Although the Seymours arrived with the Normans, it is with Jane, Henry VIII’s third queen, and her brothers – Edward, Duke of Somerset, and Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley – that they became prominent. Jane bore Henry his longed-for son, Edward VI, and both her brothers achieved prominence through her. Her brother Edward was central to Henry’s activities in Scotland and became Lord Protector for the young king, his nephew, a hugely powerful position. Thomas married Henry’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr, and after her death in 1548 aimed to marry Princess Elizabeth (the future Elizabeth I), with whom he had flirted when she was in Catherine’s care, and for this he was executed for high treason. Edward fell foul of his fellow councillors and was also executed. Edward’s son was restored to the title of Lord Hertford by Elizabeth I, but was sent to the Tower when it emerged that he had secretly married Jane Grey’s sister, Catherine, who was Elizabeth’s protestant heir. Both her marriage and pregnancy were an affront to the queen. This is the epic rise and fall of the family at the heart of the Tudor court and of Henry VIII’s own heart; he described Jane as ‘my first true wife’ and left express orders to be buried next to her tomb at Windsor Castle. The family seat of Wolfhall or ‘Wolf Hall’ in Wiltshire is long gone, but it lives on as an icon of the Tudor age.

Product Description: The Harvard Celtic Colloquium provides a small but international audience for presentations by scholars from all ranks of scholarship and all areas of Celtic Studies, the archaeology, history, culture, linguistics, literatures, politics, religion, and social structures of the countries and regions in which Celtic languages are or were spoken, and their extended influence, from prehistory to the present...read more

Product Description: The delineation and emergence of the Irish border radically reshaped political and social realities across the entire island of Ireland. For those who lived in close quarters with the border, partition was also an intimate and personal occurrence, profoundly implicated in everyday lives...read more

Product Description: The late medieval kings of England showed little interest in their Lordship of Ireland. They showed even less interest in the Gaelic Irish population of the island. Richard II, however, was different. This English monarch led two expeditions to Ireland in 1394-5 and the summer of 1399...read more

Product Description: This study of Co. Mayo during the revolutionary period examines all aspects of life of the county during a period of extreme upheaval. Augusteijn utilizes a wide array of sources, including memoirs of and interviews with former IRA men and women, newspaper reports, police records and other official documents from the British as well as the alternative Sinn Fein led governments...read more

Product Description: Ireland’s Easter Rising of 1916 was almost wholly restricted to Dublin. The insurrectionists numbered around 1,500 men and 200 women. Most Dubliners were hostile to them and many encouraged the British. Militarily the insurrectionists never had a hope—against them the British threw vastly superior numbers and firepower...read more

Product Description: The guerilla war waged between the IRA and the crown forces between 1919 and 1921 was a pivotal episode in the modern history of Ireland. This book addresses the War of Independence from a new perspective by focusing on the attitude of a powerful social elite: the Catholic clergy...read more

Product Description: The history of St James's Hospital stretches back to 1703 when an act was passed to build a workhouse on its site. Just under thirty years later a foundling hospital was added to the workhouse. The opening chapters discuss this period and the pitiful treatment of abandoned children...read more

Product Description: The visitation records of the Church of Ireland were largely destroyed in the fire in the Public Record Office of Ireland in 1922, thus greatly enhancing the significance of those which have survived in copy form. This volume provides editions of the visitations of the diocese of Meath for the years 1622, 1693, 1733 and 1799 which offer unique insights into the life of the Church of Ireland and its interaction with the wider community, from the post-Reformation period to the eve of the Act of Union...read more