Excerpted from: The lives of the kings & queens of England. Rev. and updated. Berkeley : University of California Press, c1998. Includes index.

The Stuarts is an illustrated introduction to one of the most significant periods in English history, and at its centre are vivid biographies of the Stuart kings and queens. Maurice Ashley's text captures the unique characters of the Stuart monarchs and the political, social, religious and economic events of their era." "This portrait of the House of Stuart takes in all the drama of the union of the crowns of England and Scotland under James I, The Gunpowder Plot, civil war and regicide, the Restoration and the Great Fire of London - a tumultuous and unignorable period in English history.