Linda Porter on why she’s happy to leave the sixteenth century behind. Last year I appeared in two programmes in the Channel Five ‘Last Days’ series, talking about Mary Queen of Scots and Charles I. Much of my contribution on Mary was eventually edited out because it did not fit the overall ‘well, she was […]
Non-Fiction Roundup
2015 is remarkable in being the anniversary of two of the most notable and evocative battles in English history – Agincourt and Waterloo. As it also eight hundred years since King John signed Magna Carta there has been a predictable flood of books covering all three of these topics. So it is a relief to […]
Linda Porter Watches Wolf Hall
I should begin with an admission. I’m not a great fan of Hilary Mantel’s Tudor novels. To me, they are tediously long and too self-consciously ‘literary’. One of the most telling remarks made about them recently was that of the eminent Tudor historian, Diarmaid MacCulloch, whose eagerly-awaited biography of Thomas Cromwell will no doubt become […]