Early modern Europe was a hotbed of espionage, where spies, spy-catchers, and conspirators pitted their wits against each other in deadly games of hide and seek. Theirs was a dangerous trade–only those who mastered the latest techniques would survive. This book explores the methods spies actually used in the period, including disguises, invisible inks, and […]
The Stolen Crown by Tracy Borman
In March, 1603, Queen Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch, lies dying at Richmond Palace. The queen’s ministers cluster round her bedside, urging her to name her successor — something she has stubbornly resisted throughout her reign. Almost with her last breath she whispers that James VI of Scotland should succeed her. Or so we’ve […]
Holbein: The Ambassadors by Tracy Borman
Holbein’s The Ambassadors is one of the most famous paintings in the National Gallery. It is also one of the most intriguing. Laden with hidden symbols and mysteries, the work has been the subject of intense debate among historians during the five centuries since it was created. Tracy Borman’s book unpicks the secrets of this enigmatic artwork, […]
TV review: The Mirror and the Light
Tracy Borman is a historian and author. She’s also the biographer of Thomas Cromwell, the central figure in the BBC’s adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light. We’re delighted that she’s reviewed the first programme in the series for us (and relieved that she found it lived up to her expectations). I am […]
Historia film review: Firebrand
Nice costumes, says Linda Porter, can’t rescue this bizarre adaptation of Elizabeth Fremantle’s historical novel about Katherine Parr, first published as Queen’s Gambit in 2013. I should perhaps begin this review by confessing that I’m a great admirer of Liz Fremantle’s historical novels. She has covered major figures and events of the 16th and 17th […]
Stoke Field, 1487: The ‘forgotten’ battle of the Wars of the Roses
Ethan Bale looks at the Battle of Stoke Field in 1487, a ‘forgotten’ fight which finally secured the throne of England for Henry VII and the Tudor dynasty. It’s the perfect pub quiz gotcha: What is considered to be the last battle of the Wars of the Roses? If you said “Bosworth Field” you’d be […]
Writing about Margaret Tudor
Linda Porter wasn’t intending to write Margaret Tudor’s biography. She came to it in a roundabout way, as she explains here. But Margaret’s story needed to be told. My new biography of Margaret Tudor seeks to challenge the negative views so often expressed about this overlooked 16th-century queen. How I came to write it is […]
The Thistle and The Rose by Linda Porter
Margaret Tudor, the elder sister of the more famous Henry VIII, is the single most important Tudor figure of this era that historians have consistently overlooked. Married at 13 to the charismatic James IV of Scotland, a man more than twice her age, she would learn the skills of statecraft that would enable her to […]