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Book categories: The Stuarts, Women, Arbella, Politics & Law, Stuart Era, Palaces, James I, Charles I, Charles II, James II, William and Mary, Anne, Pretenders, Old Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Fiction, British Royalty, Scottish Royalty

The Stuart Monarchy

The Royal Stuarts by Allan Massie. Explores the family's lineage from the first Stuart king to the last.

A Monarchy Transformed: Britain 1603-1714 by Mark Kishlansky. Provides an introduction to the monarchs and their times. This is the sixth volume in the Penguin History of Britain series.

An Illustrated Introduction to the Stuarts by Pamela Womack. Includes a timeline, a family tree, and chapters on each of the Stuart monarchs.

The Stuarts: A Very British Dynasty by Dr Andrew Lacey. Examines the Stuart kings and queens, from their early days as rulers of Scotland to their exile from the English throne.

Early Stuart Monarchs

Rebellion: Britain's First Stuart Kings, 1567-1642 by Tim Harris. The reign of James VI and Charles I, and why ultimately all three of their kingdoms were to rise in rebellion against Stuart rule.

The Early Stuart Kings, 1603-1642 by Graham E. Seel and David L. Smith. Explores the personalities and events of the turbulent early Stuart era, from the reign of James I to the English Civil War.

Books About Scotland's Stewarts

Personal Lives

Tudors Versus Stewarts: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary, Queen of Scots by Linda Porter. Tells the story of divided families, flamboyant kings and queens, blood feuds, sexual license, and violent deaths.

The Sickly Stuarts: The Medical Downfall of a Dynasty by Frederick Holmes. The author argues that the course of British history might have been very different if not been for the physical frailty of James I, James II, and Charles I.

Stuart Style: Monarchy, Dress and the Scottish Male Elite by Maria Hayward. This book focuses on the clothing of James VI and I, Prince Henry, Charles I, Charles II, and James VII and II.

Imaging Stuart Family Politics: Dynastic Crisis and Continuity by Catriona Murray. Children of the royal Stuart dynasty were presented to the public through texts, images and public celebrations, exposing them to intense scrutiny.

Royal Poetrie: Monarchic Verse and the Political Imaginary of Early Modern England by Peter C. Herman. Devotes a chapter each to poetry written by Henry VIII, Mary Stuart, Elizabeth I, and James VI/I. A postscript examines verses that circulated under Charles I's name after his execution.

Stuart Women & Queens

Ungrateful Daughters: The Stuart Princesses Who Stole Their Father's Crown by Maureen Waller. In 1688, seven prominent men invited William of Orange to intervene in English affairs. But it was the women, Queen Mary Beatrice and her stepdaughters Mary and Anne, who played a key role in this drama.

Anna of Denmark and Henrietta Maria: Virgins, Witches, and Catholic Queens by Susan Dunn-Hensley. How early Stuart queens navigated their roles as political players and artistic patrons in a culture deeply conflicted about female authority.

Women and Culture at the Courts of the Stuart Queens edited by Clare McManus. Literature, theater, patronage, and commissioning in the courts of Anna of Denmark (1603-19) and Henrietta Maria (1625-42).

Women According to Men: The World of Tudor-Stuart Women by Suzanne W. Hull. Discusses the rules for women's behavior, theories on conception, health habits, and more.

Arbella Stuart

Arbella: England's Lost Queen by Sarah Gristwood. Biography of Lady Arbella Stuart, a determined, passionate young woman who was a pawn in the struggle for succession to Queen Elizabeth I.

The Letters of Lady Arbella Stuart by Arbella Stuart, edited by Sara Jayne Steen. Lady Arbella Stuart (1575-1615) was a claimant to the English throne whose more than 100 letters to relatives, her husband, court officials, and friends reveal a powerful drama.

In the Shadow of the Throne: The Lady Arbella Stuart by Ruth Norrington. Biography that says both Arbella and James I suffered from porphyria.

Too Near the Throne by Molly Haycraft. A novel based on Arbella Stuart's life.

Politics, Government, & Law

The Early Stuarts: A Political History of England 1603-1642 by Roger Lockyer. Examines the controversial reigns of James I and Charles I.

The Age of Faction by Alan Marshall is about British court politics between 1660 and 1702.

Kings of the Sea: Charles II, James II and the Royal Navy by J.D. Davies. Presents the theory that the creation of the Royal Navy was due to Stuart kings, not Samuel Pepys.

The Political History of Tudor and Stuart England: A Sourcebook edited by Victor Stater. This collection of documents illustrates England's transition from the medieval to the modern.

Visualising Protestant Monarchy: Ceremony, Art and Politics After the Glorious Revolution (1689-1714) by Julie Farguson. How the English people were persuaded to transfer their loyalties to a kingship rooted in Protestantism and Parliament.

Image Wars: Promoting Kings and Commonwealths in England, 1603-1660 by Kevin Sharpe. How royalists and parliamentarians managed their public images.

Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government by G. R. Elton. Collection of papers about the political, constitutional, and personal problems of the Tudor and Stuart governments. Published in four volumes.

The Stuart Era

Century of Revolution by Christopher Hill. A classic history of the English Civil War.

The Stuart Age: England, 1603-1714 by Barry Coward. An introduction to many major themes of the period, including the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell, and the Restoration.

Rebellion: The History of England From James I to the Glorious Revolution by Peter Ackroyd. Gives an account of England's royalty along with a sense of the lives of ordinary English men and women, against a backdrop of constant disruption and uncertainty.

Early Modern England by J. A. Sharpe. A social history of England from 1550 to 1760.

Princes, Pastors and People by Susan Doran. Traces the many changes in religious life that took place during the Tudor and Stuart eras.

The Seventeenth Century: 1603-1688 edited by Jenny Wormald. Leading scholars analyze the Union of 1603 between England and Scotland; the Civil War, Commonwealth, and Restoration periods; and the cultural interaction between the kingdoms.

The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor & Stuart Britain edited by J. S. Morrill. Includes 225 color illustrations.

Stuart Court & Palaces

Palaces of Revolution: Life, Death and Art at the Stuart Court by Simon Thurley. The private lives of the monarchs, presented through the buildings in which they lived and the objects they commissioned.

The Stuart Courts edited by Eveline Cruickshanks. Essays about the cultural and administrative aspects of the Stuart courts in England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Tudors, Stuarts & the Russian Tsars: Treasures of the Royal Courts edited by Olga Dmitrieva and Tessa Murdoch. Explores exchanges between the courts of Britain and Russia from the reign of Henry VIII to the death of Charles II. Illustrated.

Other Books About British Palaces

Stuart Pretenders

Kings Over the Water: The Saga of the Stuart Pretenders by Theo Aronson. For well over a century, four Stuarts laid claim to the British crown. The first was James II, deposed in 1688; then James III (the Old Pretender) and his son, Charles III (Bonnie Prince Charlie); finally there was Henry IX (the Cardinal King) who died in 1807.

Espionage in the Divided Stuart Dynasty: 1685-1715 by Julian Whitehead. After James II lost his crown, he and his descendants tried to win it back, conspiring with Jacobites and Tories.

Books About the Old Pretender
Books About Bonnie Prince Charlie