Was Katheryn Howard’s execution avoidable? It may be that in death, as in much of her life, she was a pawn manipulated by some of the most powerful men in England. As historian and novelist Alison Weir tells Historia, evidence suggests that it was Henry VIII’s advisors, rather than the grief-stricken King himself, who wanted […]
A life of war in Anglo-Saxon Britain
The skeleton of an unknown 7th-century warrior buried near Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland seemed to have nothing to tell historian and novelist Edoardo Albert… until tests showed a link to a Scottish holy island and the original returning king: Oswald of Northumbria. The bones were silent. That’s the problem: they usually are. They are the […]
Killing a king: the execution of Charles I
This year sees the 370th anniversary of the execution of Charles I on 30 January, 1649, an event which was, by law, commemorated annually for almost 200 years. Charles’s biographer, Leanda de Lisle, writes about the day they killed a king. Charles I awoke before dawn in St James’s Palace on the day of his […]