Charles I, Traitor, Murderer, Martyr

White King

The Tragedy of Charles I

The first accessible biography in 50 years of one of the most dramatic and bloody reigns in history

A revelation... White King is that rare thing, a page-turning history that gently but insistently also asks provocative questions about a period on which our opinions have been all too fixed. Charles does not emerge with his reputation restored, but he emerges whole

Humane and scholarly... De Lisle's deeply and originally researched book brings Charles alive not in kingly isolation but as a father and a husband. Both biography and subject deserve our fullest attention

Engaging, well-researched and beautifully written... Emphatically not another book about the civil wars, this instead offers a nuanced and detailed examination of one of our most complex monarchs. It is probably the definitive modern work about Charles I

De Lisle, who has long been an original voice in popular Tudor studies, is generous to Charles, but too sharp a reader of evidence to ignore his flaws... Pellucid, compelling and enriched by fresh evidence... Sympathetic but scrupulous to the last

An impeccably researched and thought-provoking biography which reads as well as a fine novel... It also revives one of this country's greatest stories: a blinkered king, a warrior queen, a war that turned brother against brother and scandals caused by money, sex, espionage and power, woven together in the life of this extraordinary but flawed king

Formidable... with remarkable clarity she unpicks the tangle of religious, political and economic conflicts that led to the Civil War... De Lisle draws on little-known and in some cases previously unrecorded letters to explore the important part that women played in Charles’s story... This is not a story of a weakling or a villain: it’s the tragedy of the right man in the wrong place in history

De Lisle effortlessly carries the reader along with her as she recreates the tragedy of Charles I and the Civil War. Her book is beautifully constructed, telling the story chronologically with a nice eye for detail, illuminating each period and major character by vivid tableau, but with plenty of analysis... This is the most gripping piece of revisionist history I have read for a long time

Elegantly written... the book proceeds at a cracking pace as the king's tragedy unfolds... Leanda de Lisle's splendid book is a timely reminder of the fascination of this turbulent period

Excellent -- clear, fair, sympathetic and detailed

A riveting study that casts [Charles] as a blinkered idealist, and draws on previously unpublished royal letters that restore the humanity of his despised queen, Henrietta Maria

Leanda de Lisle's very readable new biography of the king reveals the twisting path through love, politics and war that led him to his ultimate desintation

A grand tragedy related with searing pathos

Britain's Stuart monarchs have long been overlooked in favour of their more flashy Tudor counterparts, but in White King Leanda de Lisle offers a case for Charles I being one of history's most compelling rulers... [a] revelatory account of Charles's unstable and ultimately tragic reign

Uses newly revealed letters and manuscripts to inform a new portrait of Charles I

As the axe falls, do we see into the White King's heart? Do we understand him better? I think we do. Leanda de Lisle's gripping and well-told story is of a king swept along by events, mastered by them

Impeccably researched and thought provoking... It revives one of this country's greatest stories: a blinkered king, a warrior queen, a war that turned brother against brother and scandals caused by money, sex, espionage and power

As Leanda de Lisle demonstrates with great skill, there was nothing inevitable about the Civil War — still less about the king’s beheading

Charles I has long eluded even the most scholarly of biographers; his personal contradictions, attractive qualities and ludicrous blunders require a writer of rare talent to let us appreciate the long-hidden character of the king... very well-researched and beautifully written

Leanda de Lisle has approached one of the great icons of history with understanding and compassion. She takes her readers through the twists and turns of the English Civil war so that they understand the enormity of the regicide and the foolishness and courage of the king

Charles I has always received bad press… veteran British historian de Lisle delivers a more generous portrait… De Lisle’s parliamentarians are an irascible group, resembling not so much freedom fighters as the tea party; on the other hand, the author’s Charles often seems the voice of reason. Recent elections in Britain and the United States have produced surprisingly dysfunctional governments. De Lisle’s fine, revisionist view of Charles may arouse nostalgia for a time when national leaders, elected or not, looked out for the nonzealous majority

A splendidly colourful read ... an enthralling and resonant story of populist politicians, and religious war, and the reshaping of nations

This book’s fascination is as a joint portrait of the royal couple, the most human of historical actors in England’s greatest political drama.

A highly intelligent, fair and sympathetic biography.

This is a striking insight into both developing contemporary thought and religious controversies

White King is a lively attempt to make him [Charles I] flesh and blood

Leanda de Lisle is the highly acclaimed author of several bestselling and prize-winning books on the Tudors and Stuarts including Tudor: The Family Story, White King: The Tragedy of Charles I and Henrietta Maria: Conspirator, Warrior, Phoenix Queen. She writes and speaks on historical matters for TV, radio and publications including The Times, the Spectator and History Today.

The subject of a BBC TV series on Charles I 
The prize-winning biography of Charles I 
 
* Winner of the HWA Crown for Best Work of Historical Non-Fiction 2018 * 
* Times Book of the Year * 
* Shortlisted for the Catholic Herald Biography Award 2019 * 
 
Less than forty years after the golden age of Elizabeth I, England was at war with itself. At the head of this disintegrating kingdom was Charles I, who would change the face of the monarchy for ever. 
 
His reign is one of the most dramatic in history, yet Charles the man remains elusive. To his enemies he was the 'white tyrant of prophecy: to his supporters a murdered innocent. Today many myths still remain. 
 
It is an epic story of glamour and strong women, of populist politicians and religious terror, of mass movements and a revolutionary new media: one that speaks to our own divided and dangerous times. 
 
'This is the most gripping piece of revisionist history I have read for a long time' - The Spectator

The Family Story

Tudor

Some of their past the Tudors wanted to remember, other parts they preferred to forget: a new history, a new story, the family behind the myths

*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* 
 
Tudor tells a family story like no other. 
 
The Tudors are a national obsession, undoubtedly British history's most notorious family. But beyond the well-worn headlines is a family still more extraordinary than the one we thought we knew. 
 
The Tudor canon typically starts with the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, before speeding on to Henry VIII and the Reformation. But this leaves out the family's obscure Welsh origins; it passes by the courage of the pregnant thirteen-year-old girl who would help found the Tudor dynasty; and the childhood and painful exile of her son, the future Henry VII. It ignores the fact that the Tudors were shaped by their past - those parts they wished to remember and those they wished to forget. 
 
With this background, Leanda de Lisle enables us to see the Tudors in their own terms and presents new perspectives and revelations on key figures and events, from the princes in the Tower to the Tudor Queens. 
 
'A lively history of the ambitious Tudor family... It casts plenty of light on the strong women in the dynasty' The Times 
 
**A Telegraph, History Today and BBC History Magazine Book of the Year**

A wonderfully fluent portrait of five generations... de Lisle brings an entirely fresh feel to the Tudor story, reminding us of the one thing the monarchs themselves wanted us to forget: the sheer improbability of their royal rule

Violent, heady, glamorous stuff, this is popular history of a very superior sort

Vivid... Part of the interest of this book lies in the portraits of strong women

Tudor is a gripping account of a family riven by passionate jealousies, murderous ambitions and crippling tragedies. Leanda de Lisle is a master storyteller, and this is her greatest work yet. Immersive and exhaustively researched, Tudor is a triumph.

Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

While many Tudor fans have been crying out for an accessible narrative history of the entire period, few historians have felt able to rise to the challenge... [de Lisle] manages to achieve that very feat... should now be the go-to book

In de Lisle's hands, this is a deeply human tale, a family tree come to vivid life, rather than a narrative of politics and power structures (Book of the Week)

One of the most interesting of today’s historians, with her easy scholarship, fresh interpretation and presentation, Leanda De Lisle succeeds in casting a revealing light on what one had thought familiar. The pace never flags. Time and again she says something new in one of the most exciting and enjoyable books I have read for a long time.

For those wanting a more grown-up experience of the Tudor past, there are few better places to start the Leanda de Lisle’s new study. Many have told this story before. What makes de Lisle’s account so fresh is her decision to start her “family story” not in 1485… but three generations earlier… Rarely has [this] story been told as well as here

Her compellingly written book not only illuminates obscure family members... but also provides fresh perspectives on some of the most familiar figures in our history... a work that elegantly combines wide-ranging research with fluent narrative

De Lisle’s masterful command of the facts – great and small – provides a complete and entertaining overview

A vibrant reappraisal of this turbulent family saga

Full of subtle revelations and fascinating detail... fine storytelling and thought-provoking analysis

It is…greatly to the credit of Leanda de Lisle that her new book on the Tudors as a family is so admirably balanced and accomplished, and full of subtle revelations and fascinating detail. The familiar faces are all here but their story is told with new insights… Fine storytelling and thought-provoking analysis

[An] illuminating portrait of our most famous royal family

Wonderful, passionate, dangerous, fascinating stuff.  I couldn't put it down

Leanda de Lisle has the gift of reminding us that history is the story of real people; real men, real women, full of rage and ambitionand lust and hope and love. The Tudors are already our most vivid dynasty, by quite a long chalk, but these pages render them more vivid still. This was an age when the game was worth the candle, when a chance remark could result in a crown or the axe. Wonderful, passionate, dangerous, fascinating stuff. I couldn't put it down

This fresh take on the Tudor dynasty is history at its best... an engaging and well-sourced account, sprinkled with provocative anecdotes that will appeal to both scholars and general readers... This compelling tale is driven by three-dimensional people and relationships, and de Lisle does a fantastic job of making them feel lived and dramatic

Reveals an entirely new perspective on one of England's most fascinating dynasties

A very lucid, entertaining and excellent read

A thrilling, intelligent and fresh royal history that sweeps from the family’s unlikely beginnings in the 1420s to their apotheosis under Elizabeth

The compelling story of the Tudors is vividly brought to life in de Lisle's narrative

This should now be the go-to book for those looking for a broad understanding of the Tudors

De Lisle's energy and stamina in this vast operation are truly impressive. What is more, she tells an often thrilling story with great dexterity... Altogether, this remarkable achievement puts de Lisle firmly in the front rank of popular historians of the period

Unlike many books that claim to tell the story of the Tudors, but focus mainly on four characters (namely Henry VIII and his three children who all ruled England after him), this excellent book includes so many members of the Tudor family who may not always be forgotten, but are often sidelined

Sunday Times bestseller 
Selected as one of The Times' Best Books about The Tudors 
A Telegraph Book of the Year 
A History Today Book of the Year 
A BBC History Magazine Book of the Year 
 
The Tudors are a national obsession; they are our most notorious family in history. But beyond the well-worn headlines is a family still more extraordinary than the one we thought we knew. 
 
The Tudor canon typically starts with the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, before speeding on to Henry VIII and the Reformation. But this leaves out the family’s obscure Welsh origins; it passes by the courage of the pregnant thirteen-year-old girl who would help found the Tudor dynasty; and the childhood and painful exile of her son, the future Henry VII. It ignores the fact that the Tudors were shaped by their past – those parts they wished to remember and those they wished to forget. 
 
With this background, Leanda de Lisle enables us to see the Tudors in their own terms and presents new perspectives and revelations on key figures and events, from the princes in the Tower to the Tudor Queens. 
 
Tudor tells a family story like no other. 
 
'A lively history of the ambitious Tudor family... It casts plenty of light on the strong women in the dynasty' The Times

Leanda de Lisle

Competent, intelligent, fun... de Lisle...has a visceral understanding of the complex emotions that swirled inside Henrietta Maria

A shrewd and elegant reassessment of Charles's I consort and widow... She was certainly a fighter

Brilliantly written, mesmerising, superb scholarship and totally immersive . . . a total game changer

KATE WILLIAMS, author of Rival Queens: the Betrayal of Mary Queen of Scotts

With grace and sensitivity, de Lisle cuts through the misogyny to reveal a different Henrietta Maria . . . De Lisle understands that history is a story of people; she possesses a visceral understanding of the emotions that swirled inside Henrietta Maria . . . she was not England's greatest queen, but she was probably the most remarkable

De Lisle has made a speciality of bringing Tudors and Stuarts back to blazing life... The result is deeply satisfying and makes an excellent companion to her earlier much-admired biography of Charles I, White King

A captivating, richly detailed historical tale that shines a light on the hidden genius of an extraordinary woman

de Lisle turns her attention to [Charles I's] wife, Henrietta Maria, similarly shading with nuance a character who can sometimes be reduced to primary-colour simplicity

A glorious resurrection of one of the most misrepresented queens of England . . . finally, thanks to Leanda de Lisle's meticulous research, she has a biography worthy of her fascinating life

AMANDA FOREMAN, author of A World on Fire

Henrietta Maria's remarkable life is recounted with gusto in this sharp, sparky book... it makes vivid use of recent work on her court and queenship, brings people and personalities to the fore and will be a particular delight to those new to the period

Leanda de Lisle has brilliantly overturned nearly four centuries of misogynistic, religiously bigoted and politically motivated myths about Henrietta Maria, who now emerges as a fascinating, fearless, but ill-fated woman, wife and mother. This is revisionist history at its absolute best

ANDREW ROBERTS, author of George III: The Life of Britain's Most Misunderstood Monarch

With supreme skill and style, Leanda de Lisle provides not only a welcome revision of Henrietta Maria's reputation, but also a revival of her fierce energy and a reanimation of the entire age. A superb and vital biography

JESSIE CHILDS, author of The Siege of Loyalty House

A captivating, richly detailed historical tale that shines a light on the hidden genius of an extraordinary woman

This is popular history of the finest kind, vivid, immediate, well researched and telling a compelling story. It is also serves the first duty of biography, by making its subject more wholly understandable than before

Leanda de Lisle's beautifully written and endlessly fascinating new biography of Henrietta Maria brings one of the 17th century's most misunderstood women to glorious life . . . This salutary and important book restores her to her rightful place as one of the most important figures of her time

ALEXANDER LARMAN, author of The Crown in Crisis

If the Stuarts are having their time in the sun at last, then Leanda de Lisle is one of the reasons they are. Masterful and pleasurable about a transformative century and a neglected, underestimated woman's role in it -- what more can one want from history?

SARAH FRASER, author of The Prince Who Would Be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart

A fascinating book about a fascinating woman -- Henrietta Maria's story deserves to be better known, and this book brings her completely alive

FRANCES QUINN, author of The Smallest Man

Henietta Maria's perspective allows this book to become something much more than mere analysis of politics and war. De Lisle understands that history is a story of people; she possesses a visceral understanding of the emotions that swirled inside Henrietta Maria

[A] thrilling story... a revisionist life of one of the most compelling and controversial women in British history... a book, like a life, should be measured against its own mission. And in this - to tell the story of Henrietta Maria's extraordinary life from her own perspective - Leanda de Lisle triumphs where her subject could not

Lucid, entertaining and combative revisionist biography

A triumph of a book which will revise opinion of this 'reviled' queen

Annie Whitehead, author of Women in Power

Thanks to Leanda de Lisle's new biography, Henrietta Maria can finally answer the charges laid against her. In debunking and deconstructing these myths de Lisle gives an account of the politics of the time

The much-maligned Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, is thrillingly reassessed in de Lisle&rsquo;s lyrical biography

Conspirator, Warrior, and Phoenix Queen – the true story of Charles I’s wife

A myth-busting biography of Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, which retells the dramatic story of the civil war from her perspective 
 
A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE 
 
Henrietta Maria, Charles I's queen, is the most reviled consort in British history. Condemned as the 'Popish brat of France' and a 'notorious whore', she remains in popular memory the woman who turned the king Catholic - so causing a civil war - and a cruel and bigoted mother. 
 
Leanda de Lisle unpicks these myths to reveal a very different queen. We meet a new bride who enjoyed annoying her uptight husband, who was a passionate advocate for the female voice in public affairs and who, when civil war came, proved crucial to Charles's campaign. The image of the Restoration queen as an irrelevant crone is replaced with Henrietta Maria as an influential 'phoenix queen'. It is time to look again at this despised queen and judge if she is not in fact one of our most remarkable. 
 
 
'Brilliantly written, mesmerising, superb scholarship and totally immersive... A total game changer' KATE WILLIAMS, author of Rival Queens 
 
'This is revisionist history at its absolute best' ANDREW ROBERTS author of Churchill 
 
'Beautifully written and endlessly fascinating' ALEXANDER LARMAN author of The Crown in Crisis 
 
'Popular history of the finest kind' RONALD HUTTON author of The Witch

Henrietta Maria

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Leanda de Lisle

Praise for Henrietta Maria

A thrilling biography

Competent, intelligent, fun... de Lisle...has a visceral understanding of the complex emotions that swirled inside Henrietta Maria

A shrewd and elegant reassessment of Charles's I consort and widow... She was certainly a fighter

A thrilling biography

Competent, intelligent, fun... de Lisle...has a visceral understanding of the complex emotions that swirled inside Henrietta Maria

A shrewd and elegant reassessment of Charles's I consort and widow... She was certainly a fighter

A thrilling biography

Competent, intelligent, fun... de Lisle...has a visceral understanding of the complex emotions that swirled inside Henrietta Maria

A shrewd and elegant reassessment of Charles's I consort and widow... She was certainly a fighter

Books by Leanda de Lisle

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