Tudor England
Why did C.J. Sansom ok this moronic Disney+ Shardlake adaptation?
What would C.J. Sansom have made of the Disney+ version of his novel series about 16th-century crookback lawyer Matthew Shardlake?…
A skilled networker
Born in 1559, Alice Spencer, a formidable networker, matchmaker and patron of the arts, was the muse of poets including Edmund Spenser and John Milton
Hysterical accusations
‘Witch-hunt’ has become a handy metaphor for online persecutions, especially of women, though these days it is reputations that go…
The great image-maker
‘Holbein redeemed a whole era for us from oblivion,’ remarks the author of a trilogy of novels set at Henry…
The first great English artist – the life and art of Nicholas Hilliard
When Henry VIII died in 1547, he left a religiously divided country to a young iconoclast who erased a large…
Diarmaid MacCulloch delves deep into the soul of Thomas Cromwell – administrator, henchman and evangelical
The final moments of Hilary Mantel’s magnificent Wolf Hall see its central protagonist, Thomas Cromwell, trying to banish ghosts. Assailed…
