Helen Castor

The Wars of the Roses turned England upside down. Between 1455 and 1485 four kings, including Richard III, lost their thrones, more than forty noblemen lost their lives on the battlefield or their heads on the block, and thousands of the men who followed them met violent deaths. As they made their way in a disintegrating world, the Paston family in Norfolk family were writing letters - about politics, about business, about shopping, about love and about each other, including the first valentine.Using these letters - the oldest surviving family correspondence in English - Helen Castor traces the extraordinary history of the Paston family across three generations. Blood & Roses tells the dramatic, moving and intensely human story of how one family survived one of the most tempestuous periods in English history.Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2005 and winner of the English Associations Beatrice White Prize in 2006.

In medieval England, man was the ruler of woman, and the King was the ruler of all. How, then, could royal power lie in female hands?In She-Wolves, celebrated historian, Helen Castor, tells the dramatic and fascinating stories of four exceptional women who, while never reigning queens, held great power: Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France and Margaret of Anjou. These were women who paved the way for Jane Grey, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I - the Tudor queens who finally confronted what it meant to be a female monarch.

Acclaimed historian Helen Castor brings us afresh a gripping life of Joan of Arc. Instead of the icon, she gives us a living, breathing young woman; a roaring girl fighting the English, and taking sides in a bloody civil war that was tearing fifteenth century France apart.Here is a portrait of a 19-year-old peasant who hears voices from God; a teenager transformed into a warrior leading an army to victory, in an age that believed women should not fight. And it is also the story behind the myth we all know, a myth which began to take hold at her trial: that of the Maid of Orleans, the saviour of France, a young woman burned at the stake as a heretic, a woman who five hundred years later would be declared a saint. Joan and her world are brought vividly to life in this refreshing new take on the medieval world. Helen Castor brings us to the heart of the action, to a woman and a country in turmoil, a world where no-one - not Joan herself, nor the people around her, princes, bishops, soldiers or peasants - knew what would happen next.

THE TELEGRAPH S BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 A glorious work of history a gripping and haunting tragedy There was no book published this year novels included that I found richer in character no plot more taut Tom Holland The Spectator A dazzling tour de force of epic royal history a compulsive unputdownable real life thriller a gripping portrait of ruthless power politics and a study of British tyranny written with the delicacy and elegance of one of Britain s most brilliant historians at the top of her game Simon Sebag Montefiore If ever a book of history was blessed with contemporary relevance this one is The dumbfounding delusional narcissistic King Richard the white knuckle ride of Henry IV dogged all the way by notions of illegitimacy I feel these men could have been ripped from today s headlines The book s great achievement is in the storytelling the unfolding drama the secrets of power and ambition so beautifully controlled in the telling The Eagle and the Hart will be a non fiction book of the year and will deserve the ovations it is certain to receive When history is this gripping there s nothing like it Andrew O HaganThe author of She Wolves chronicles the lives and reigns of Richard II and Henry IV two cousins whose r

The author of She Wolves chronicles the lives and reigns of Richard II and Henry IV two cousins whose rivalry brought their nation to the brink of disintegration and back again LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN S PRIZE FOR NON FICTION 2025 SHORTLISTED FOR THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY 2025 THE TELEGRAPH S BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 A glorious work of history a gripping and haunting tragedy There was no book published this year novels included that I found richer in character no plot more taut Tom Holland The Spectator A dazzling tour de force of epic royal history a compulsive unputdownable real life thriller a gripping portrait of ruthless power politics and a study of British tyranny written with the delicacy and elegance of one of Britain s most brilliant historians at the top of her game Simon Sebag Montefiore If ever a book of history was blessed with contemporary relevance this one is The dumbfounding delusional narcissistic King Richard the white knuckle ride of Henry IV dogged all the way by notions of illegitimacy I feel these men could have been ripped from today s headlines The book s great achievement is in the storytelling the unfolding drama the secrets of power and ambition so beautifully controlled

La increíble historia de una de las figuras más enigmáticas del medievo. 1412. Francia se encuentra inmersa en una larga y sangrienta guerra con Inglaterra por el trono del país, que, además, está dividido en dos facciones: los borgoñones y los armagnacs, enfrentados por hacerse con el gobierno del reino durante la regencia del enajenado CarlosVI. Mientras tanto, en la pequeña aldea de Domremy, llega al mundo una niña llamada a cambiar el destino de Europa: Juana de Arco. Todo empezo con unas voces, las de san Miguel, santa Catalina y santa Margarita, que le encomendaron una mision divina: ayudar al delfin, el hijo de Carlos el Loco, a hacerse con la corona francesa, devolver al enemigo ingles al mar y derrotar a los traidores borgoñones. Asi, Juana, una adolescente normal y corriente, se transformo en una guerrera y lidero al ejercito armagnac a la victoria en una epoca en la que el lugar de las mujeres estaba en el hogar. A partir del testimonio de testigos contemporaneos, enemigos y compañeros de armas de la Doncella de Orleans, Helen Castor, celebre historiadora britanica y miembro de la Real Sociedad de Literatura, nos lleva a la tumultuosa y feroz Francia medieval para revivir la corta pero intensa vida de una mujer extraordinaria que contravino las normas de los hombres y se convirtio en leyenda.

Cuatro grandes mujeres que reinaron en un mundo de hombres La obsesión de Enrique VIII por concebir un varón es uno de los episodios más cruciales de la historia medieval. Para conseguirlo, se divor

Cuatro grandes mujeres que reinaron en un mundo de hombres La obsesión de Enrique VIII por concebir un varón es uno de los episodios más cruciales de la historia medieval. Para conseguirlo, se divor