Blog Tour: Claire Ridgway

I am delighted to welcome Claire Ridgway to the blog as part of her tour for her new book, Tudor Places of Great Britain. Claire Ridgway is the author of the best-selling books George Boleyn: Tudor Poet, Courtier and Diplomat (co-written with Clare Cherry); On This Day in Tudor History; The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown; Sweating Sickness: In a Nutshell and both instalments in The Anne Boleyn Collection. Claire was also involved in the English translation and editing of Edmond Bapst's 19th century French biography of George Boleyn and Henry Howard, now available as Two Gentleman Poets at the Court of Henry VIII. 

Claire worked in education and freelance writing before creating The Anne Boleyn Files history website and becoming a full-time history researcher, blogger and author. The Anne Boleyn Files is known for its historical accuracy and Claire's mission to get to the truth behind Anne Boleyn's story. Her writing is easy-to-read and conversational, and readers often comment on how reading Claire's books is like having a coffee with her and chatting about history. Claire is also the founder of The Tudor Society.

"A History of the English Monarchy" extract: Lord of Warriors and Ring-Giver of Men

My most recent book A History of the English Monarchy covers the English Crown from Roman rule to the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, when the monarchy began to shift into a British institution. To mark almost a year since it was released, I'm posting short extracts from each of the book's seven chapters, over the  next few days.

The book begins with Conquest: The violent birth of the monarchy, a chapter which covers the longest time-span of all seven by narrating the development of monarchy in England from 30 B. C., beginning with the suicide of the goddess-queen Cleopatra and the seeming victory of Britain's republican rulers in Rome, through to the reign of England's most famous royal saint, King Edward the Confessor. This short extract discusses the importance of the family of Alfred the Great, the Wessex line of kings who helped unite England in the ninth and tenth centuries.

After Alfred, who died in October 899 , there was a succession of four kings of his line who expanded the borders of Wessex and the authority of its Crown. Alfred’s son, King Edward the Elder, was acknowledged as overlord of sizeable portions of the country by 920. Like his father, he styled himself King of the Anglo-Saxons, rather than solely of Wessex, a telling indicator of their family’s growing power. It was his son, and Alfred’s grandson, Æthelstan, who could justifiably claim to be the first King of England by conquering the last of the Viking kingdoms at York. He also forced the Welsh and Scottish royals to acknowledge him, reluctantly, as their overlord and the chroniclers gave him the rather magnificent Tolkein-sounding epithet of ‘lord of warriors and ring-giver of men’. His successor and younger brother, King Edmund the Just, was called ‘lord of the English, guardian of kinsmen, loved doer of deeds’. It was a strong line of Christian warrior-kings who, from Alfred the Great to Edmund the Just, took a small kingdom on the brink of annihilation to be conqueror and liberator of an entire nation. It was this family, and their followers, who gave birth to the kingdom of England. 

In 946, King Edmund was murdered by a crazed ex-thief, shortly after attending Mass for Saint Augustine’s Day. Edmund was succeeded by his brother Eadred, who died in 955 and bequeathed the crown to Edmund’s handsome teenage son Eadwig, nicknamed Eadwig the Fair due to his good looks. Young and lusty Eadwig had other things on his mind than the piety and conquest of his forebears. He was determined to enjoy his kingship, not endure it. Things got off to a decidedly rocky start when the young monarch skipped-out on his own coronation banquet, an event at which his absence was rather likely to be noted. Wondering where the star of the show had gone, his courtiers made the horrible (in hindsight) decision of sending the saintly Dunstan to find him. Dunstan, abbot of the great monastery at Glastonbury, found the King romping in bed with a young woman – according to some sources, with two. To say that the leading champion of monastic reform in England did not see the funny side of the King’s actions would be something of an understatement. Later stories suggested that one of the women had been the young King’s future mother-in-law and that an enraged Dunstan had dared drag the King, possibly mid-coitus, out of bed and back to the banquet. Eadwig’s intermission performance at his coronation set the tone for the rest of the reign, marked as it was by deteriorating relations between throne and Church.  

Eadwig died before his twentieth birthday and he was succeeded by his younger brother Edgar, who was made of more conventionally holy stuff. Dunstan was back in royal favour as Edgar’s new Archbishop of Canterbury. Together, the two men organised a magnificent pageant of royal power at Bath in 973. It was an innovative coronation ceremony, which helped set the tone for nearly all that followed. As Edgar was enthroned as ‘Eadgar Rex Anglo’ (‘Edgar, King of the English’), the choir sang the story of Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointing King Solomon in the Old Testament. Today, those words still ring out at British coronations, albeit to the splendid music of Handel. Edgar was invested with the crown, the ring, the rod, the sceptre and the sword as symbols of his political, spiritual, judicial and military duties. These too are still part of the insignia of a British monarch.

A History of the English Monarchy: From Boadicea to Elizabeth I is available on British and American Amazon. 

A few days in Oxford

Good morning! This was my view as I emerged from work yesterday afternoon. I am back in Oxford, carrying out some research for my biography of Catherine Howard, Young and Damned and Fair, which will be out next year. I'm so happy to be back here, working in the Bodleian again. When I was an undergrad here, I had my own preferred place to work, and the habit has stuck. My current nook of choice is in the Bod's Upper Reading Room, down by the windows that overlook the Bridge of Sighs, behind me, and the entrance to Holywell Street and what was once the History Faculty Library. Now, all the History books for the faculty are kept in the Gladstone Link, an underground facility with a tunnel that runs beneath the cobblestones. It's a bunker of books.

I got in yesterday morning and stayed at the Randolph Hotel again. I am a sucker for a good poached egg, and along with not being able to carry any kind of musical note in song, not being able to execute the perfect one myself is a huge regret. (Resolution for 2015?) The poachies this morning were fantastic - so I have no excuse after a good breakfast not to be as productive as possible for the rest of the day. The library closes a little early at the weekends, so this evening I'm having dinner with one of my favourite people in the world, a dear friend who I first met in these cobbled streets. I'm telling myself that these evening plans are a good incentive to plough through some very questionable handwriting, even by sixteenth-century standards. I'll think of it as earning rewards, and whatnot.

I am going to keep you all posted about how the research is going over the next few months, and where I'm off to. In the meantime, I'm off to some sixteenth-century wills. Have a wonderful day. 

Competition winner!

Many congratulations to Libby, who won the competition to receive a copy of Sara Cockerill's new book, Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen. The San Fernando Valley, named after Eleanor's father (above), is indeed in the US State of California. To all those who entered, thank you! 

My new book

I am feeling very blessed that 2014 is proving to be such a busy and exciting year. After wrapping up The Gate of the Year in Belfast in spring, I am delighted to say that Amberley will be publishing my first non-fiction book, The Emperors, an account of the German, Russian and Austro-Hungarian monarchies during the First World War. The book will be released on 28 August 2014 and followed not longer after by the first volume of my history of the British monarchy, subtitled And the Sword Gleamed, with MadeGlobal Publishing. 

More information about The Emperors, which was such a fun and exciting piece to write!

On 28 June 1914, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was assassinated on a visit to Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist called Gavrilo Princip. The assassination set in motion the events that led to the outbreak of the First World War, one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history and a trauma that would bring down the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ending nearly eight centuries of Hapsburg rule and unleashing unrest across the European continent. By the end of that conflict, not only had the Austro-Hungarian Empire crumbled but the other two imperial rulers of Europe, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, had lost their grip on power. The three great monarchies of Europe had fallen. Over in Britain, the first cousin of both the Kaiser and the Tsar, George V, successfully retained the crown.

In this new book, Gareth Russell tells the story of the Austrian, German and Russian imperial families during the four years of the First World War and the political and personal struggles that brought about their ruin.

 The Emperors has already been listed on Amazon UK and Amazon US.

Some of my favourite reads of 2013

Tudor: The Family Story by Leanda de Lisle. Leanda's biography of Lady Jane Grey and her sisters Katherine and Mary is my favourite historical biography and I loved this take on the well-trodden story of England's most dysfunctional Royal family. De Lisle's writing style is so delicious that if it were edible, you'd almost certainly end up the size of a house and/or Henry VIII, the porky sovereign who for once is not allowed to stand centre stage in this dynastic tale of wife-changing, religious revolution and palaces more blinged up than an MTV crib. The women and minor members of the family are allowed their day in the metaphorical sun and de Lisle's refusal to play favourites guarantees fair treatment for all. Buy it, read it and I'm sure you'll love it. 

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Originally published in 2004, I half-read it at my friend Colin's suggestion at university but returned to it when the wonderful movie adaptation (below) starring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Susan Sarandon, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving, James D'Arcy and Ben Whishaw was released. The story of various reincarnated souls passing through the centuries from pre-abolition America, the inter-war years in Britain, a nightmarish twenty-second century Korea and a dystopian future is haunting, clever, nimble, beautifully written and very moving. If the story of Sonmi-451 doesn't devastate you, see a therapist immediately.

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel. Once you can get past the trademark horrors that Hilary Mantel seems to make of all her female characters, this 1992 novel inspired by the biographies of three male revolutionaries - Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and Maximilien Robespierre - is actually a beautiful novel that captures perfectly how even the leaders of the Great Revolution of 1789 began to fear its strength and wonder how it would all end. (Hint - not happily for more or less anybody involved whose surname wasn't Bonaparte.) A Place of Greater Safety even manages to make Desmoulins interesting, charismatic and almost sympathetic - no mean achievement. A wonderful example of historical fiction.

The Night's Dark Shade by Elena Maria Vidal. The festering underbelly of the Cathar movement and the clash between two rival faiths in thirteenth-century France make this novel very interesting, very enjoyable and, reading for pleasure this time, one of the most intriguing takes on religious controversies of the Middle Ages. If you are a fan of medieval stories, then this one is certainly worth picking up.

A Night to Remember by Walter Lord. Famous for inspiring the 1958 movie of the same title (above), I had never actually read this minute-by-minute dramatisation of the Titanic disaster of 1912. Lord interviewed many of the survivors, had previously travelled on the Titanic's nearly-identical sister ship the Olympic, and approached the story of the sinking with a respect that bordered on the reverential. Unlike the 1997 take on the story, there are no fictitious love stories at the centre of Lord's novel. Instead, it's a gripping and almost forensic account of one of the greatest tragedies in maritime history. It also manages to capture the syntax and attitudes of 1912 perfectly. I loved this book and I wish I had read it earlier. 

Shiverton Hall by Emerald Fennell. Released early this year by Bloomsbury, this children's story is, and I kid you not, actually as close as I can come to the horror genre without suffering nightmares and/or dousing my room with water from Walsingham. A glorious return to the Victoriana world of camp macabre and horror, Shiverton Hall is the perfect book for a child who loves to read, anyone who enjoys a good boarding school tale or, for the adults in your life like me, who like to be scared but only within due reason. There'll be no Norman Bates meets Emily-Rose in my nightmares, I can assure you.

The War that Ended Peace: How Europe abandoned Peace for the First World War by Margaret Macmillan. No one but Margaret Macmillan could have approached the story of how "Europe's century" ended in the horrors birthed by 1914 and produced something so compulsively readable. Focusing on both the wider social context of the Gilded Age and the political figures who helped make the terrible decisions which resulted in a global conflict, Macmillan has produced a book that is irreverent, thoughtful and wonderfully written. 

The Creation of Anne Boleyn: In Search of the Tudors' Most Notorious Queen by Susan Bordo is a cultural biography of how Anne Boleyn acquired posthumous immortality, what attracted her legion of modern-day fans and critics, and how her story has been used and abused by subsequent generations. With interviews with two of the actresses most famous for bringing Boleyn to life on screen, this is a fascinating book with its finger kept firmly on the pulse of modern culture. Scholarly, but also funny, wry, sarcastic and emotive. And as the UK cover proves, we always knew Annie B could rock a pair of aviators. Once a fashionista...

The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Murder the Changed the World by Greg King and Susan Woolmans. Any suspect story about Archduke Franz Ferdinand is perhaps rightly declared as something to be treated with caution and scepticism in this book, while similarly improbable and damning anecdotes about any of his blood relatives are repeated as fact. Thus, the title figure emerges as a devoted family man, while his elderly uncle is described as a border-line autistic syphilitic and Franz Ferdinand's brother, Otto, was apparently a sadomasochistic pervert if Viennese gossip was to be believed. It's one standard for Ferdy and another for the rest of the Hapsburgs, which is a shame because otherwise this was a fascinating and wonderful biography of a man who is probably the most important assassination victim in history. Greg King and Susan Woolmans deserve great praise for rescuing his personality and his tragic love story with Sophie Chotek from obscurity. Fast moving, sympathetic and engagingly written, The Assassination of the Archduke was a truly gripping biography of the first victim of the First World War. Highly recommended.

Counting One's Blessings: The Selected Letters of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother by William Shawcross. The late Queen Elizabeth's biographer returns with a volume of her selected letters, chosen from across the remarkable century of her life and eight decades in the public eye. The late Queen's wit, impish sense of humour and inimitably effervescent mode of expression come across alongside her steely determination, quick intelligence and pathological ability to avoid anything too unpleasant until the last possible moment. A beautiful book from the pen of a celebrated and popular Royal, Counting One's Blessing was a joy to read. And made me hanker for a gin in the Highlands.

Two reviews from the archives

From the archives of History Today, two reviews of biographies of two of history's unluckiest queens - Anne Boleyn and Marie-Antoinette of France. Dr. Susan Walter Schmid reviews G.W. Bernard's 2010 biography of Boleyn, Fatal Attractions, taking particular issue with Bernard's comparisons between Anne Boleyn and the late Princess Diana and his use of extant translation of Lancelot de Carles's poem about Boleyn's downfall in 1536.

 

One wants to ask immediately: Why would Anne have become an adulteress? In a curiously presentist observation Bernard would have us believe that because of Princess Diana, moderns may not find it so hard to believe a queen would commit adultery (p. 156). Presentism occurs when we allow ourselves to interpret past people or events based only on our modern values and concepts. Granted, it is difficult to avoid; after all, the present is what we know best, but a historian simply must not fall into this trap. What an increasingly unhappy princess in the twentieth century did cannot automatically tell us anything about what a not necessarily unhappy queen in the sixteenth century might have done. Although there were some suggestions that Henry had a mistress while married to Anne, what she might have done in response must be understood in sixteenth-century terms, not those of today.

Meanwhile, John Rogister, author of Louis XV and the Parlement of Paris, 1737 - 1755, offers a generally positive review of Lady Antonia Fraser's 2002 biography of Marie-Antoinette, The Journey.

 

This absorbing and well-illustrated book is full of sharp insights about Marie Antoinette, her relationship with the handsome Swedish nobleman, Count Ferson (her romantic knight), her loyalty to those she loved. Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, gave an apt description of the Queen facing her accusers: how, even when confronted with a disgusting allegation extracted from her impressionable seven-year-old son, ‘her answers, her cleverness and greatness of mind’ shone through.

 

Both reviews contain very good accounts of Anne and Marie-Antoinette's historical significance. The review of Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions is accessible here and Marie Antoinette: The Journey's is here.

Progress on the book

Well, progress on my first non-fiction book, a history of the British monarchy, is going well. I was slightly behind where I would have liked to be schedule-wise, due to an unforeseen work commitment that arose in April, but right now, I've just finished dealing with the Plantagenets and I'm typing up my draft on the Tudors for the final chapter of volume 1.

Thank you so much for everyone who's been so supportive through this blog and I hope I'll be able to produce a book you will all enjoy. In the meantime, the fine people at Amazon have an offer for Kindle versions of my first novel, Popular - if anyone is interested!

Thank you again and hope you all had a safe and fun weekend.

Gareth

My new book

Quite a few readers of this blog have asked about my first non-fiction book and I'm very excited to be able to say that it will be out this spring! I have written a book called A Thing More Glorious: A History of the British Monarchy, which is being published by the amazing team at MadeGlobal and which has been an incredible experience to write and research. Beginning with the coming of the Romans and ending with the Diamond Jubilee of 2012, A Thing More Glorious is supposed to be a thorough but intimate history of the British Crown, how it's developed, why it still matters and why it remains one of history's greatest stories. I hope I've done it justice and I'm looking forward so much to being able to share it with everyone here. I'll keep the blog updated with posts about how A Thing More Glorious is going and when it will be available to order!

Blog tour opportunity

Throughout February and March, I'll be posting guest articles and interviews through various blogs to promote my two Belfast-inspired novels, Popular and its sequel, The Immaculate Deception. If you run a blog and are interested in receiving either book to review, it would be great to hear from you. Kindle and e-copies of the novels can be sent out on the same day, but if a paperback is preferred, you can let us know.

If you're interested in reviewing either, or both, books, please get in touch with popularbelfast@yahoo.com and let us know! It would be great to have as many blogs as possible, regardless of their main focus, involved. This is a great way to get news out about new books; exclusive blog interviews or Q&As with me can be organised after the reviews, too!

The fifteenth anniversary of a very special book

Last month saw the fifteenth anniversary and the twenty-fourth printing of Robin Maxwell's magnificent debut novel, The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn. Out with a brand spanking new cover, with, I believe, a coloured-up version of Merle Oberon from 1933's The Private Life of Henry VIII, Secret Diary was the first novel I ever read about Anne Boleyn. It, and Anne of the Thousand Days, helped give me the interest in sixteenth century history that led on to much wider reading as a child and teenager, and from there to my admissions essay to Oxford (on Anne Boleyn's date of birth), my interview for a place there and the modules I took during  my first semester.

The novel takes the form, unsurprisingly, of a diary that the character of Anne keeps intermittently over the span of her fifteen-year career at the English court. However, the novel also has a dual storyline about Anne's daughter, Elizabeth, who is now all grown up and queen-regnant of England and Ireland. Shortly after coming to the throne, Elizabeth is visited by an elderly gentlewoman who was once a lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne Boleyn and kept the queen's diary after she was killed. With the political environment now slightly safer, Lady Matilda thinks it's the right time to hand the diary over to Anne's next of kin - Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth, who has very little memory of her mother, therefore reads about Anne's extraordinary journey as she is trying to navigate her own.

The great international success of The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn is a tribute to the skills of its author, Robin Maxwell, who wrote this lovely guest article about it on The Anne Boleyn Files, hosted by Claire Ridgway.

I recommend both the article and the novel.

"Too rich or too thin": a regular reader of this blog who didn't expect to enjoy it, reviews "Popular"

I'm very aware that for many regular readers of this blog, the topic of my first novel, Popular, and its recently-published sequel The Immaculate Deception, seems a bit off-key. This is a blog about history, but the two novels are the first installments in a series dealing with the ups-and-downs of teenagers living in modern-day Belfast. At the moment, I'm actually writing a piece for The Anne Boleyn Files about how history influenced the way Popular's story progressed and was written, but for now, I'd just like to say a huge thank you to Robyn, who downloaded a copy of Popular after regularly reading this blog. She reviewed the book and I'd like to share it with you. Hopefully, it'll help explain why the leap from Ci-Devant to Popular and The Immaculate Deception needn't seem so big!

"Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, famously said, “You can never be too rich or too thin,” and Meredith Harper believes this fervently... I found out about this book from the author, whose blog I have followed for well over two years now. I find him a thoughtful, clever writer with a real sense of history and poetry in his writing. Fortunately for me, there are some traces of Gareth the historian in this book. Both Meredith and Kerry are fans of historical queens (Anne Boleyn and Marie Antoinette, respectively, both frequent topics on Gareth’s historical blog), and the Romanovs, Elizabeth I, and the Bubonic Plague are also mentioned. Beyond that, the writing in Popular is clever and thoughtful, though perhaps without the same poetic beauty as his historical posts. (I refer you to his telling of the execution of Anne Boleyn.)... In all honesty, I set out to read Popular mostly just to support a blogger I enjoyed, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the book. If you like your stone-cold witches with a good dose of humor, or if you would like to try a Gossip Girl-type story set in a new location that isn’t in America, you will probably enjoy this book, too."

For the full review, click HERE and enjoy!

To order Popular on Kindle click here (UK) or here (US.) In paperback, here for the UK and here for the US.

Its sequel, The Immaculate Deception, which picks up where Popular left off, can be bought from Kindle in the US here or UK here. In paperback, from Amazon US or Amazon UK.

"Shiverton Hall" review

My friend Emerald Fennell has just published her first book, a glorious children's ghost story called Shiverton Hall, with Bloomsbury. For my full review, click here.

Elizabeth Woodville: The real-life Cersei Lannister?

In short, the answer from me is an emphatic "no," but it's a popular theory doing the rounds in articles about an even more popular show. Cersei Lannister, the queen consort of the fictional land of Westeros in G.R.R. Martin's epic Song of Ice and Fire novels, is a magnificently unpleasant individual. Those novels have recently been adapted into the television series Game of Thrones, in which Cersei is portrayed by British actress Lena Headey (above.) The only daughter of the wealthiest aristocratic family in the Seven Kingdoms, the gorgeous Cersei is married to the bloated King Robert, but harbours an incestuous passion for her twin brother, Jaime, and an insatiable ambition for herself and her children. Manipulative, duplicitous, head-strong, vindictive and cruel, Cersei is blind to her own faults and those of her sadistic eldest son, Joffrey, who she pushes on to the Iron Throne, despite the fact that it is quite clear to everyone but her that he is totally unsuited to commanding anything more challenging than a boar hunt. Her clumsy attempts to manipulate the rival Stark family, headed by an on-screen Sean Bean, and her failure to properly manage Joffrey, provide much of the drama for the first season of Game of Thrones. The actress who plays Cersei reflected how her character's greatest weakness was that she considered herself to be a masterful political operator, when in fact she was often ruled by short-term vindictiveness rather than long-term strategy. Indeed, the show starts by showing the funerary rites of Westeros's former chief minister, Jon Arryn, while Cersei and her brother watch from a balcony above, discussing in (thinly) veiled terms why Arryn died because Cersei "worried too much" about what he knew. A brilliant femme fatale, Cersei Lannister is a fantastically compelling, if hideous, character, whose amoral schemes help shape most of Game of Thrones' best story-lines.

The broad story of Game of Thrones - that of rival aristocratic clans locked in bloody conflict as each try to claim the throne for themselves - bears more than a passing resemblance to England's fifteenth-century Wars of the Roses. Henry VI suffered a spell of madness and in 1461 he was overthrown by a distant cousin, Edward of York, who took the throne as Edward IV; in Game of Thrones, the "mad king," Aerys II, is killed and then replaced by a distant kinsman, Robert Baratheon, who then goes on to marry Cersei Lannister, a stunning beauty who is said to be the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms. Back in fifteenth century reality, in 1464 Edward IV married Elizabeth Woodville, said to be the most beautiful woman of her generation in the entirety of the British Isles. Both the factual Edward and the fictional Robert then went to seed - losing all of their youthful muscles by whoring, eating and drinking their way into an early grave. Both Cersei and Elizabeth were pale and beautiful blondes and the product of good-looking families, who they did everything in their power to promote to the detriment of every other noble family in the country. In the aftermath of Edward's premature death in 1483, Elizabeth tried desperately to secure her son's inheritance of the throne, in the face of mounting aristocratic opposition. There has therefore has been rampant internet speculation that Robert is based loosely on Edward IV and Cersei on Elizabeth Woodville.

It would be wrong and foolish, of course, to suggest that Game of Thrones is really nothing more than a fantasy-genre version of the Wars of the Roses. In the first place, George Martin is far too good a writer to do that - Westeros and the world it exists in are probably the most believably-complex fictional lands created since Tolkein put pen to paper and first created Middle Earth. In the second instance, Game of Thrones is actually almost more complicated than the real war. At its height, the Rose conflict was only being contested by two rival families - the Lancasters, the Yorks and, at the tail end of things, the Tudors. In Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones, there are multiple royal claimants - including the exiled children of the dead "mad king," the new king and his alleged family, aristocratic families seeking secession for the northern provinces, the two rival brothers of the new king (overtones of the Duke of Clarence and Richard III? Who knows?) and foreign princelings. Finally, there are enough glaring differences in the narrative, let alone the specifics, to suggest that Game of Thrones is far more a work of fiction than an allegory of real-life events. 

However, there are also enough similarities to suggest that the Wars of the Roses may, sometimes, have been used as inspiration for the story of Game of Thrones - particularly in the case of Cersei and Elizabeth Woodville. (It's perhaps worth noting that at no point in history was Elizabeth ever accused of committing incest with her brothers, in the way Cersei is in Game of Thrones.) However, both women were famed for their beauty and loathed for their alleged penchant for intrigues. Both were far less capable at politics than they liked to think and both badly mishandled their enemies. Both Elizabeth and Cersei were totally blinkered in their desire to promote their own lineage, at whatever cost - Elizabeth supported the disinheritance of the Howard family, in order that her youngest son, Richard, could be given their cousin's title and estates; she also caused a scandal by marrying her 20 year-old brother, John, to the 69-year-old Catherine Neville, a fantastically wealthy duchess, whose connections would help the Woodville family and whose marriage to John also had the added benefit of helping Elizabeth disinherit her enemy, and the duchess's nephew, Lord Warwick. 

There are admittedly a significant number of differences, beyond the fairly obvious one of incest.  Robert and Cersei's marriage was a political one; Edward and Elizabeth's, for all its faults, was a love match. Cersei is shown as being murderous in Game of Thrones, while the only way Elizabeth Woodville could ever have been accused of homicide was by those inclined to believe the worst of her - since there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that she ever resorted to poison, assassinations or witchcraft to achieve her goals. Despite her general unpopularity, Elizabeth Woodville was never accused of adultery; although both women were eventually to face the horror of having their children's legitimacy impugned. Although both were married to once-handsome-now-fat monarchs, Elizabeth never seems to have harboured the revulsion towards Edward IV that Cersei cannot quite hide holding for King Robert. In the novels and the television show, the Lannister family are one of the most respected and feared families of the Westeros nobility; Elizabeth's family, the Woodvilles, were considered social-climbing upstarts, pigging-back on their daughter's incredible beauty and equally jaw-dropping greed. (Elizabeth's mother, Jacquetta, was actually related to the royal family by marriage, but that point was conveniently ignored by Elizabeth's many, many detractors.) 

There are a sufficient number of similarities between the personalities (and perceptions) of Cersei Lannister and Elizabeth Woodville to see why people think the story of Elizabeth might have helped inspire the story of Cersei. It might, I think, be more tempting to say that Cersei Lannister is in many ways the dark legend of Elizabeth Woodville - at its darkest. Despite her bad press, Elizabeth Woodville was almost certainly a far more pleasant individual than Cersei Lannister is, even on her best days. However, the complexities and nuances of Cersei's character are far more of a tribute to the skill of G.R.R. Martin as a writer than to the enduring fascination of Queen Elizabeth's personality. If part of the Game of Thrones was inspired by the Wars of the Roses, then that's not quite the same thing as saying it's based on them. As an historian the really exciting thing about Game of Thrones is not what conflicts it's based on, but rather that it can remind us of the reality of the human historical experience. We are so used to the story of history that we become numb to it. Familiarity breeds indifference. We know the ultimate fate of Elizabeth Woodville's sons; we know the grizzly death waiting for Edward IV's disloyal brother, the Duke of Clarence; we know that Elizabeth of York will die in childbirth, Anne Boleyn will lose her head and that Henry VIII will marry six times. We know all of these extraordinary facts so well that we lose the ability to be shocked by them and we therefore lose the ability to fully appreciate how nerve-wracking and uncertain it must have been to actually live through those times. Since Game of Thrones is not history, but incredibly manages to be as believably complicated and unexpected as any historical era, it not only becomes to be a phenomenal story but can also remind even the most jaded of historical enthusiasts of the sheer horror and tumult that people must have experienced by living through something like the Wars of the Roses.

Christmas book round-up

First of all, a happy Christmas to everyone and a very safe new year's, too. Thank you all for continuing to read this blog throughout 2012; I wish you and yours a prosperous Yuletide season!

I've said that I'd try to keep up with posts about what I'm reading, so here's a brief set of reviews of books I've read this autumn and winter. (With my own second novel coming out and rehearsals going on for a play in January, I actually find it's always a good idea to read somebody else's book in bed at night. To clear my head.)

The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: The tragedy of Mary, Katherine and Lady Jane Grey - (By Leanda de Lisle, 2010). One of the best historical biographies I've read, Leanda de Lisle's take on the lives of the troubled Grey sisters is clever, witty and moving. Unlike many biographies which boast endlessly about their "new" discoveries, de Lisle's book actually does offer a genuinely different (and convincing) portrait of the Grey girls - particularly Jane, the most famous member of the family. The book is not biased, being fair to all of the major players, most of whom hated each other in real life. Compulsively readable and fantastically written, The Sisters Who Would Be Queen is my favourite historical book that I've read in 2012.

Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder - (By Evelyn Waugh, 1945). Nothing ever quite prepares you for Evelyn Waugh's lushly magnificent prose, even if you've read it many, many times before. Brideshead Revisited is, at heart, a love story between two men (what nature that love takes and how it expressed itself is still a subject of debate), but the label is not important here. It's also a story about choices, memory, the class system and the mysteries of the Catholic faith, played out across the life of a young middle-class boy called Charles Ryder who goes to study History at Oxford in 1922, where he meets Lord Sebastian Flyte, the gorgeous and flamboyant son of a Catholic marquess. In many ways, Brideshead Revisited reads like a paean of love to the aristocratic heyday of the inter-war years - a fact which Evelyn Waugh later regretted, claiming he'd written in such a hyperbolic way because the Second World War had made him hungry for "the days of plenty." It says something for Waugh's literary brilliance that the novel is simultaneously cited as being one of the great same-sex love stories of the twentieth century and the finest celebration of the Catholic religion ever written by an English author. Every time I return to Brideshead Revisited, I'm struck again by how beautiful it is, how clever it is and, often, by how incredibly funny Waugh made it. With a cast of unforgettable characters, Brideshead Revisited deserves its reputation as one of the finest novels of the last century.

Ungrateful Daughters: The Stuart Princesses Who Stole Their Father's Crown - (By Maureen Waller, 2003). This is the ugly side of the Glorious Revolution, the event still celebrated to the skies today by Ireland's Orange Order. By examining the events from the point-of-view of each major member of the Royal Family in 1688-1690, Maureen Waller delivers a devastatingly unpleasant story of filial betrayal and deceit. The one truly likable character to emerge from the entire sordid narrative is Maria-Beatrice of Modena, the Italian princess who was destined to become the last Catholic queen of Britain, when she married the future James II. In 1688, she was horribly traduced by her two stepdaughters, when they unfairly accused her of smuggling an impostor-baby into her rooms, to pass it off as the long-awaited Catholic heir. Armed with this smear campaign, Maria-Beatrice's son-in-law, William of Orange, invaded England, whipped up into anti-Catholic terror, and seized the throne, completing his victorious transformation into William III two years later at the Battle of the Boyne. Passionate, well-argued and moving, Ungrateful Daughters was a very good read.

A Royal Passion: The Turbulent Marriage of Charles I and Henrietta Maria - (By Katie Whitaker, 2011). This is a book I have been meaning to read for a while now, so I was pleased I got the opportunity. It is a dual biography of Charles I, the king who famously lost his head at the end of the English civil war, and his French wife, Henrietta-Maria, Louis XIII's youngest sister. Whitaker manages to be sympathetic to both, although the book probably deals with the Queen's life more than the King's. A Royal Passion is unashamedly a return to the "kings and queens" style approach to history; it's history from above, not below. But, as Dr. Whitaker shows, top-down history should have more of a place in today's studies, because the case of Charles I and Henrietta-Maria shows how important monarchy was, particularly in an age when it wielded such power. The biography manages to neatly balance the emergence of the couple's love for one another and it's very touching, alongside the mounting political problems that eventually led to the downfall of the monarchy and the civil war. Henrietta-Maria is treated sympathetically here, which I enjoyed, but her mistakes and occasionally erratic advice are not glossed over. A few minor elements of the story are not dealt with - such as recent evidence that suggests the possibility of the King having had an affair later on in the marriage, when he was in prison - but, overall, A Royal Passion is a fantastic portrait of a marriage that began in difficulty (Henrietta-Maria punched her fist through a palace window in rage when Charles dismissed her tribe of French-Catholic servants), evolved into a great love story and then ended in such a tragic way.

A Brief Life of the Queen - (By Robert Lacey, 2012). A short but succinct life of the current Sovereign, Robert Lacey's book is beautifully illustrated and a sympathetic approach to the life of Elizabeth II. A few members of the Royal Family, namely the current Prince of Wales, do not emerge too well from Lacey's narrative and he doesn't gloss over the Queen's rage at her courtiers' advice during the weeks after Princess Diana's death in 1997, but overall this is a fast-moving and convincing biography of one of the most successful leaders of the modern age.

The Pursuit of the Heiress: Aristocratic Marriage in Ireland, 1740 - 1840 - (By A.P.W. Malcomson, 2006). A.P.W. Malcomson's account of marriage between, and in to, the Irish aristocracy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is a beautiful book to look at. Full of illustrations, Malcomson discusses the extent to which class, money, land and love influenced how the aristocrats of the Ascendancy picked their mates. He's particularly interesting on those who married "in" to the Ascendancy, although at times his attempts to be utterly thorough can make the book a little dry for the casual reader. For anyone interested in Ireland's (in)famous Protestant Ascendancy, and probably for someone who has already done a bit of reading on them, The Pursuit of the Heiress is a good recommendation and I enjoyed it.

Evita: First Lady - (By John Barnes, 1996). This is not a sympathetic biography of Argentina's notorious first lady, although it's nowhere near as harsh as Mary Main's book Evita: The Woman with the Whip, which proved the inspiration for the famous musical based on Evita's life and death. Barnes presents Evita as shallow, materialistic and addicted to fame. There are times when one questions how much of this book is original research, but it's written well enough and it's easy to follow.

Bring Up the Bodies - (By Hilary Mantel, 2012). I wasn't a huge fan of the first installment in this series, Wolf Hall, and Bring Up the Bodies made me remember why. The historian in me could obviously query why on earth absolutely none of Thomas Cromwell's negative qualities are in any way acknowledged in this hagiographic fictional adaptation of his life, but Hilary Mantel has clearly done her research and she clearly believes that Cromwell was nothing like the unpleasant henchman of popular legend. The main problem with Bring Up the Bodies was one which bedeviled Wolf Hall, too; it insists upon itself. I don't like novels that tell me what to think - that tell me which character to like and what view to take. That's one of the reasons why I like books like Brideshead Revisited. No-one knows if you're supposed to like or loathe Sebastian's mother, Lady Marchmain; pity or despise the glamorous Celia, etc. In this series, Cromwell is presented as irredeemably commendable and his opponents as equally awful. In order to excuse Cromwell's worst actions, Mantel made Thomas More an unrelentingly unlikable character in Wolf Hall; in Bring Up the Bodies, it's the turn of Anne Boleyn and Henry Norris. Bring Up the Bodies is written by a very, very gifted writer, but at times it felt like a lecture and I'd rather have been left to make my own mind up about the astonishing figure who stands at the heart of the story.

Farewell, My Queen - (By Chantal Thomas, 2004). First published in French and recently adapted into a movie, starring Diane Kruger (below) and Lea Seydoux, Farewell, My Queen tells the story of the last three days in the palace of  Versailles from the point-of-view of a fictional servant, whose job it is to read aloud to the Queen while she takes her morning coffee. The novel, narrated in the first person, gives free rein to the servant-girl's obsessive devotion to Marie-Antoinette and it brilliantly captures the rising tide of panic as the full impact of the storming of the Bastille reaches the court. This is my second time reading Farewell, My Queen; at times, it feels like the translation into English may have diminished some of the text's drama, but it remains a very good book.

Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr - (By Linda Porter, 2011.) I preferred Linda Porter's first biography, of Mary Tudor, but this biography was still a fine one. It helped remind me of why the life of Henry VIII's sixth wife is so interesting, despite the fact that she's often looked upon as "the boring one." Katherine the Queen is sympathetic, well-written and enjoyable.

Lost Liners - (By Robert Ballard, 1997). You could certainly say this book about the most famous shipwrecks of the twentieth century is written by an expert; Robert Ballard is the man who discovered the remains of the Titanic in 1985. The illustrations are by the ludicrously talented marine artist, Ken Marschall, and they are incredible. It's a short but beautiful book.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - (By J.K. Rowling, 2003.) For some reason, people seem to generally agree that this is the "worst" book in the Harry Potter franchise. It's also the longest, which may have something to do with it. I love the Harry Potter books and I have to say that I really rather like Order of the Phoenix. In the first place, Dolores Umbridge is such a good villain that I had to punch my pillow in rage at several moments; secondly, it takes a gutsy author to take the risk of making her eponymous hero as irritating as Rowling does with moody Harry in this book. Too much Hogwarts is never a bad thing.

Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century - (By John Boswell, 1980.) This is an award-winning but hard-going book by the late, great, gender historian John Boswell, an academic at Yale. At times, Boswell's insistence that homophobia only arose in the Christian church well into the Middle Ages sounds a little too forced; as if he is so determined to believe the best of Christianity that he cannot quite bring himself to admit how that darkness actually arose. All that being said, however, Boswell's book is still utterly fascinating. He finds ample evidence to suggest that prior to the twelfth century, the Church in the West evinced very little hostility towards, or interest in, homosexuality and he does find several instances of it actually celebrating male-male relationships and ceremonies performed to do so. (There is next-to-nothing, I should point out, on same-sex female relationships in this book.) Brilliant, ground-breaking and flawlessly researched, Boswell's book deserved the awards it received and the uncomfortable questions it asks (but doesn't always fully answer) remind us all of how incredibly complex religious, cultural and sexual history can be. Reading books like this reminds me not just why I love history so much, but why it's so important and why it should always be written by men and women who take it as seriously as John Boswell did.

New book; new website

"Sharp, hilarious and always right on the money." - Carly Bennett

"Hilarious, clever and very naughty, just like its author." - Emerald Fennell, author of Shiverton Hall

"Packed with wicked humour, glamorous characters and razor sharp dialogue." - ULSTER TATLER

By far and away the most important piece of news in Belfast this week, obvs... #awkward.

I am very excited to say that my new novel, The Immaculate Deception, is now available in paperback and Kindle in the UK, Ireland and the US. Its prequel, Popular, is also available, with a brand new cover and blurb.

The Immaculate Deception picks up three days after Popular ended and it follows six months in the lives of Meredith, Cameron, Imogen, Kerry and their friends. It's been published by MadeGlobal, who have also included a tongue-in-cheek guide to Belfast slang and humour at the back of each book - written by yours truly. They've also designed an amazing new website, which I love, promoting the books and letting people know where to order them and what's going on with the franchise.

I hope readers of the blog, if they can, will enjoy Popular and The Immaculate Deception. They're a labour of love and I have a fantastic time writing them.

The new website is www.thepopularseries.com

Readers from the UK and Ireland can get the Kindle version of The Immaculate Deception here and the paperback, here.

Readers from the United States, can get Popular in paperback or Kindle, and The Immaculate Deception in paperback or kindle. 

Happy reading and thanks to everyone for the messages of support!

"Popular" coming to the States!

I'm very excited that my first novel, Popular, will soon be available to order in the US! It'll be up on Amazon with a brand new cover, tagline and a special fun vocabulary section at the back. The brand new cover, designed by my publishers at MadeGlobal, will also be replacing Popular's old cover in the UK, Ireland and overseas. This is to mark Popular moving to MadeGlobal and in preparation for the release of its first sequel, The Immaculate Deception, which follows the same characters in the summer and winter after Popular. 

I'll be posting more news about the books and where they can be ordered, soon, but thanks so much to all this blog's American readers and I hope you can order, and enjoy, Popular and The Immaculate Deception. Working on them, and with my new publishers, has been a great joy.

"Packed with wicked humour, glamorous characters and razor sharp dialogue." - ULSTER TATLER

On the first day of September, 16 year-old Meredith Harper rules over the teen it-crowd of Belfast, Northern Ireland. But beneath the surface, Meredith's complicated web of manipulative lies and self-serving intrigues are slowly beginning to threaten her social position and she finds herself being challenged by the handsome Mark Kingston, the only guy in the school who's always hated her.

In a world where nothing stays secret for very long, Meredith and her friends will need all their skills to guess who's in, out, coming out, going up, going down, dating, cheating, lying and trying to cope...

Let the games begin!

"Move over Blair Waldorf, Meredith Harper rules the school now." - Danielle Binks, the ALPHA review 

"Trash written by trash": The Belgian royal family responds to its critics

A few weeks ago, I posted an article on how the British royal household seems to be getting sassier with unwarranted attacks on the royal family's private lives, after photographers invaded the privacy of the Duchess of Cambridge while she was on holiday in France. Now, it looks like Belgium's royal family is following suit. Prince Philippe, the Duke of Brabant, is the heir-apparent to the Belgium throne; he is a graduate of Oxford and Stanford, where he took his masters in political science. He has also served in the Belgian armed forces and one of his main priorities as heir to the throne is promoting Belgium's economy, representing the kingdom at over forty economic conferences. 

The Duke is married to Princess Mathilde (nee d'Udekem d'Acoz) and they have four children together - Elisabeth, Gabriel, Emmanuel and Eleanor. Recently, the couple have been the target of books and articles claiming that their marriage is a sham and that their children were conceived through artificial insemination. False interviews with the Duke's father, King Albert II, to substantiate these rather dubious claims, but both the palace and the couple themselves have retaliated by firmly rebutting the allegations. 

The blog Cross of Laeken, which is a fantastic blog that focuses on the Belgian royals, talks about these rumours and about the royal household's reaction to them. 

A new biography of Catherine Howard

I have had a few e-mails and messages from people asking me to review or comment on Professor David Loades' new book, Catherine Howard: The adulterous wife of Henry VIII. Professor Loades is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Wales and an Honorary Fellow of the University of Oxford's History Faculty. His work on the Tudor navy and on the reign of Queen Mary I was ground-breaking. More recently, Professor Loades has turned his attention to more popular biographies for Amberly Press and his contract with them has produced short studies on Henry VIII, the Boleyn family, Mary Tudor (Queen of France) and, now, Catherine Howard. Loades is a respected scholar and a world-renowned expert on Tudor politics. Some regular readers of the blog know that I studied Catherine Howard for my masters dissertation, hence why they asked me to review Professor Loades's new book.

However, since I have researched Catherine myself and I am currently in the process of writing about her, I didn't think it would be fair to critique Professor Loades's work myself. Tudor history is far too full of people who are keen to take pot-shots at others; indeed, history in general has that trait. Any criticism I have of Professor Loades might lead people to assume that I am only doing it to big-up my own work or to massage my ego. Any praise might lead people to think I'm being sycophantic. Neither would be the case. Books from good writers are always to be encouraged.

Thank you for asking me to review this book and good luck to Professor Loades with his new biography! To anyone who purchases it, I hope you enjoy it. Catherine's story is certainly a fascinating one and Professor Loades is a gifted scholar.

The Other Boleyn Boy?: Did Anne Boleyn have another brother?

Anne Boleyn is known to have been one of at least five siblings and whilst her elder brother and sister, George and Mary, grew into adulthood, it has always been assumed that her two other brothers, Thomas and Henry, died as children. Now, however, the historian Alison Weir is arguing in her new biography Mary Boleyn that, in fact, Thomas lived into early adulthood and died in 1520 - by which point his eldest sister, Mary, was already married, George was at court and Anne was completing her education in France. Weir's conclusions is based on the fact that the brass cross added to young Thomas's grave in Saint John the Baptist Church in Penshurst was not added until 1520, thus suggesting that Thomas in fact lived until either his late teens or early twenties before dying. 

However, Claire Ridgway at The Anne Boleyn Files has been hunting down the mystery of "the lost Boleyns" and isn't convinced. Instead, she argues that the traditional version of events which claims that only Mary, George and Anne lived to maturity is correct. You can click here to access Claire's full investigation into the mystery of the missing Boleyns, but her thought-provoking conclusion is that all the evidence which suggests young Thomas lived until 1520 is based on evidence that has either been misinterpreted or non-existent. Like a lot of Tudor history, unfortunately.