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Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II by Linda Porter

16 April 2020 By Editor

According to the great diarist, John Evelyn, Charles II was ‘addicted to women’, and throughout his long reign a great many succumbed to his charms. Clever, urbane and handsome, Charles presided over a hedonistic court, in which licence and licentiousness prevailed. Mistresses is the story of the women who shared Charles’s bed, each of whom wielded […]

Charles II’s last mistress

16 April 2020 By Linda Porter

Linda Porter, author of Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II, writes about Hortense Mancini, the beautiful but unconventional niece of Cardinal Mazarin who became the king’s last mistress. Everyone knows that Charles II was an amorous king. The Restoration court was renowned for glamorous women parading their charms in the latest […]

Escaping the Tudors

29 September 2016 By Linda Porter

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

1 October 2015 By Linda Porter

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

1 April 2015 By Linda Porter

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 […]

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The Three Paradises by Robert Fabbri

7 January 2021

The Wolf Hunt by Tim Hodkinson

7 January 2021

A Remedy In Time by Jennifer Macaire

7 January 2021

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Editor’s Picks

Entrance to Auschwitz

Torn from home

27 January 2019

Was America, not Wallis, the real reason Edward VIII abdicated?

23 September 2018

Mutiny on the Bounty

10 January 2018

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Historia Magazine is published by the Historical Writers’ Association. We are authors, publishers and agents of historical writing, both fiction and non-fiction. For information about membership and profiles of our member authors, please visit our website.

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