British Legends

An action-packed finale to The Chronicles of Robin Hood.AD 1203. Plantagenet England: The mighty overlords of Sherwood Forest wage war against the poor and desperate. The Sheriff of Nottingham and Guy of Gisborne impose a vicious tyranny across the shire.Where is Robin Hood, the leader of the outlaws and rebels? Has he abandoned the persecuted folk of the Forest? As the darkness of winter falls across Sherwood, nobody is sure whether Robin Hood lives or not…Has the revolt against the cruel and powerful overlords been put down at last?This retelling of the Robin Hood legend takes the tale ...

Was he "the greatest human being ever to occupy 10 Downing Street"? Or a man whose "brilliant but unsound judgement resulted in detrimental consequences for Britain and for the world"? Nearly 50 years after his death, debate still rages over Sir Winston Churchill's contribution to history. Indeed, now that wartime nostalgia has mostly washed away, in Britain in particular the views on Churchill are more divergent than ever.

Actor. Dramatist. Poet. Husband. Father. Producer. Businessman. Servant of the Crown. All of the above can be applied to William Shakespeare. Certainly England's greatest playwright, he is still considered to be the most influential writer in the English language. Leaving behind a nearly unprecedented body of work to his credit, he addressed the full spectrum of the human condition and achieved what few other writers have in becoming a part of a global consciousness.

Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett was among the last of a legendary breed of British explorers. For years he explored the Amazon and came to believe that its jungle concealed a large, complex civilization, like El Dorado. Obsessed with its discovery, he christened it the City of Z. In 1925, Fawcett headed into the wilderness with his son Jack, vowing to make history. They vanished without a trace. For the next eighty years, hordes of explorers plunged into the jungle, trying to find evidence of Fawcett's party or Z. Some died from disease and starvation; others simply disappeared.

Over 450 years after his reign, Henry VIII is still the most famous and recognizable king of England, but it's for all the wrong reasons. He is best remembered today for his gluttony and multiple marriages, particularly for beheading some of his wives. It is somewhat fitting that his most decisive act came as a result of a marital mishap. Sharply at odds with the Catholic Church, Henry VIII ultimately broke with the Church and established the Church of England, which forever altered the religious history of England, the social hierarchy of the nation, and its empire.

For someone whose career ended over 30 years ago, Audrey Hepburn continues to retain her popularity and exert a strong influence over how people view beauty and sophistication.

The gripping saga of the plane that carried Britain through the Second World War. In June 1940, the German army had brought the rest of Europe to its knees. 'Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world will move forward into broad, sunlit uplands,' said Churchill. The future of Europe depended on Britain.

“The arrow swift to wound is already drawn from the quiver ; soon will the blow be struck ...” Robin of Locksley joins the annual village games, signifying the ancient battle between the ‘Lord of the Hood,’ and The Dark. A night of good cheer turns to terror as soldiers arrive to arrest Robin’s foster father, accused of poaching and witchcraft. During a struggle between Robin and a Norman master, the lord is killed and Robin made “wolfshead” – a term for a hunted man with a price on his head. Joining with his cousin Scarlet, John Little and Much the Miller's Son, they must ...

Ghosts walk among us—dare to uncover their stories? From fog-drenched castles and haunted graveyards to restless spirits in historic inns, the United Kingdom is home to some of the world’s most chilling ghost stories. Across England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, spectral figures and whispered legends have left their mark on history—and continue to terrify visitors to this day. Inside Haunted UK, you’ll discover: 👻 The Tower of London’s Ghostly Prisoners – Apparitions of Anne Boleyn and the Princes in the Tower still roam the infamous stronghold. 👻 Leap Castle’s Sinister...

Some secrets are best left, buried deep within the earth… I am thrilled to put together this collection of creepy short stories set in different parts of the world!! Whether it is a small non-descript village in India, the magnificent monasteries in Tibet, the numerous alleys of Kathmandu, the terraced rice fields of Japan, or the Serengeti plains of Tanzania— the locations are as beautiful as the horrifying events which unravel in them! This volume contains 5 horror stories that will have you feverishly turning pages, wanting more— Whether it is a village which is terrorized by an ...

To us she appears inconsistent - religious yet aggressive, calculating yet emotional, with the light touch of the courtier, yet the strong grip of the politician - but is this what she was, or merely what we strain to see through the opacity of the evidence? As for her inner life, short of a miraculous cache of new material, we shall never really know. Yet what does come to us across the centuries, is the impression of a person who is strangely appealing to the early 21st century: A woman in her own right - taken on her own terms in a man's world.

A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors' British Legends series, listeners can get caught up to speed on the lives of Great Britain's most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.

Charles Dickens needs no formal introduction, having been the most popular English writer of the 19th century and still one of the most popular writers in history today. Dickens' upbringing was a mixture of happy times and sad. These qualities eventually helped forge him into a man many regard as the greatest Victorian era novelist, perhaps in the world, and the author of some of the most remarkable fictional characters who retain tremendous staying power to this day.

From the spectre of Queen Victoria, to Mary Queen of Scots’s picky ghost, and from Henry VIII and the restless phantoms of his many wives, to Oliver Cromwell, who claimed to have conversed with the ghosts of Kings long gone, we are going to be exploring the haunted history of the Royal Family.

Step into the heart of Victorian London with “Mirror of the Damned,” a thrilling gothic horror story set in the hidden corners of Notting Hill. This tale revolves around the mysterious and cursed Mirror of the Damned, found in the peculiar shop of Mr. Abernathy. Here, the wealthy Sir Reginald Harcourt becomes obsessed with uncovering his future, leading him down a path of madness. Will the curse consume him, or can he break free from the mirror’s dark grip? Join the adventure in “Mirror of the Damned,” where the power of the human spirit is tested against the backdrop of time, ...

Sometimes there are just too many rules, even when you are set to be a ruler someday... Princess Pamela will one day be Queen of England, but all she really wants is a little freedom. So she escapes Buckingham palace, and adventure ensues... Escape from Buckingham Palace combines Arthurian legend and Leonard Wibberley's trademark humor to give the reader a wry commentary on government that's organized, nationalized, impersonalized, bureaucratized, and held together by red tape. Also published under the title, The Quest of Excalibur. "Few writers have so luxuriant an imagination as that ...

Myles Phillipson, the local magistrate, is eager to obtain the lands of Kraster and Dorothy Cook by any means necessary. He frames the couple for theft and sees that they are hanged. But on the scaffold Dorothy curses him. He might build his mansion on the lakeside where the Cooks' house once stood, but he would never know a moment's peace from that moment on. Myles is a practical man, not given to superstition, but when he holds a banquet in his newly built stately pile, he hears noises from upstairs--rolling and bouncing, and then demonic laughter. On the wall, the shadows of two macabre ...

Among the most significant water displacement phenomena in the Western world was Doggerland on the northern European continent. The notable inundation occurred in both a steady and eruptive fashion, covering a vast stretch of former tundra, a land bridge between today’s British Isles and the European continent.

"To boldly go where no man has gone before" was a phrase made popular by Gene Rodenberry in a science fiction setting, but it was certainly the creed of countless explorers during the Age of Discovery and afterwards. In fact, as recently as the mid-18th century, a young sailor named James Cook determined to go "farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it is possible for a man to go." And unlike so many others who tried, he did just that.

The biggest annual sports event in the world is the Tour de France. In the wake of its overwhelming popularity, it’s easy to forget that there is much more to cycling than whoever gets to wear the yellow jersey. Cycling is rich with legends and pioneers, and it is their stories which light up this compelling account of the sport. This is the story of British cycling as told through the lives of the people who built it. From the first recorded race in a Paris park in 1868 to the present day, Great British Cycling Legends profiles the true originals.