mother, Mary was in exile in England...

Now revised to include King Charles III and the future kings, this is the essential handbook to the life and times of every king and queen of England and Scotland -- from the Anglo-Saxon kings to the House of Windsor. --

Comprises a capsule history of Britain concentrating mainly on the British monarchs from the Norman Conquest to Elizabeth II.

Presents the eventful life of the Scottish queen, proclaimed so at the age of one week, who married three times and was beheaded for plotting against her cousin Queen Elizabeth I of England.