Helen Castor, Elizabeth I: A Study in Insecurity (Penguin Monarchs Series), (London: Penguin, 2018)
Helen Castor is – perhaps despite the title – sensibly objective in this short (117 pages) but useful biography of Elizabeth. Early on, she admits that the queen was almost unknowable to her subjects and rivals, let alone to us from a distance of over 300 years.
Continue reading “[book review] Helen Castor, Elizabeth I: A Study in Insecurity”
When you teach Richard III you almost inevitably touch on the idea that ‘history is written by the winners’, as Orwell said in 1944 (and again, of course, so horrifically in Nineteen Eighty-Four). [a]
Who were victorious over Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex in the end? Would he have recognised the history they wrote for him?
Buckingham wants, needs, perhaps even deserves, a lover’s farewell …
This is All Souls’ Day, fellow, is it not?
Why then, all Souls’ Day is my body’s doomsday. (Richard III – BUCKINGHAM: V.i.10-11)
The Boar's Head, Eastcheap 