Mad Dogs and Englishmen. An Expedition Round My Family

London England: Hoddder & Stoughton, 2009. Hardcover. Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Discover Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes' personal expeditition to trace his extraordinary faamily through the twists and turns of history. From Charlemagne - himself a direct ancestor of the author - to the count who very nearlu persuaded William the Conquror to retreat at Hastings, many members of this unique clan have lived close to the nerve centre of the ruler of their day. They number in their ranks a murderer, a wife poisoner, a poacher, England's greatest female traveller of the seventeenth century, an extortionis Lord High Treasurers, teen cousinson who eloped, a noble lord hanged for manslaughter, another hanged for adultry with the King's wife, and many who, as admirals or major-generals, won famous battles. The Fienneses behind Cromwell provided the castle in which the Parliamentarians made their first secret moves, the same building in which twenty-one successive generations of the family have lived for 600 unbroken years. One Fiennes had his head cut off by the London mob and struck on Tower Bridge, another led the First Crusade that captured Jerusalem....and that is just a taster. Ilustrated. 386 pp. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. Academic and Scholarly books and Modern First Editions ,and all types of Educational Reference Literature.) . First Edition. Cloth. Near Fine/Near Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" Tall Octavo. Hardback.