Amberley Publishing – The Bell Bookshop

The Shakespeare Ladies Club

Emma — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Following Shakespeare’s death in 1616, four women were crucial in ensuring the original work of the Bard was not forgotten. This was the Shakespeare Ladies Club. Formed in 1736, the club was a quartet of ‘Women of Quality’; three from the aristocracy and one a writer who ran a stationery shop, all educated and so enraptured by the plays of William Shakespeare that they met to read and discuss his transcendent genius. Not content with this, they used their power and influence to campaign successfully for a statue of their literary idol to be placed in Westminster Abbey – shamefully, to this day their efforts remain overlooked, as credit for the statue is still given to a group of men.These women put their considerable wealth behind their lobbying for more Shakespeare plays; they convinced theatre managers to put on the original versions by promising to underwrite any financial losses. They had to overcome a post-Puritan culture that believed theatre to be immoral and no place for respectable women. After nearly 300 years, this book finally tells their remarkable story.In the authors’ words: ‘The obstacles they faced were daunting, yet Susanna Shaftesbury, Elizabeth Boyd and the two Marys, Montagu and Cowper, each like the goddess Diana the archer, fired an aesthetic arrow that would strike a bullseye in Britain and, eventually, the entire world, as reviving Shakespeare has positively affected human culture to this day.’

Churches of Northern Yorkshire

Emma — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The historic county of Yorkshire is the largest in England, home to 157 Grade I listed churches. It’s huge diversity of places and landscapes is reflected in the churches found here, which nicely represent the history of this section of Yorkshire. Some of the medieval churches demonstrate the wealth of their local area at the time, often from trade or monasteries nearby, or the importance of the local town or city, but others served more remote communities and still stand out in the landscape today.In Churches of Northern Yorkshire author David Paul explores a cross-section of historical churches throughout the county, both the well known and those waiting to be discovered by a wider audience. This fascinating picture of an important part of the history of the northern half of Yorkshire over the centuries will be of interest to all those who live in or are visiting this splendid county in England.

Son of Prophecy

Emma — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As England’s most celebrated royal dynasty, it’s often overlooked that the Tudors have their origins in rural Wales, far from the urban centres of English power where they dared to become great. When Henry Tudor won the English crown by defeating Richard III in battle, he was a stranger to the people he now ruled, an ‘unknown Welshman’ in the words of his defeated foe. In his native Wales, however, Henry had long been championed as the Son of Prophecy, a foretold national messiah who would free his oppressed people from their lengthy misery. How had this remarkable situation come about?In this lucid and riveting account, Nathen Amin deftly explores how one redoubtable Welsh family thrived during lean years of political chaos, national instability, and intergenerational bloodshed to leave behind a complex legacy that changed the face of England and Wales forever. It is a passionately told tale of treachery, cunning, love, and heartbreak. From Penmynydd to Bosworth, this is the enthralling, action-packed story of the Tudors, but not as you know it.

What is Better than a Good Woman?

Emma — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Alice Chaucer, Countess of Salisbury and Duchess of Suffolk, is one of the very rare people, and the only woman, not born to nobility who became an important political player in the upheaval of fifteenth-century England. Widowed, remarkably enough, at the age of 11, that ‘marriage’ nevertheless set her on the road to power and riches. Her second husband, the Earl of Salisbury, would die at the Siege of Orléans during the Hundred Years War. Her third husband, William de la Pole, was Henry VI’s Chief Minister ? and paid for that allegiance with his life, murdered and thrown into the English Channel.Alice survived all this and more – including a state trial in 1451 – and at the same time was a patron of the arts, commissioning artworks depicting empowered historical female characters, notably St Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary. Alice possessed a large library. As late as 1472, Alice became custodian of Margaret of Anjou, her former friend and patron. She ruthlessly protected the inheritance of her son John de la Pole, and three of his four sons would pursue the Yorkist claim to the throne against Henry VII: they would all die in the attempt. Is it going too far to call Alice Chaucer a proto-feminist? If one considers her choices of subject matter as an art patron, it might not be.

Finis Britanniae

Emma — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The end of Roman Britain and the arrival of the invading Saxons forms part of the most disruptive period in Britain’s history. Centuries of relative stability as a Roman province gave way to an age of conquest and destruction. It is a period which is difficult to comprehend, coming at the end of the Roman era and in the pre-dawn of the Medieval. It is a Dark Age, both in terms of our apparent lack of source material and in our understanding of events. As a result, several legendary figures appear – it is the age of Arthur, Merlin and others; figures steeped in mystery, mysticism and magic, allowed to thrive in the paucity of the source material.In this new analysis, Murray Dahm explores the military history of Roman Britain’s slow decline, going back to the roots of the province’s final rupture from Rome in the fifth century and the subsequent invasions. Using a wide array of sources, the author illuminates this dark world and examines what we know (or what we think we know) of the Angle, Jute, Saxon and other invasions that took advantage of Rome’s absence and which, in their own way, shaped the Britain of today.

Cricket Pavilions

Emma — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

When cricket was democratised and taken up more widely in the nineteenth century, the pavilion became an essential item for every cricket club. Pavilions provide the necessary facilities – changing areas, room to eat, drink and socialise, an external clock, a scoreboard, a view of the pitch – but also a home for the trophies, scorebooks, records and archives that embody the history and heritage of a club. Whether thatched pavilions on village greens, ornate Victorian structures or modernist icons, the cricket pavilion is at the heart of the game’s architectural, social and cultural significance.Superbly illustrated throughout, this book will be of interest to those who enjoy the game and appreciate the rich variety of architectural styles represented in cricket pavilions across the country.

The Tudor Socialite

Emma — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Delivered in bite-sized diary chunks, Jan-Marie Knights takes the reader on a journey into the world of Tudor high society. This is a world of love affairs, tragedy, marriage and death; the realm of flamboyant dress, opulent jewellery and burning passions.The Tudor period continues to enchant and mesmerise the world, and here the reader can delve into the social calendar of the era. Running the gamut of society occasions – from solemn marriages to sombre funerals, and decadent feasts to lavish large-scale gatherings – The Tudor Socialite is an essential book for any Tudor fan who wants to experience life as a wallflower in the Tudor court.

Edward Longshanks’ Forgotten Conflict

Emma — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Anglo-French war of 1294-1303 has not been the subject of a major study since the early 1900s. Recent histories tend to treat it as a sideshow compared to Edward I’s wars in Wales and Scotland, which gives a false impression. In reality the Welsh and Scottish campaigns were distractions, and Edward regarded the war against France as his main focus. The main issue at stake was the defence and recovery of Aquitaine, the last substantial piece of the so-called ‘Angevin empire’. To that end Edward spent enormous sums of money on recruiting allies in the Low Countries and the Holy Roman Empire. Edward’s rival, Philip IV, also recruited allies to counter Edward, until the conflict engulfed much of Western Europe.The result was a series of military stalemates, demonstrating that neither England nor France could achieve outright victory in a head-to-head conflict. There were plenty of bloody incidents and much hard fighting: the hanging of Gascon prisoners from the walls of Rions in 1295, for instance, or the epic thirteen-week siege of Saint Sever.David Pilling places the war in its proper context and argues it was a vital step on the road to the more famous conflict we remember as the Hundred Years War.

Puritan Rule Under Cromwell

Emma — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The execution of Charles I left the Puritans free to rule England and put their beliefs into practice. Once Oliver Cromwell conquered Ireland, they began a process of radical change there, confiscating land, awarding it to British Protestants and reorganising church and state. Protestant Scotland was a different challenge. When Charles II landed, the Scots rallied around him but Cromwell broke through, flushed the royalists into England and beat them at Worcester. Scotland was not punished as Ireland was, but it was ruled from London.With power in their hands, why did the Commonwealthsmen fail? Was it divergent aims among the leaders, an inability to organise or lack of money? A godly way of life pleased few while taxation remained high. Millenarian excitement and domination by the army alarmed many and social reform proved slow. Revolution proved easy to make but hard to settle. In an age of religious ferment and commercial expansion, competing interests pressed their advantage. Oliver Cromwell’s powerful personality held the three nations together for a decade but, after his death, his son struggled. How could the government and people of the three nations be reconciled?Only a powerful general and a legitimate heir could restore order.