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King Henry III of France has not suffered well at the hands of posterity. Generally depicted as at best a self-indulgent, ineffectual ruler, and at worst a debauched tyrant responsible for a series of catastrophic political blunders, his reputation has long been a poor one. Yet recent scholarship has begun to question the validity of this judgment and look for a more rounded assessment of the man and his reign. For, as this new biography of Henry demonstrates, there is far more to this fascinating monarch than the pantomime villain depicted by previous generations of historians and novelists. Based upon a rich and diverse range of primary sources, this book traces Henry’s life from his bir...
For four centuries, the Polish�Lithuanian state encompassed a major geographic region comparable to present-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, and Romania. Governed by a constitutional monarchy that offered the numerous nobility extensive civil and political rights, it enjoyed unusual domestic tranquility, for its military strength kept most enemies at bay until the mid-seventeenth century and the country generally avoided civil wars. Selling grain and timber to western Europe helped make it exceptionally wealthy for much of the period. The Polish�Lithuanian State, 1386�1795 is the first account in English devoted specifically to this important era. It ta...
This book examines the first thirty years of Elizabeth I’s reign from the perspective of the Valois kings, Charles IX and Henri III of France. Estelle Paranque sifts through hundreds of French letters and ambassadorial reports to construct a fuller picture of early modern Anglo-French relations, highlighting key events such as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, the imprisonment and execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the victory of England over the Spanish Armada in 1588. By drawing on a wealth of French sources, she illuminates the French royal family’s shifting perceptions of Elizabeth I and suggests new conclusions about her reign.
Deirdre Kirkwood, the bastard child of Griffin, a Catholic priest, and demon-infested Roanna Douglas, has been raised with her cousins Betsy and Hal, the children of Griffin’s twin, Donovan. Each of them has inherited a powerful magical talent and a wolfhound familiar. Any of them could become the next Merlin of Britain. Deirdre’s quest to know something, anything, about her father leads to a confrontation with El Lobison the Master of all Werewolves. No one is safe from him, as the cousins learn to their terror In and out of royal courts, the three cousins build a network of spies who are the only ones who can counter the weather, the werewolves, and the Spanish as England faces the relentless Spanish Armada.
In August 1589 Henri III, the last of the Valois Kings of France, was assassinated by a Dominican monk, Jacques Clement. This ill-fated and much maligned son of Henri II and Catherine de Medici was succeeded by the first of the Bourbons, Henri IV and King of Navarre. This collection of studies by international experts in the field examines fresh evidence and casts new light upon the interpretation of the character and politics of the last of the Valois and Henri IV and the Bourbon dynasty. This book is valuable for all those who take an interest in French history whether they be students, academics or general readers.
A Companion to the Reformation in Central Europe analyses the diverse Christian cultures of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Czech lands, Austria, and lands of the Hungarian kingdom between the 15th and 18th centuries. It establishes the geography of Reformation movements across this region, and then considers different movements of reform and the role played by Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox clergy. This volume examines different contexts and social settings for reform movements, and investigates how cities, princely courts, universities, schools, books, and images helped spread ideas about reform. This volume brings together expertise on diverse lands and churches to provide the...
The year 1588 finds the Kingdom of France in the grip of its seventh civil war. Three decades of bloody religious strife between Roman Catholics and Protestant Huguenots have cut a seemingly insurmountable rift. Philippe de Treffort is a young nobleman and captain in the army of the Catholic League, sworn to defend the Apostolic Faith against the heretic Reformed Religion. When spring maneuvers take him and his troops to a remote village in the southern Ile de France, he becomes enthralled with Sandrine, the local innkeepers daughter. From the moment they meet, he senses a mystery behind this beautiful, headstrong child so different from the peasants among whom she lives. In a moment alone, ...
Known as the “Father of Church History,” Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea in Palestine and the leading Christian scholar of his day. His Ecclesiastical History is an irreplaceable chronicle of Christianity’s early development, from its origin in Judaism, through two and a half centuries of illegality and occasional persecution, to a new era of tolerance and favor under the Emperor Constantine. In this book, Michael J. Hollerich recovers the reception of this text across time. As he shows, Eusebius adapted classical historical writing for a new “nation,” the Christians, with a distinctive theo-political vision. Eusebius’s text left its mark on Christian historical writing from late antiquity to the early modern period—across linguistic, cultural, political, and religious boundaries—until its encounter with modern historicism and postmodernism. Making Christian History demonstrates Eusebius’s vast influence throughout history, not simply in shaping Christian culture but also when falling under scrutiny as that culture has been reevaluated, reformed, and resisted over the past 1,700 years.