1603. Elizabeth I dies and with her, the Tudor line comes to an end. England is plunged into crisis.

Into this time of uncertainty comes James I, arriving in London after an unprecedented procession from Scotland. In taking the throne, he established a new dynasty and the first 'united' kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales was born. The Stuarts had arrived.

But first, this new 'Great Britain' had to play catch up. Spain and Portugal had entered the New World and begun exploiting it for profit; the discovery of a direct trade route to India had begun to shift trade from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. England was behind, but James's global ambitions began to shift the tide. As ships departed London for America, Russia, Persia, India, and Japan, as the fledgling East India Company began to intertwine ever closer with the crown and as the English began to travel beyond the bounds of their island in greater numbers than ever before, the seeds of the future British Empire were sown.

In The Sun Rising, Anna Whitelock provides a unique global retelling of the reign of the first King of Great Britain. Long overshadowed by the glory of Elizabeth and fatal nadir of Charles I, the Jacobean period was one of huge cultural, political and global significance.

Anna Whitelock is a historian, author, broadcaster, and international media commentator on monarchy, public history and heritage, and the Tudors and Stuarts. She is Professor of the History of Monarchy at City, University of London and has written for publications including History Today, the Guardian and the New York Times. Her debut, Mary Tudor, was published to critical acclaim in 2009 and her prize-winning Elizabeth's Bedfellows published in 2014. She lives in Cambridge.

@AnnaWhitelock www.annawhitelock.co.uk