When Stephanie was only thirty years old, and married only five years she evolved her own theories about men...

Click here to download this article in pdf format.

Father of the more famous son, Henry VII is obviously the starting place for any Tudor library, a good basic book is in the "Access to History" series, Henry VII by Roger Turvey and Caroline Rogers. Hodder and Stoughton 1991. Other essential reading on the Tudor monarchs would be J.J. Scaarisbrick's magisterial Henry VIII, Yale University Press 1968 which covers pretty well everything.

Click here to download this article in pdf format.

Anya Seton was one of the leading writers - mostly women - who dominated the discipline of historical fiction after the second world war, and whose critical and popular acclaim continued until the late 1950s when fashions in literature changed.

For the first time in English history a monarch had to rule by the power of personal charisma alone. Elizabeth was not a King by right of battle like her grandfather Henry VII, nor was she the chosen leader of a powerful faction. She inherited by default, and she had to keep her position by power of personality alone.

Click here to download this article in pdf format.

What, you may ask yourself Dear Reader, would possess a young man of a mere forty six years of age, a husband and a father, indeed a Citizen of Norwich, an intellectual and a biographer of some acclaim, to write an historical novel in the manner of his own Great-Grandpapa? - assuming, that is, that his own Great Grandpapa was a wordy old fraud with the manner of the late Mr Dickens.