The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
If a hero is a person who is greatly admired for their courage, outstanding achievements or noble qualities, then the phrase “folk hero” has a slightly different emphasis. A folk hero is someone who is popular with and respected particularly by the ordinary people....
Don’t Mention the War: The Start of Civil War in England The tragedy of the Civil War is explored by the author of a new biography of Charles I. The devastating civil wars of the 17th century tore Great Britain’s three kingdoms apart. They were wars ‘without an...
James I: The Wisest Fool What makes a good king? What, for that matter, makes a good leader? Nowadays, we might identify qualities such as charisma, presence, and – one would hope – intelligence in decision-making and genuine care for the wellbeing of the people...
Few other outlaw groups in history have left such an enduring legacy as the seafaring pirates of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In The Pirate Menace, Angus Konstam explores how, when, why, and where the world’s most infamous (and many lesser known) pirates...
When one looks at the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland under Oliver Cromwell in August 1658, would it have been fanciful to imagine a Republic for the foreseeable future, yet within two years the Stuarts were back on the throne? By August 1658, the...
Richard Cromwell had one of the strangest and saddest public lives in English history. An obscure country gentleman until he was 30, he then underwent a brief schooling in politics and government, before ruling as the second Protector for eight months. Vulnerable to...
Books Click on any of the books covers below to either buy or get more information on Amazon From the Publisher Chiselbury Publishing was founded 2011 to make the works of James Leasor, one of the bestselling and most prolific British authors of the second half of the...
As a former policewoman, Blessin Adams is well aware of the human cost of murder. In Great and Horrible News, this moving nonfiction study, she investigates the crimes that shook Tudor and Stuart England. In doing so, she approaches her cases forensically: and what a...
In preparation for my meeting with Robert Harris (of course I’d read his latest novel, Act of Oblivion), I read a number of interviews and listened to his Desert Island Discs with Kirsty Young. 12 years old now, it is a fascinating and enlightening episode, and gave...
Leanda de Lisle’s biography of Henrietta Maria has burnt through the mist of four hundred years of propaganda. It pitches Henrietta at her own level. She is brought down from pious pedestals and raised up from the mire in which her reputation has often lain. With this...
