Notorious Royal Marriages
A Juicy Journey Through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny, and Desire
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Narrated by:
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Leslie Carroll
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By:
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Leslie Carroll
About this listen
From the author of American Princess: The Love Story of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry comes a funny and delightful history of the royal weddings and marriages of Europe’s most famous—and infamous—monarchs.
Since time immemorial, royal marriages have had little to do with love—and almost everything to do with diplomacy and dynasty. Clashing personalities have joined in unholy matrimony to form such infamous couples as Russia’s Peter II and Catherine the Great, and France’s Henri II and Catherine de Medici—all with the purpose of begetting a male heir. But with tensions high and silverware flying, kings like England’s Henry II have fled to the beds of their nubile mistresses, while queens such as Eleanor of Aquitaine have plotted their revenge …
Full of the juicy gossip and bad behavior that characterized Royal Affairs, this book chronicles the love-hate marriages of the crowned heads of Europe—from the Angevins to Charles and Di—and ponders how dynasties ever survived at all.
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Excellent!
- By Louise on 04-27-08
By: Antonia Fraser
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Mary Boleyn
- By: Alison Weir
- Narrated by: Maggie Mash
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Mary Boleyn was the mistress of two kings, Francois I of France and Henry VIII of England, and sister to Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife. In this astonishing and riveting biography, Alison Weir’s extensive research gives a new and detailed portrayal, in which she recounts that, contrary to popular belief, Mary was entirely undeserving of her posthumous notoriety as a great whore.
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Historiography not a bio
- By Mary Elizabeth Reynolds on 06-03-12
By: Alison Weir
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Young and Damned and Fair
- The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of King Henry VIII
- By: Mr. Gareth Russell
- Narrated by: Jenny Funnell
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Written with an exciting combination of narrative flair and historical authority, this interpretation of the tragic life of Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, breaks new ground in our understanding of the very young woman who became queen at a time of unprecedented social and political tension and whose terrible errors in judgment quickly led her to the executioner's block.
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Magnifent scholarly work
- By Linda Erlich on 08-08-17
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In the Shadow of the Empress
- The Defiant Lives of Maria Theresa, Mother of Marie Antoinette, and Her Daughters
- By: Nancy Goldstone
- Narrated by: Emma Newman
- Length: 23 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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The vibrant, sprawling saga of Empress Maria Theresa - one of the most renowned women rulers in history - and three of her extraordinary daughters, including Marie Antoinette, the doomed queen of France.
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Awful narration!
- By Suanne Laqueur on 09-27-21
By: Nancy Goldstone
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The Six Wives of Henry VIII: A Captivating Guide to Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Katherine Parr
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Desmond Manny
- Length: 3 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Henry VIII, King of England and Ireland in the first half of the 16th century, is one of history’s most famous monarchs for many reasons. He ruled ruthlessly, was quick to cry “treason!” and execute, and equally quick to fall in and out of love. Henry changed the religious fabric of England forever and left his mark on the wider world - but what of the six women he took as his queens? From the regal and capable Catherine of Aragon to the patient and generous Katherine Parr, Henry’s wives represented a range of personalities, goals, beliefs, and influences on the king.
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Brief Overview of Henry VIII wives and mistresses.
- By Amazon Customer on 01-08-20
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Queens of the Crusades: Eleanor of Aquitaine and Her Successors
- By: Alison Weir
- Narrated by: Esther Wane
- Length: 17 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The Plantagenet queens of England played a role in some of the most dramatic events in our history. Crusading queens, queens in rebellion against their king, queen seductresses, learned queens, queens in battle, queens who enlivened England with the romantic culture of southern Europe - these determined women often broke through medieval constraints to exercise power and influence, for good and sometimes for ill.
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A real Masterpiece!
- By Amazon Customer on 03-30-21
By: Alison Weir
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Royal Witches
- Witchcraft and the Nobility in Fifteenth-Century England
- By: Gemma Hollman
- Narrated by: Heather Wilds
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Until the mass hysteria of the seventeenth century, accusations of witchcraft in England were rare. However, four royal women, related in family and in court ties - Joan of Navarre, Eleanor Cobham, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, and Elizabeth Woodville - were accused of practicing witchcraft in order to kill or influence the king. In Royal Witches, Gemma Hollman explores the lives and the cases of these so-called witches, placing them in the historical context of 15th-century England, a setting rife with political upheaval and war.
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Hard to listen to
- By donna bahr on 12-10-20
By: Gemma Hollman
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Sister Queens
- The Noble, Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile
- By: Julia Fox
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The history books have cast Katherine of Aragon, the first queen of King Henry VIII of England, as the ultimate symbol of the Betrayed Woman, cruelly tossed aside in favor of her husband’s seductive mistress, Anne Boleyn. Katherine’s sister, Juana of Castile, wife of Philip of Burgundy and mother of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, is portrayed as “Juana the Mad,” whose erratic behavior included keeping her beloved late husband’s coffin beside her for years.
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Sad but Fascinating Lives
- By Cariola on 06-29-12
By: Julia Fox
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Henry VIII
- By: Abigail Archer
- Narrated by: Sarah Nichols
- Length: 3 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Henry VIII ruled England from 1509 to 1547. As a young man, he was fond of sports and hunting and was said to be uncommonly handsome. Standing more than six feet tall, he loomed large in the lives and minds of his subjects as he navigated his country through the tricky diplomatic and military hazards of the 16th century.
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WASTE OF TIME
- By The Louligan on 09-04-20
By: Abigail Archer
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The Queen and Di
- The Untold Story
- By: Ingrid Seward
- Narrated by: Emily Gray
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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The Manchester Evening News declared, it took "a biographer like Ingrid Seward to unleash a sober, challenging glimpse into the one relationship of such scrutiny." That relationship is the complex, troubled, and often turbulent association between Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth.
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Quite one sided.
- By Beatnik RN on 02-17-15
By: Ingrid Seward
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The Tudors: A Captivating Guide to the History of England from Henry VII to Elizabeth I
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Desmond Manny
- Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Five Tudor monarchs sat on the throne of England and Ireland from 1485 to 1603. The family earned their royal rights through strategic planning and battlefield prowess, and kept them because of intellect, strength, and sheer determination. The Tudors, one of England’s most powerful and famous royal dynasties, knitted together a fragmented and small island nation that became one of the world’s financial, colonial, and technological superpowers.
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In-depth Story
- By Gail Bishop on 10-16-18
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Accents in Vlad the Impaler chapter.
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Excellent writing, engaging narration
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Nicely focused on Anne Boleyn
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Accents in Vlad the Impaler chapter.
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Too many "ashumptions" for me...
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Historian and New York Times best-selling author Alison Weir is acclaimed for her absorbing works about the infamous House of York and House of Tudor lines. In A Dangerous Inheritance, Weir uses her wealth of knowledge to craft a compelling novel about two women, living 70 years apart, who are linked through the mysterious disappearance of King Richard III's nephews, Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury - also known as the Princes in the Tower.
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Not Weir's Best
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Richard of Bordeaux and Henry of Bolingbroke, cousins born just three months apart, were ten years old when Richard became king of England. They were thirty-two when Henry deposed him and became king in his place. Now, the story behind one of the strangest and most fateful events in English history (and the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s most celebrated history plays) is brought to vivid life by the acclaimed author of Blood and Roses, Helen Castor.
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Margaret Tudor / Queen of Scots
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Catherine de' Medici
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Excellent
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Budapest
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Launched in the 1880s by the first baron, the Empain industrial empire spread from Belgium and France to span more than a dozen countries. When Baron Édouard-Jean “Wado” Empain took over, he further expanded the company, became a key player in France’s nuclear sector, and, by the mid-1970s, was one of the country’s most powerful business leaders - a self-described “master of the universe”. Wado’s vertiginous rise caught the eye of Alain Cailloll, a small-time gangster who had grown up in a wealthy family before embracing a life of crime.
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Tragic Story Well Told
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Prince Albert
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Drawn from the Royal archives, including Prince Albert’s voluminous correspondence, this brilliant and ambitious book offers fascinating never-before-known details about the man and his time. A superb match of biographer and subject, Prince Albert, at last, gives this important historical figure the reverence and recognition that is long overdue.
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Excellent Bio!
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Emily's House
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Massachusetts, 1869. Margaret Maher has never been one to settle down. At 27, she's never met a man who has tempted her enough to relinquish her independence to a matrimonial fate, and she hasn't stayed in one place for long since her family fled the potato famine a decade ago. When Maggie accepts a temporary position at the illustrious Dickinson family home in Amherst, it's only to save money for her upcoming trip West to join her brothers in California. Maggie never imagines she will form a life-altering friendship with the eccentric, brilliant Miss Emily.
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Emily’s Poems
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If You Really Loved Me
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David Brown was the consummate entrepreneur: a computer wizard and millionaire by age thirty-two. When his beautiful young wife was shot to death as she slept, Brown's fourteen-year-old daughter, Cinnamon, confessed to killing her stepmother. The California courts sentenced her harshly: twenty-four years to life. But in the wake of Cinnamon's murder conviction, thanks in part to two determined lawmen, the twisted private world of David Brown himself unfolded with astonishing clarity—revealing a trail of perverse love, twisted secrets, and evil mind games.
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I’m becoming an Anne Rule fanboy!
- By Jason Flar on 06-16-23
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1177 B.C.
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In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh’s army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians.
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Wanted to Like... And Did!
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By: Eric H. Cline
What listeners say about Notorious Royal Marriages
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- ScotDeerie
- 05-26-24
Most enjoyable!
Lots of little juicy tidbits you won’t hear on a documentary on The History Channel. Makes you wish that Queen Victoria’s diaries and letters hadn’t been edited by her daughter or that Czarina Alexa hadn’t destroyed her diaries and love letters.
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Overall
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- Julie M. Farrer
- 11-30-23
Wtf with the accents
The attempt at quotes using various accents and pronouncing names and places with accents is so bad, it makes the book almost unlistenable. It makes it very hard to focus on the story. The accents are downright awful and distracting.
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2 people found this helpful
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- BSP
- 08-31-23
Unfortunate narration, opinionated inserts
I really wanted to like this, and had been hoping for more interesting stories to go deeper into the relationship side of powerful marriages. There are some bits of that, but mostly it takes the easy road out of reiterating what we already know about inequality in marriages and insisting that women have been maligned throughout history, which is true enough but not what I was promised from the book's title and blurb.
Also, the narration is just flat out awful. It's incredibly slow -- I had to listen to it on 1.75 speed just to feel like I could follow it, which is higher than my usual listening speed -- and the narrator, who is also the author, oddly emphasizes phrases. There is also an attempt at various accents, some of which aren't too bad but many of which are just painful (especially the Italian ones). She also inserts a lot of opinion into the piece, often without substantiated sources behind it, so it comes across as "here is why I think the following misunderstood women were really mistreated geniuses" rather than a more persuasive argument of how they were successful despite popular modern belief otherwise. Some of the language used is also just jarringly... attempting to be hip? Going from badly-accented primary sources to claiming someone is "crazy like a fox" was just incredibly winceworthy.
It's a great idea, but the narration was just flat-out problematic and the opinions were really too much for me to enjoy it.
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2 people found this helpful