Derbyshire, 1603: Elizabeth I is dead and the Tudor reign is over. As the men in power decide to pass the throne to the Scottish King James, one woman debates changing the course of history. Two Tudor heirs have been covered up for decades, and with a foreign king threatening the stability of England it […]
Aphra Behn: A Secret Life
Our guest this month is Janet Todd, an internationally renowned scholar and biographer, expert on women’s writing and feminism and the author of two novels, Lady Susan Plays the Game and Man of Genius. She is a Professor Emerita at the University of Aberdeen and Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge. Her pioneering biography of Restoration writer Aphra Behn has recently […]
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 […]
Escaping the Tudors
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 […]