Gimson’s Kings and Queens: Brief Lives of the Forty Monarchs since 1066

A short, lively and informative survey of the forty kings and queens of England, from the heroic to the hopeless and from William the Conqueror to the present, illustrated by Martin Rowson;

Gimson’s Kings and Queens is the most entertaining and instructive book on the English monarchy you will ever read.

For lovers of history, the experienced and the novice, the serious and the silly.

Gimson’s Kings and Queens whirls us through the lives of our monarchs - from 1066 and William the Conqueror right up to Queen Elizabeth II and the present-day - to tell a tale of bastardy, courage, conquest, brutality, vanity, vulgarity, corruption, anarchy, absenteeism, piety, nobility, divorce, execution, civil war, madness, magnificence, profligacy, frugality, philately, abdication, dutifulness, family breakdown and family recovery.

Written in Andrew Gimson’s inimitable style, and illustrated by Martin Rowson, Gimson’s Kings and Queens is both a primer and a refresher for anyone who can’t quite remember which were the good and bad Edwards or Henrys, or why so-and-so succeeded to the throne rather than his second cousin.