With the country riven by civil war, word reaches Royalist headquarters in Oxford that the Parliamentarian commander Sir William Waller plans to capture the strategic city of Worcester. Sir Philip Lord, a mercenary commander with a mysterious past, is sent to help prepare Worcester to withstand a siege. With Lord is Gideon Lennox, a young […]
Historia interviews: Fiona Forsyth and Eleanor Swift-Hook
Fiona Forsyth speaks to fellow author Eleanor Swift-Hook for Historia: After reading The Devil’s Command by chance, I found myself hooked (sorry, Eleanor!) and I have just finished The Physician’s Fate, the latest in the Lord’s Legacy series. I asked its author, Eleanor Swift-Hook, about the series. FF: The mess that is the English Civil […]
Henrietta Maria: queen, warrior, politician, woman
Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, died 350 years ago in 1669. It’s time to reconsider this strong-willed queen, argues historian Leanda de Lisle.
Historia Q&A: Jemahl Evans
Jemahl Evans was born in Bradford on Avon to nomadic Welsh school teachers and was brought up in a West Wales mining village during the 70s and 80s. He has pursued a lifelong passion for History, inspired by his grandfather’s stories and legends. His debut novel, The Last Roundhead, is the first of his critically acclaimed Blandford […]
Mr Beeston and the Cockpit
Jemahl Evans brings us a brief history of London’s first West End theatre. The Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane was initially, as its name suggests, a venue for cockfights and animal baiting on the east side of Drury Lane with an entrance in Cockpit Alley. As such it was the first playhouse in the West […]
Historia Interviews: Antonia Senior
Antonia Senior talks to Elizabeth Fremantle about her new novel The Tyrant’s Shadow. The Tyrant’s Shadow follows on from the events of your previous novel Treason’s Daughter, was it always your intention to write more than one book with these characters? I had intended to write only one book. It was my then editor’s idea […]
The Tyrant’s Shadow by Antonia Senior
Revisiting characters from the critically acclaimed Treason’s Daughter, Antonia Senior has set her new novel, The Tyrant’s Shadow, some years later in the wake of the English Civil Wars. This series of brutal conflicts has left no family untouched by tragedy and division. The country is reeling, religious sects await the second coming and power […]
Escaping the Tudors
Linda Porter on why she’s happy to leave the sixteenth century behind. Last year I appeared in two programmes in the Channel Five ‘Last Days’ series, talking about Mary Queen of Scots and Charles I. Much of my contribution on Mary was eventually edited out because it did not fit the overall ‘well, she was […]