E C Fremantle tackles the contentious question of King James I & VI’s sexuality. Under Rubens’ glorious ceiling, depicting the heaven-bound figure of King James I & VI surrounded by the flickering wings and dimpled flesh of a host of cherubs, a six foot six transvestite, wearing a corset, heels, bum-roll and not much else, […]
Aphra Behn: A Secret Life by Janet Todd
There is nothing Janet Todd doesn’t know about the Restoration playwright, Aphra Behn; her acclaimed 1996 biography is testimony to this. Twenty years on she has returned to this work, updating it with subtle textual revisions and a new introduction: Aphra Behn: A Secret Life is the result. In the years separating these editions historical […]
Historia Interviews: Antonia Senior
Antonia Senior talks to Elizabeth Fremantle about her new novel The Tyrant’s Shadow. The Tyrant’s Shadow follows on from the events of your previous novel Treason’s Daughter, was it always your intention to write more than one book with these characters? I had intended to write only one book. It was my then editor’s idea […]
The Tyrant’s Shadow by Antonia Senior
Revisiting characters from the critically acclaimed Treason’s Daughter, Antonia Senior has set her new novel, The Tyrant’s Shadow, some years later in the wake of the English Civil Wars. This series of brutal conflicts has left no family untouched by tragedy and division. The country is reeling, religious sects await the second coming and power […]
Historia Interviews: Sarah Gristwood
In her ambitious new book, Game of Queens, Sarah Gristwood explores the lives of twelve remarkable women, all pivotal figures in sixteenth century European politics. Through their stories Gristwood describes the complex and significant networks of female power running through Renaissance Europe that have often been overlooked by history. We are able to understand the […]
The Crown: Netflix’s Royal Affair
‘Prepare to be welcomed into the coveted world of power and privilege….the leaders of an empire await,’ states the blurb on Netflix about The Crown. Whether or not you subscribe to the streaming service you will doubtless be aware of the eagerly anticipated new series about the reign of Elizabeth II from Peter Morgan, (of […]
1666: Plague, War and Hellfire by Rebecca Rideal
It is unsurprising that there seems to be a new appetite for the Stuart period, given the seventeenth century brought us some of the best and most enduring drama ever written, a regicide, a civil war, a republic, a restoration and, in the aftermath of all this, one of the most dramatically eventful and devastating […]
Are the Stuarts the New Tudors?
It’s quite possible that we have reached peak Tudor. Henry VIII’s stinking, gangrenous leg has been endlessly speculated upon, every layer of Elizabeth I’s petticoats has been lifted and thoroughly searched and Anne Boleyn’s execution has been read, learned and inwardly digested from all possible angles. There are even novels that speculate upon what might […]