The Jacobite Rebellion of 1745-46 is one of the most important turning points in British history–in terms of national crisis every bit the equal of 1066 and 1940. The tale of Charles Edward Stuart, "Bonnie Prince Charlie," and his heroic attempt to regain his grandfather's (James II) crown–remains the stuff of legend: the hunted fugitive, Flora MacDonald, and the dramatic escape over the sea to the Isle of Skye. But the full story–the real history–is even more dramatic, captivating, and revelatory.

Here is the only affordable selection of Clarendon's classic History of the Rebellion currently in print, and the first popular edition since 1953. Written by one of the closest advisers to Charles I and Charles II, Clarendon's History contains a remarkably frank account of the inadequacies of royalist policy-making as well as an astute analysis of the principles and practice of government.

It began as poisonous rotgut in Medieval Russia—Ivan the Terrible liked it, Peter the Great loved it—but this grain alcohol "without distinctive character, aroma, taste, or color" has become our uncontested king of spirits. Over a thousand brands fight for market share, shelved in glass skulls, Tommy guns, bulletproof bottles; flavored with pears, currants, chipotle; or quintuple distilled by Donald Trump. But it wasn't always thus. For 200 years, America drank the brown stuff, which gave us Colonial rumrunners, the Whiskey Rebellion, and Bourbon County, Kentucky. So how did Russia's "little water," originally a medieval rotgut medicine, unseat America's favorite hooch?

Captain BloodThrough a series of mishaps, caused by his desire to do the right and honorable thing, Peter Blood, Irishman, soldier, graduate of Trinity College in Dublin, and doctor, goes to the aid of a well-born client who was wounded in an act of rebellion for which the doctor has no sympathy. While the aristocratic leaders of the rebellion buy their freedom, Blood is condemned for aiding the rebels and, with the others from the lower classes, is transported to Barbados as a slave. After escaping, he comandeers a Castilian warship and becomes a pirate.

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Years of savage feuding between the Scotch and the English came to a bloody boil with the rebellion of 1715. More than an attempt to place a member of the house of Stuart on the English throne, it was an outpouring of hatred by the oppressed Scotch. A leading figure in the rebellion was the Scotch robber-hero, Rob Roy.