The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
S.G.MacLean, The ‘Damian Seeker’ series marked a departure from your other novels in that you tackle the aftermath of the wars between the kingdoms. What drew you to the Cromwellian period? I came to it by accident. My first series was set in Scotland in the years...
The Midlands was hotly contested in the English Civil War, and in 1643 it was a region more vital than ever to the Royalists. Boatloads of royal supplies had been shipped, against all odds, from Holland to Bridlington, escaping Parliament’s patrolling navy. Six...
Nadine Akkerman, when first approaching this project, what was your understanding of Elizabeth Stuart and what, as a biographer, drew you to her? My first tussle with Elizabeth Stuart came about when I heard of her love for the theatre – I teach English literature,...
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Casual students of history will know Elizabeth Stuart, queen of Bohemia, by her famous sobriquet – the Winter Queen (a name derived from a jibe against her husband) – or for her minor role in the Gunpowder Plot. Those a little more familiar with the period might...
As so often, the setting came first. The Great Fire of London raged for four days in September 1666, destroying most of the ancient walled City, including old St Paul’s, the medieval cathedral, and more than 13,000 houses. Seventy thousand people were made homeless,...
Andrew Taylor, what prompted you to choose the period that you wrote your first book in? Apart from a series set in the 1950s, and a thriller set in the 1940s and 1950s, my first historical novel was The American Boy. This is set in Regency England. Subject and...
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When it comes to a battle, size does not always correlate with importance, nor is it necessarily won or lost entirely on the day itself. A small but significant action that may also have influenced another, later engagement occurred outside the town of Lemgo in 1638....
The two main characters of my novel The Bloodless Boy were real people. Both employed by the Royal Society of London, Robert Hooke was its Curator of Experiments, and Harry Hunt, who had been Hooke’s apprentice, was an ‘observator’. My story has them investigate the...
