John Gillingham

Peter Earle

Each of these lavishly illustrated books serves up a brief and manageable portion of the Fraser-edited and much-touted Lives of the Kings and Queens of England. A set of six jewels for Fraser's crown.

The Middle Ages

Captain Henry Morgan's capture of the city of Panamá in 1671 is seen as one of the most audacious military operations in history. In The Sack of Panamá , Peter Earle masterfully retells this classic story, combining thorough research with an emphasis on the battles that made Morgan a pirate legend.Morgan's raid was the last in a series of brutal attacks on Spanish possesions in the Caribbean, all sanctioned by the British crown. Earle recounts the five violent years leading up to the raid, then delivers a detailed account of Morgan's march across enemy territory, as his soldiers contended with hunger, tropical diseases, and possible ambushes from locals. He brings a unique dimension to the story by devoting nearly as much space to the Spanish victims as to the Jamican privateers who were the aggressors.The book covers not only the scandalous events in the Colonial West Indies, but also the alarmed reacions of diplomats and statesmen in Madrid and London. While Morgan and his men were laying siege to Panamá , the simmering hostilities between the two nations resulted in vicious political infighting that rivaled the military battles in intensity. With a wealth of colorful characters and international intrigue, The Sack of Panamá is a painstaking history that doubles as a rip-roaring adventure tale.

Captain Morgan and the Battle for the Caribbean

The Sack of Panamá

The Pirate Wars : Pirates Vs. the Legitimate Navies of the World

The Pirate Wars

Men and Women of London 1650-1750

A City Full of People

"Monmouth Rebellion, also known as The Revolt of the West or The West Country rebellion, was an attempt to overthrow James II, who had become King of England, Scotland and Ireland upon the death of his elder brother Charles II on 6 February 1685. James II was a Roman Catholic, and some Protestants under his rule opposed his kingship. James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II, claimed to be rightful heir to the throne and attempted to displace James II."--Wikipedia.

The Road to Sedgemoor, 1685

Monmouth's Rebels

The last fight of the Revenge, which took place during the last two days of August 1591, remains one of the most famous of all sea fights in English history. The courage of Sir Richard Grenville who stood firm with one ship against an armada of 53 has inspired generations of seafarers as well as Tennyson's evocative poem, The revenge : a ballad of the fleet.

The Last Fight of the Revenge

The Last Fight of the Revenge is the true story of one of the most famous and extraordinary battles in naval history, when Sir Richard Grenville fought with just one galleon, the Revenge, against an armada of fifty-three Spanish ships in the waters of the Azores. Three years after playing her part in the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the Revenge was drawn into a suicidal encounter with the Spanish fleet whilst hunting treasure in the Azores. Despite her inevitable defeat and surrender after an epic and frenzied twelve-hour battle, the Revenge's last stand passed into history as a paragon of English maritime heroism, immortalised by Sir Walter Raleigh and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

This is the first major study of a neglected yet extremely significant subject: the London middle classes in the period between 1660 and 1730, a period in which they created a society and economy that can be seen with hindsight to have ushered in the modern world. Using a wealth of material from contemporary sources--including wills, business papers, inventories, marriage contracts, divorce hearings, and the writings of Daniel Defoe and Samuel Pepys--Peter Earle presents a fully rounded picture of the "middling sort of people," getting to the hearts of their lives as men and women struggling for success in the biggest, richest, and most middle-class city in contemporary Europe. He examines in fascinating and convincing detail the business life of Londoners, from apprenticeship through the problems and potential rewards of different occupational groups, going on to look at middle-class family, social, political and material life--from relationships with spouses, children, servants, and neighbors, to food and clothes and furniture, to sickness, death, and burial. Stimulating, scholarly, and constantly illuminating, this book is an important and impressive contribution to English social history.

Peter Earle

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