This colourful little handbook to the royal history of England and Scotland is the best, most easily understood and most
concise guide to the English kings that I have ever seen (or can imagine). Each part covers the new dynasties of that time period, with family trees given, portraits of the kings and queens from (or near) their times, and has a year-by-year outline of the most significant events during their reigns, which gives the most comprehensive outline and chronology I''ve had the pleasure of reading. So often, when reading shakespeare''s or Marlowe''s
historical plays, the Robin Hood tales, Scott''s historical novels, or other materials about, or set in, England, you get a very shaky notion of what happened when and who did it. Most histories of England fail to get to the pith of the situation -- they are wordy, verbose and entangled -- when all you wanted to know was the historical sequence of events and personages so that you could understand the stories and allusions in literature. If that''s your difficulty, as it was mine, this is the book for you. It is beautifully set up and printed in colours, with placement and design, that make information readily available and easy to find. The dynasty is first mentioned, then each individual monarch within it; at he bottom of each monarch''s page/s, in a peach-coloured section, with the events of his/her/their reigns. This book is clear, concise, well illustrated and easy to read, with a very effective index.