Altschul, Michael. A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares, 1217-1314. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.

The Clares were descendants of Godfrey FitzRichard, eldest illegitimate son Richard I "the Fearless," duke of Normandy. Godfrey's grandson, Richard FitzGilbert, took part in the Conquest and became the first Norman lord of Clare, serving also as co-regent of England during the king's absences. William rewarded his loyal cousins well, granting them enormous fiefs in half a dozen counties. They became earls of Gloucester and Hereford and heirs to the earldoms of Ulster and March. They were active for generations in the Welsh and Scots wars and produced some of the most highly regarded (and feared) politicians and diplomats in England. Altschul, while providing a great deal of contextual genealogy, is really more interested in the family as a corporate business entity and in its management of its vast holdings during changing economic and political conditions. A very highly regarded book and a model of research methods in medieval England, as well as an example of clearly written prose accessible to anyone with a general knowledge of the period. Why aren't there more case studies like this?

Ashley, Maurice. The House of Stuart, Its Rise and Fall. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1980.

The author generally accepts the "great man" theory of history, so the emphasis in this very readable volume is on the key individuals of the ultimately far-flung Stewart family. From Alan, the dapifer or steward of Dol in Normandy in the 12th century, to Robert II, first Stewart king of Scots, to Henry Stewart, Cardinal of York, who was proclaimed "Henry IX" by his adherents and who died childless in Rome in 1807, the Stewart dynasty had probably a greater impact, direct and indirect, on the social and political development of Great Britain than any other of its ruling houses. Lacking notes and other scholarly apparatus, this is recommended simply as a first reader on the House of Stewart.

Bagley, J.J. The Earls of Derby, 1485-1985. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985.

When the dynastic struggle between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians ended at Bosworth Field in 1485, the victorious Henry Tudor was accompanied by his stepfather, Thomas Stanley, who was rewarded for his loyal support by being created earl of Derby. Successive earls expanded their lands and their influence, especially in the northwest of England. Eighteen Stanleys have held the title in the past five centuries and most have been successful in a variety of fields, ranging from service in numerous government cabinets to avid patronage of both William Shakespeare and horse racing. The Derby who served as Queen Victoria's prime minister declined a new dukedom in favor of retaining his ancient earldom. Surprisingly, only two previous histories of the family and the title have been published in 1793 and 1864 so this quite accessible work is doubly welcome. The author is adroit in treading the line between popular ization and academe, omitting citations but including a very extensive bibliography. His examination of the power relationships that follow the bloodlines make this an especially useful multigenerational case study.

Bergamini, John D. The Spanish Bourbons: The History of a Tenacious Dynasty. New York: Putnam, 1974.

The Spanish Bourbons are back on the throne now in the person of King Juan Carlos, who seems to be doing a much better job than some of his idiosyncratic ancestors. The first was Philip V, who reluctantly left the magnificent court of his grandfather, Louis XIV of France; he built his new palace far from Madrid so he could effectively avoid involvement in the affairs of state. His grandson, Charles IV, spent six hours every day hunting; the country was administered in his absence by his wife and her lover much to his relief. And after Napoleon, the restored monarchy in Spain was really incompetent. A thoroughly documented volume that nevertheless avoids overacademization.

Bergamini, John D. The Tragic Dynasty: A History of the Romanovs. New York: Putnam, 1969.

To the descendants of Rurik, the Romanovs were social-climbing parvenus when the first of them Michael, a nephew-by-marriage of Ivan IV "the Terrible" came to the throne in 1613. But for the next three centuries, the family ruled the largest nation on earth. Among their number were weaklings and ironhanded autocrats, murderers and religious mystics, certifiable idiots and world-class leaders of great vision. Even the ablest, though, such as Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, were victims of the Russian national irony: All their accomplishments were undone within a generation. This saga of mysterious and violent death, insatiable appetites of all kinds, and intrafamilial scheming rivals TV soap operas for plot twists. A well-documented life-and-times narrative.

Bisson, T.N. The Medieval Crown of Aragon: A Short History. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986.

Compared to the dynastic federations of Aragon with Normandy and England, or the Plantagenet and Hohenstaufen near-imperial family domains, the marriage of Aragon and Catalonia seems provincial indeed. Yet the Crown of Aragon not only outlasted its competitors, it inherited the Mediterranean lands of two of them, forging ties with Germany and Naples and finally becoming the patrimony of Ferdinand the Catholic in the formation of modern Spain. From the counts of Barcelona and Provence, through the Moorish reconquista, to the king's consolidation with Navarre and Castile under the Trast maras, the author weaves an exposition of alternating dynastic competition and amalgamation.

Cecil, David. The Cecils of Hatfield House: An English Ruling Family. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973.

This is written "from the inside" by the younger son of the 4th marquess of Salisbury, who grew up within the walls where Elizabeth I and her brother, Edward VI, played as children. The Queen gave the property to her first chief minister, Robert Burghley, 1st earl of Salisbury. This absorbing dynastic biography should be read (like Altschul's book on the Clares) as a study in the changeable fortunes of a powerful noble family.

Clifford, Hugh. The House of Clifford, from Before the Conquest. Chichester, Sussex: Phillimore, 1987.

Only twenty or so individuals can be shown with certainly to have accompanied Duke William of Normandy in the invasion of England; one of these was a Norman baron named Pons, who had witnessed several of the duke' charters. For his services, Pons received twenty-three manors in six English counties and his descendants included not only the baronial families of Poyntz and Ponson, but also the Hastings family of Eaton Hastings and the Cliffords themselves, who intermarried with the powerful De Toenis and took their name from the great border castle of Clifford in Herefordshire. As the Normans invaded Wales, the Cliffords built more castles and became prominent Marcher Lords, . . . but perhaps the most recognizable member of the family was "the Fair Rosamund," mistress and true love of Henry II, who was (according to romantic tradition) forced to take poison by Queen Eleanor. It wasn't until 1525 that Sir Harry Clifford, KG, 11th Lord Clifford, was created earl of Cumberland by his old friend, Henry VIII. During the great Catholic uprising in 1536, the Cliffords were almost the only powerful northern family to remain loyal to the Crown. After the earldom died out in 1643, the Cliffords (who were, and still are, Catholic) attained no higher rank than the lordship of Chudleigh, which the 13th baron still holds though the family moved to Rome in the 1830s and to New Zealand and Tasmania in 1876. Other Cliffords fought with Louis-Napoleon, and in the Crimea, and even in Montana with George Custer.

Additional chapters examine in detail the family's traditional Viking and Norman descent, the creation of their later seat at Ugbrooke Park, and the provable connections of several cadet lines. This well-written and nicely illustrated volume synthesizes narrative history and anecdote with careful lineage notes and numerous detailed charts. The work was begun by the author's uncle and the two complete rewrites over the next twenty years, it also received the close editorial attentions of Sir Iaian Moncreiffe, Sir Arthur Bryant, and Noel Currer-Briggs. The Cliffords acquired connections by marriage with the Ferrers, Greystoke, Nevill, Percy, Ross, Stafford, Vescy, Talbot, and numerous other powerful old families, too, so this work is valuable for reference as well as enjoyable and instuctive reading.

Cox, Eugene L. The Eagles of Savoy: The House of Savoy in Thirteenth-Century Europe. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1974.

Thomas, count of Savoy, died in 1233 a relatively obscure nobleman, but his seven sons and two daughters rose to fame, fortune, and involvement in almost every international conflict in western Europe during the next fifty years. From Scotland to Sicily, they gained access to and marriage within every important royal house in Europe. Observed Joseph Bedier, "They did not pride themselves upon their own prowess, but upon their lineage, and each of them rejoiced to contemplate in the others, as in so many mirrors, his own image multiplied."

Denieul-Cormier, Anne. Wise and Foolish Kings: The First House of Valois, 1328-1498. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1980.

They were brilliant, violent, and dissolute, and it seems appropriate that they reigned over France's Hundred years War with England. They witnessed the disaster at Cr‚cy and the triumph of the Maid of Orl‚ans. But all seven of the Valois kings were complex and fascinating men and their story is presented here in an able translation of the work of a prize-winning popular French historian.

Edwards, Anne. The Grimaldis of Monaco. New York: William Morrow, 1992.

The author has previously published works on Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Margaret, and Countess Tolstoy . . . but also on Judy Garland, Shirley Temple, Ronald Reagan, and P.T. Barnum, so one may be forgiven for unfounded suspicions of tabloidism. The second half of the workmanlike narrative does, in fact, concern itself mostly with the lively affairs of the current younger generation but the reader may ignore all that (or the reader may try). For the first half details in sweeping prose the adventurous history of the Grimaldis, "an ambitious, hot-blooded, unscrupulous race, keen to plunder, swift to revenge, and furious in battle." The harbor at Monte Carlo has been strategically important since the Carthaginian fleet anchored there. The Lombards, Arabs, Guelfs, and Genoese all had their local strongholds and the Grimaldi family arrived in 1162 as Genoese consuls. One night in 1297, Francesco Grimaldi (known as "the Spiteful") climbed the cliffs with his followers, disguised as monks, and overpowered the small garrison. The family has ruled the Rock ever since. Edwards makes clear the necessary nerve and tenacity and the willingness to fight, as well as the diplomatic balancing act the princes of Monaco have had to perform in order to survive as a more or less independent state.

English, Barbara. The Lords of Holderness, 1086-1260: A Study in Feudal Society. New York: Oxford University Press, for the University of Hull, 1979.

In the East Riding of Yorkshire, between the River Humber, the River Hull (which flows into it), and the North Sea, is a low-lying, geographically isolated triangle of small, not very prosperous freeholds, called "Holderness." It acquired its name under the Danelaw, was later reoccupied by the Saxons, and was reorganized into a single, self-contained unit after the Conquest. It hasn't changed much since then, either; the marshes have been drained and stone fortifications have been disassembled to provide stone for other projects, but nearly all its several dozen villages appear in Domesday Book.

The Conqueror gave the whole area to Odo, dispossessed count of Champagne, which wife was heiress of Aumale; through him, the counts of Aumale took possession of Holderness for nearly two centuries. This political continuity, and the peninsula's stable and static society, make it an excellent subject for this case study in the feudal system, which is scholarly in its details but still accessible to the nonspecialist. Military tenancy records provide extensive information on the families of St. Quintin, De Ros, Fauconberg, Gant, Monceaux, and others, which may be directly useful if (like my family) you have early ancestors in Holderness. Otherwise, approach this as a way to understand the medieval landed gentry and the Aumale lineage. And the bibliography is extremely thorough.

Evans, Robert J.W. The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550-1700: An Interpretation. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1979.

Curiously, many historians have tried to explain the decline and expiration of the Habsburgs, but the family's rise to power seems not to have been similarly examined. Evans bases his work solidly on primary sources in the period of the Central European Counter-Reformation. He also presents a balanced view of 16th century monarch, since the consolidation of the Habsburg state was essentially the result of a skillful series of bilateral agreements between greater and lesser rulers. This highly regarded work received several major awards and has established itself as mandatory reading for any serious student of early modern Europe.

Fawtier, Robert. The Capetian Kings of France: Monarchy & Nation (987-1328). London: Macmillan, 1960 [translated from the French edition of 1941].

The fourteen Capetian kings produced the founders of or heirs to most of the duchies and counties of France, so this well-written but nontechnical work in fact covers a lot of territory. Royal and noble marriages being political events, a fair amount of meaty genealogy appears throughout (and with the advantage of context). A good introduction for anyone considering the serious study of medieval France.

FitzGerald, Brian. The Geraldines: An Experiment in Irish Government, 1169-1601. London: Staples Press, 1951.

Ireland's insularity has been both its burden and its salvation at various periods in history, but always it has been the object of invasion. Among the families whom many would regard as the most "Irish" are the FitzGeralds, but this great house descends from Baron Maurice FitzGerald who landed at Wexford in 1169, rallied the small contingent of Normans besieged in Dublin, defeated the great army of Rory O'Connor, and paved the way for Henry II's full-scale invasion of the island. Claiming a highly questionable descent from the ancient Gherardini family of Florence, he was already half-Celtic, for his mother was Nesta, daughter of Rhys ap Tewdyr, Prince of South Wales. The Norman invasion had its political justification in the rape (it was actually more of an elopement) of Dervorgilla, Princess of Meath, by Dermot MacMurragh, King of Leinster, but the result was the feudalization of Ireland and the establishment of the FitzGeralds as earls of both Kildare and Desmond. The family also provided the ancestors of the Knights of Kerry and Glinn and the White Knights of Kilmallock, and had connections by marriage to the earls of Ulster and Ormond. The story is a rousing one, featuring such larger-than-life characters as Gerald, 8th earl of Kildare (known as "the Great Earl") and his son Gerald, who was alternately the enemy and then the confidant of Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey. Finally, the now heavily Celticized family became inevitably caught up in Hugh O'Neill's Rebellion against the Protestant Elizabeth I, and the great days of the dynasty, widely regarded as uncrowned kings of Ireland, came to an end at the Battle of Kinsale. The reader must not expect this account by a patriotic member of the family to be nonpartisan, but the historical data is accurate and the intertwining family relationships are carefully explored and explained. A most engaging volume.

Genty, Roger. Les Comtes de Toulouse: Histoire et Traditions. Ferri‚res: Editions de Poliphile, 1987.

The first identifiable rulers of Toulouse and the surrounding countryside on the Frankish marches were Visigoths in the early 5th century. A hundred years later, Clovis conquered the region for the French. Then came the armies of Islam, and the hereditary counts of Toulouse became a bulwark of Christian Europe, with all the international political leverage that entailed. By the beginning of the 13th century, Toulouse, now virtually independent, also controlled Armagnac, Foix, Carcassonne, Narbonne, and much of Provence, and its rulers had become ancestors of both the kings of France and the Angevin kings of England. Heavily chronological in organization, this well-written volume outlines the successive rulers of Toulouse down to 1271, when Raymond VII's lack of male progeny and the death of his only daughter allowed Philip III to annex the wealthy county to the French crown. Genty provides numerous details for each individual profiled, which is especially useful in the early medieval period. It helps to be able to read some French, but basic data can be extracted without that facility. Descent charts are peculiarly French in style but are easy enough to use, and a brief bibliography will lead the reader to more in-depth histories and biographies (in French, of course).

Great Dynasties. New York: Mayflower Books, 1979.

The sixteen royal dynasties outlined in this nicely illustrated translation of Grandi Dinastie cover a thousand years of European history, from the Capets and the Plantagenets to the Bonapartes and the Windsors. Each chapter is written by a recognized specialist, which greatly improves its quality. The principal theme, though, is that all of these extended families are of mixed blood, politically unified by matrimonial alliances stretching from Norway to Yugoslavia, but that such ties did not prevent national feuds. World War I, at the top levels, was a family brawl. Well-written and insightful and an altogether entertaining account.

Hallam, Elizabeth (ed.). The Plantagenet Chronicles. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986.

The Plantagenets ruled England for nearly 250 years, longer than any other dynasty, but their real focus was always their domains on the Continent. In this oversized volume, Hallam concentrates on the early period, from Count Geoffrey of Anjou (who adopted the house name) through John "Lackland," who managed to lose not only Normandy and Aquitaine but Anjou itself. The combination of well-conceived narrative, chronicles and tales recast in modern English, and hundreds of color photos make this a browser's delight.

Hallam, Elizabeth (ed.). Four Gothic Kings: The Turbulent History of Medieval England and the Plantagenet Kings (1216-1377), Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, Edward III, Seen through the Eyes of Their Contemporaries. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987.

In the sequel to Plantagenet Chronicles, Hallam follows the same style and layout and indulges in the same lavishness of illustration. In addition to the four generations of monarchs in the title, one finds featured many of the other influential figures of the time, including St. Louis IX, William Wallace, Dante and Chaucer, Thomas Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, and even Jenghiz Khan. From the birth of the Age of Chivalry to the Black Death that killed almost half of Europe (and precipitated the decline of Norman-Angevin feudalism), these were what the old Chinese curse might regard as "interesting times."

Hibbert, Christopher. The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall. New York: William Morrow, 1975.

This talented author of a long list of popular histories does an excellent job in telling the story of one of the most fascinating families in European history. Founded by the wily oligarch Cosimo (called Pater Patriae), the enormously wealthy Medici became grand dukes of Tuscany and provided some of Europe's most colorful statesmen, popes, soldiers, scholars, and patrons of the arts. They were the embodiment of the Renaissance in Italy and they ruled Florence, frequently controlled the papacy, and influenced the policies of the entire Continent for 300 years. Princesses married them, kings borrowed money from them, other city states feared them, and Michelangelo and Botticelli worked for them. To understand the origins of both modern Europe and the self-made aristocrat, you should read about them.

Le Melletier, Jean. Les Seigneurs de Bohon: Illustre Famille Anglo-Normande Originaire du Contentin. Coutances: Imprint Arnaud-Bel‚e, 1978.

Humphrey (or Onfroi) de Bohon, the first to use the name, flourished in the 11th century and was the son who migrated to newly-conquered England (his father and older brother being successive sieurs de Mary in Normandy). His children and grandchildren married into the powerful families who controlled Salisbury, Gloucester, and Warwick. His later descendants, in the 14th century, became close kin and allies of the Plantagenets and the earls of Arundel, as well, until finally Marie de Bohun (as the name was now generally spelled) married Henry of Lancaster, shortly to become King Henry IV. In fewer than 130 pages, the author succinctly outlines each important member of the family, providing full dates (or good guesses), information on spouses, and details on each subject's principal activities and accomplishments. The bibliography of sources consulted is quite thorough for a lesser-known lineage and the index is excellent. High school French will get you through most of the text but essential data can be lifted out with only occasional recourse to a dictionary. Charts and illustrations are scattered thickly throughout. A very workmanlike source on what was once a very powerfully connected family.

McGuigan, Dorothy Gies. The Habsburgs. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1966.

To produce an aristocratic dynasty able to maintain power in an array of European courts for 600 years, the prolific Habsburgs remained always a close family, bound together by respect, tradition, and affection as strong as their blood lines. The first to hit the big time, Count Rudolf von Habsburg, was a relative nonentity, and therefore the perfect compromise choice as Holy Roman Emperor in 1273. But the Electors badly underestimated him: Rudolf was a superb politician, a master of connivery, a gambler and driver of hard bargains, and a practiced psychologist. (When Vienna locked its gates against him, Rudolf threatened destruction not of the city but of the miles of vineyards outside its walls, and the horrified Viennese quickly capitulated.) Emperor Rudolf IV later "discovered" documents exalting his above all other princely families; all Habsburgs, he declared, were archdukes and archduchesses from birth. Pure chutzpah, but it stuck and from that time on, the family clung to the imperial crown, wearing it almost continuously until the empire itself finally guttered out in World War I. Tracing the fortunes of the Habsburgs from the Danube to Spain (and the New World) to the Low Countries, McGuigan does a praiseworthy job of explaining the family and relating its multitude of influence to the course of Western history . . . and manages to entertain at the same time.

McKitterick, Rosamund. The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians, 751-987. London: Longman, 1983.

This is the first modern work to examine the whole two-century history of the Carolingian dynasty in context, from Pepin III, Mayor of the Palace, to Emperor Louis V, who died without issue and was succeeded by Hugh Capet. The style is rather densely academic footnotes run a half-dozen or more to the page but don't let that prevent you from sifting out all the extremely well documented genealogical data on the Merovingians, Arnulfings, Robertians, and Ottonians, and the houses of Vermandois, Aquitaine, and Poitou, among others. The many maps and lineage tables are also excellent reference sources.

Plowden, Alison. The House of Tudor. New York: Stein & Day, 1976.

Though it produced only five sovereigns, the Tudor dynasty had a disproportionate impact on English history. Founded as a family of some power and fortune by Ednyfed Fychan, who served Llwewllyn the Great in the early 13th century, the Tudors had nearly as much English and French blood as Welsh in their veins when Henry Tudor, a little-known political refugee, staked his future on a single coup d'etat and won. Henry VII descended from Edward III through his maternal line and wrapped up the Wars of the Roses by his marriage to the niece of the king he had defeated at Bosworth Field. This well-written volume supplies the context for England's break with the Church of Rome and its part in the Renaissance that followed.

Plowden, Alison. Lady Jane Grey and the House of Suffolk. New York: Franklin Watts, 1986.

Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, was not only the brother-in-law of Henry VIII but also his best friend; after the king's own children, Brandon's descendants were named heirs to the crown. The duke's granddaughter, Jane Grey, died for her legacy at the age of sixteen, a Protestant intellectual challenging the accession of the Catholic Mary Tudor. Jane's sister Catherine subsequently ruined her chances to become heir-presumptive to Elizabeth I by her unauthorized marriage to the earl of Hertford and then by presuming to give birth to a healthy son (seven of whose close relatives lay buried headless under the chapel in the Tower where he was christened). The Suffolk drama would have been a fitting subject for a Shakespearean tragedy.

Rawcliffe, Carole. The Staffords, Earls of Stafford and Dukes of Buckingham 1394-1521. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

As one of the wealthiest and most powerful landed families in 15th century England, the Staffords played an important political role (as students of Yorkist history have reason to know). Influence was tied directly to land and Rawcliffe examines the unique Stafford family archives in this study of estate and finance management and the patronage it enabled. The composition and work of the ducal council is also explained, since the council was made up of the duke's senior administrators and lawyers, upon whom the family relied heavily. The Staffords also used litigation rather than combat as the preferred means to obtain their ends. Moreover, they were instrumental in causing the crown to change its attitudes toward the nobility as a whole. A somewhat technical historical study in Cambridge's "Studies in Medieval Life and Thought" series, but definitely worth the investment of effort.

Redman, Alvin. The House of Hanover. New York: Coward-McCann, 1960.

The Hanoverians produced six monarchs in England the four Georges, William IV, and Queen Victoria who reigned for nearly two centuries. They shared an unusual continuity of personality and appearance and Victoria ended by being the ancestress of every present ruling house and pretender in Europe, excepting only the Bonapartists. "The path of events that led a German prince, who could not speak a word of English, to the throne of Great Britain was a devious one," the author notes. It all began with Elizabeth Stewart, daughter of James I, who married Frederick the elector palatine; it eventually caught up the houses of Brunswick and Hesse, the imperial Prussian and Russian families, and finally the Saxe-Coburgs, in the person of Prince Albert. But the German newcomers had also to deal with the British parliament an experience very foreign to the absolute rulers of small German states, as were the revolutions in the American colonies and France. Lord North, Charles Fox, the Pitts, Lord Melbourne, Robert Peel, and on through Disraeli and Gladstone, all made their mark in either supporting or limiting the Hanoverians, and Britain moved finally from autocratic rule to constitutional government. A competently constructed overview of the last age of unencumbered monarchy in Britain's history.

Robinson, John Martin. The Dukes of Norfolk: A Quincentennial History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Very few high families in England have had so dramatic a history as the Fitzalan-Howards. All the first four Howard dukes were attainted, the 3rd duke escaped execution only because Henry VIII died that morning (though two of his nieces who became queens of England were beheaded), the 4th duke was unjustly executed, the 5th duke went insane, the 6th duke was excluded from public life because of his Catholicism, the 7th duke's wife left him in a public scandal, the 8th duke died prematurely, the 9th duke was childless and saw the end of his branch of the family, the 10th duke died an alcoholic, the 11th duke lost two wives and produced no legitimate children, the 12th duke's wife left him shortly after their marriage, the 13th duke's eldest son died suddenly just before his majority, the 14th duke died young and painfully, and the 15th duke's only son was born blind and epileptic.

As the leading Catholic family in England, they were aristocratic outlaws yet they were and are that nation's premier peers and hereditary marshals of England, and have long been possessed of great wealth. The author (who is Fitzalan Pursuivant Extraordinary) makes it clear that high title is no guarantee of success or happiness. And yet their dukedom has survived for more than five centuries. As earl marshal, the 16th duke was responsible for organizing the coronations of two sovereigns, the funerals of two more (as well as that of Sir Winston Churchill), and the investiture of the present prince of Wales; with the advent of radio and television, this made him widely recognized to the public at large. Semi-scholarly (there are numerous footnotes) and heavily illustrated, this volume is most instructive to the general reader and of particular interest to the student of peerage pedigrees.

Seward, Desmond. The Bourbon Kings of France. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1976.

"Licentious or bigoted, noble or ignoble, there has seldom been a dull Bourbon," wrote Nancy Mitford. The Bourbon kings of France and Navarre ruled for more than two centuries and made France the greatest power in Europe but they also ended the monarchy in France, first by being one of the major causes of the Revolution, and then by refusing to rule by constitution after their post-Napoleonic restoration. Seward is a Paris-born, Cambridge-trained historian who succeeds in combining scholarship with lively readability.

Starkey, David (ed.). Rivals in Power: Lives and Letters of the Great Tudor Dynasties. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990.

Even at the highest levels of the royal court, Tudor government involved a great deal more than three kings and two (or three) queens. Interwoven with and surrounding the Tudors were nine other great families who supplied queen consorts, mistresses, courtiers, generals and admirals, high state officials, and ambassadors the Brandons, Greys, Howards, Seymours, Dudleys, Cecils, Talbots, Sidneys, and Devereux who also were complexly related among themselves. This era often seems more of a soap opera than any other period in the history of the English monarchy, filled as it was with wealth and poverty, ambition and failure, crownings and beheadings, high statesmanship and low cunning and, everywhere, politics. On more than a few occasions, these families were willing to sacrifice their sons and daughters in their quest for power. And what makes this period especially accessible to modern readers was the development during the English Renaissance of letter-writing as we know it. Great quantities of 15th and 16th century correspondence have survived to detail every aspect of private and public business, personal opinions, pleas for mercy, and jockeying for power.

The second major theme of this volume is the constant replenishing of the nobility by the gentry since, on average, noble families lasted only three generations. Hence, Charles Brandon, best buddy of Henry VIII, who went from gentleman to duke in five years, largely on the strength of his engaging personality. The Howards also went up, down, and up again in less than two generations and have retained the earl marshal's baton ever since. And, though he left no progeny, Thomas Wolsey typifies the self-made man: from humbly-born cleric to bishop of Lincoln to archbishop of York, cardinal, and chancellor of England. A beautifully illustrated and very readable book.

Wandruska, Adam. The House of Habsburg: Six Hundred Years of a European Dynasty. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1964 (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1975).

In fewer than 200 pages, the author provides an admirable overview of the origins, dynastic career, and place in history of one of Europe's most powerful families. Maps, lineage charts, and a lengthy bibliography are included.

Please direct comments and inquiries to: Michael K. Smith

©1997-2001 Michael K. Smith / Updated: 4/015/2001