The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Miranda Malins, author of The Puritan Princess, has returned to the Cromwell’s and provided a real treat: a step back in time, to the 1640s, to trace the family’s uneasy rise to power. This time, however, a different Cromwell daughter - Bridget - takes centre stage....
Miranda Malins, author of The Puritan Princess, has returned to the Cromwell’s and provided a real treat: a step back in time, to the 1640s, to trace the family’s uneasy rise to power. This time, however, a different Cromwell daughter - Bridget - takes centre stage....
A Dangerous Trade was the first in your Queen’s Spies thrillers, set in Elizabethan England and involving the interweaving fates of Queen Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots – there were plenty of plots throughout Elizabeth I’s reign. Did any real-life plots make it...
Helen Hackett, The Elizabethan Mind is the product of an enormous amount of research, comprising study of a variety of texts, from plays to printed prose works, to poems, and of course dramas. I’m curious as to whether you think the medium can tell us something about...
The Elizabethan Mind is a book I’ve awaited with excitement. Some years back, I was fortunate to hear Helen Hackett present her work on what would become this book at a symposium held in honour of my supervisor and friend, Alison Thorne. To my delight, the text not...
The Civil Wars, despite their importance in British history, tend to be little discussed - certainly in comparison to, say, the Tudor or Victorian eras. Why do you think that is - is the conflict viewed as too complicated, or stemming from obscure religious and...
David Starkey is the latest historian to get in on the action of YouTube. Viewers will be familiar with him, of course, from his media presence (on television, radio, and in print); now, he has begun a YouTube series, the scope of which includes English political and...
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...
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,...
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...
