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WORK TITLE: So High a Blood
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http://www.ladyjanegrey.info/?page_id=12383 * http://historybuff.com/other-tudor-girl-conversation-with-historian-morgan-ring-eEnA5736qkZ3
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HEADING: Ring, Morgan
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PERSONAL
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
EDUCATION:Attended Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
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Teacher in Cambridge, England.
WRITINGS
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Morgan Ring is a Canadian writer and historian based in Cambridge, England. She was born and raised in Toronto and moved to England in 2008 to study history at Gonville and Caius College, in Cambridge. She earned a Senior Scholarship and holds the Gonville studentship at Caius. While working on a doctorate on the cult of saints in Reformation Britain, Ring teaches in Cambridge.
In 2017, Ring published her debut book, the biography So High a Blood: The Story of Margaret Douglas, the Tudor That Time Forgot. Margaret (1515-1578) was the daughter of Archibald Douglas and Margaret Tudor, who was the daughter of Henry VII and the mother of James V. Margaret Douglas was the niece of England’s King Henry VIII and half-sister of Scotland’s King James V. In 1530, fifteen-year-old Margaret arrived at Henry VIII’s court. During her five decades there, she was embroiled in the Tudor era’s Machiavellian maneuvering over religious authority and royal succession. Catholic Margaret often clashed with Protestant Henry VIII and his relatives. Margaret wanted her son to marry her niece Mary, Queen of Scots. Margaret and her ambitious activity survived until Queen Elizabeth I, fearful that Margaret would restore the Protestant throne to Catholicism, stripped Margaret of her position and her freedom, relegating her to the Tower of London. However, Margaret’s ambitions eventually saw fruition as her grandson and Mary’s son James Stuart (1566-1625) was crowned King James I of England and James VI of Scotland.
In an interview with Carly Silver online at History Buff, Ring explained the rich source of information Margaret Douglas provided as she searched for a dissertation subject: “I grew convinced not only that had Margaret had a more significant role in Tudor politics than I had initially thought, but also that her life offered a new way into some major debates about religion, the succession, and the relationship between England and Scotland.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor noted that Ring ably portrays the turbulence of the times and provides “a wealth of correspondence and a strong knowledge of the period combine in a capable book showing life at these strange medieval courts.”
According to MBR Bookwatch contributor Helen Dumont, Ring presents an impressively detailed biography and “a consistently fascinating and extraordinarily informative account,” that is a compelling read from cover to cover. Katie McGaha noted in Library Journal that Ring used a variety of research and contemporary sources “to reveal Douglas’s integral role in the Tudor and Stuart dynasties.” In Publishers Weekly, a writer declared: “Ring successfully argues that Margaret’s strong midlife adherence to Catholicism…derived from the needs of her children.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2017, review of So High a Blood: The Story of Margaret Douglas, the Tudor That Time Forgot.
Library Journal, February 15, 2017, Katie McGaha, review of So High a Blood, p. 96.
MBR Bookwatch, May 2017, Helen Dumont, review of So High a Blood.
Publishers Weekly, February 13, 2017, review of So High a Blood, p. 61.
ONLINE
History Buff, http://historybuff.com/ (December 22, 2016), Carly Silver, author interview.
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Morgan Ring was born and raised in Toronto. She moved to England in 2008 to read History at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, winning a Senior Scholarship and completing her dissertation under the supervision of Professor John Guy. Morgan holds the Gonville Studentship at Caius, where she is now writing her doctorate on the cult of saints in Reformation Britain.
Morgan is currently writing a biography of Lady Margaret Douglas, the niece of Henry VIII and half-sister of James V, which Bloomsbury UK and US will publish in 2016.
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The Other Tudor Girl: A Conversation With Historian Morgan Ring
Meet Margaret Douglas, the Tudor that time forgot
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Dec 22, 2016
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Meet Margaret Douglas, niece of King Henry VIII - the daughter of his elder sister, Margaret, Queen of Scots, and her second Scottish husband. Hhistorian Morgan Ring's new biography of Margaret, So High a Blood, is devoted to restoring this fascinating woman's historical legacy.
Half-sister to King James V of Scotland, Lady Margaret Douglas was both English and Scottish; husband was the Scottish Earl of Lennox). Veery close with her cousin, "Bloody Mary," although not such a big fan of her cousin Elizabeth, Margaret also got in trouble with her uncle for a few love affairs with English nobles. But she is best-known as the mother of Henry, Lord Darnley (who married Margaret's own niece, Mary, Queen of Scots, and fathered King James I of England/VI of Scotland). As a result, Margaret Douglas been the ancestor of all British monarchs for more than 400 years.
So High a Blood is available this spring from Bloomsbury.
Q: Margaret was neither fully English nor Scottish, neither fully royal nor a commoner. How do you think her nonconforming status may have affected the person she became and the way she acted? How did Margaret see herself?
A: "Liminal" is the very word — Margaret was born on the Anglo-Scottish border and in a sense she never really left it. It meant she had a British frame of reference: she was always aware of how events in England might affect those in Scotland and vice versa. In terms of status, she was guilty at times both of under- and over-estimating her own importance, getting engaged without her uncle’s permission on the one hand and questioning Elizabeth’s legitimacy on the other.
Usually, though, she saw herself as Countess of Lennox and as Countess of Angus in her own right. Nationality-wise, there were moments when her loyalties grew confused: she and Lennox wrote a letter shortly before he became Regent of Scotland in which they described James VI as their sovereign while also calling themselves Elizabeth’s ‘faithful subjects’. But her husband and her eldest son both died in Scotland, so she had no love for the country, and England was her home.
Q: What inspired you to write about Margaret? Why do you think she has often been overlooked in historical accounts of the Tudors?
A: I had a conversation about Margaret with [historian] John Guy at the end of my second year of university, and he mentioned that she was a watch collector. I’d been casting about for a dissertation topic, hoping to write something biographical, and that decided me: how could I resist a woman who collected clocks? As I read my way into the sources, I grew convinced not only that had Margaret had a more significant role in Tudor politics than I had initially thought, but also that her life offered a new way into some major debates about religion, the succession, and the relationship between England and Scotland. As to why she has been overlooked, I think that’s partly because the sources are so scattered about and partly because she does not sit comfortably within the histories of either England or Scotland. Recent years have seen a surge of interest in how the British kingdoms interacted with each other and therefore in individuals who crossed the borders.
Q: Margaret’s mother was an impulsive person (much like her brother, Henry VIII) who complicated her own life and her daughter’s, perhaps unnecessarily. How did Margaret Jr. learn from her mother, or, in some cases, not learn from the Queen’s example? What made her politically flexible?
A: Margaret Tudor and Margaret Douglas did not have much of a mother-daughter relationship, but their political styles had quite a lot in common. They were both willing to make massive shifts in allegiance in pursuit of family ambition, to the bafflement of outside observers. Margaret Tudor briefly made common cause with her old enemy the Duke of Albany because she saw him as the key to getting a real role in her son’s government. Over the course of Elizabeth’s reign, Margaret was at times allied with everybody from Philip II of Spain to William Cecil in her efforts to advance both her sons and then her grandchildren. Tactics changed; goals remained constant.
Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots. Image via The Royal Collection/Wikimedia Commons.
Q: What was so troubling to Henry VIII about his niece’s various engagements/trysts before her marriage? Was it the fact that the men in question were Howards, members of a powerful clan that made inroads to the royal bloodline before (Anne Boleyn) and after (Catherine Howard)?
Q: The fact that the men were Howards, and minor Howards at that, made the relationships doubly inappropriate. They came from a powerful house but were not in line for the familial dukedom. Moreover, Henry VIII — as we can see from his reaction to his sisters’ remarriages — was never happy when the women in his family made romantic decisions without his say-so. This was partly practical: unmarried women were valuable in diplomacy. It was also about early modern ideas of female honour, which were bound up with sexual propriety: there were several references to Margaret’s having disgraced herself or "used herself lightly."
Above all, in 1536, it was about the succession: with all of Henry’s children illegitimate or dying or both, his elder sister’s children appeared very near the English throne, and their marriages were matters of enormous consequence. In the conspiracy theory vein, Francis Bigod alleged that there was a rumour that Thomas Cromwell wanted to marry Margaret and was thus responsible for the harsh punishment dealt out to Thomas Howard, but there is no evidence of that!
Q: How did Margaret’s religious leanings change over time, both politically and personally? What do we know of her private dogma, if anything?
A: During Henry’s reign, the evidence and the silences suggest that Margaret was conventionally pious but willing to follow the king’s direction. When she married Lennox, she signed up to a Protestant British project. Under Edward VI, however, the religious changes became more focused and more dramatic, and many people found that their consciences compelled them to take sides.
By Mary’s reign, Margaret was seen as a Catholic, and both her friends and her enemies described her that way from then on. In terms of what her Catholicism meant and the form it took, we do not know her views on papal authority or on the Counter-Reformation, but there were repeated hints that she was loyal to the Mass and continued to use the devotional objects and images of traditional religion. It is worth remembering, though, that she had Protestant friends throughout her life: confessional differences did not necessarily mean an end to other social or political bonds.
Q: Tell me a bit about Margaret’s relationship with Darnley. What made her so infatuated with her eldest son)? Is there evidence she was aware of his flaws, or did she overlook them?
A: During Darnley’s failed marriage, it was often mentioned that he respected Margaret more than he did Lennox, but this is (unfortunately!) one of the questions on which the sources are quiet — and while we know quite a lot about Darnley’s accomplishments before his journey into Scotland, we know almost nothing about his character. We have to be careful not to read the ending of the story into the beginning.
Henry, Lord Darnley. Image via The National Gallery/Wikimedia Commons.
Darnley turned out to be a disaster of a human being, but that does not necessarily mean that every gift he received as a boy was evidence that he was spoiled — noble families gave their children gifts. At the same time, it is understandable that Margaret and Lennox doted on their eldest son, both because they lost so many children and because they had such wretched childhoods themselves — and the more their own political ambitions were frustrated, the more ambitious they became for him.
Q: How did Margaret’s relationship with Queen Mary I differ from her relationship with Elizabeth? What drove Margaret to take certain risks during the latter’s reign that she didn’t in the former’s?
A: Margaret was loyal to Mary in a way that she was not to Elizabeth. This was partly personal: she and Mary were the same age, they had a shared history going back to the Margaret’s first arrival at court, and they were both Catholics. Elizabeth and Margaret were technically of the same generation, but Margaret was nearly twenty years older — Lord Thomas Howard was Elizabeth’s great-uncle — and was married by the time Elizabeth was a teenager, and their religious beliefs went in very different directions. It was also a question of circumstances: during Mary’s reign, waiting — whether for the queen to alter the succession or to help the Lennox-Stewarts to their lands in Scotland — seemed the best course, but during Elizabeth’s reign, the sudden widowing of the queen of Scots gave Margaret a moment to act.
Q: How much of Mary, Queen of Scots’s, ambition to rule both kingdoms was fueled by her aunt Margaret, if it’s possible to know? Was Margaret's ambition that fueled by her own mother’s mistreatment by the Scots and the Douglases' disagreements with the Stewarts, to any degree?
A: Unfortunately, very little of the correspondence between Mary and Margaret survives. Mary wanted to be named Elizabeth’s heir and she did not always see marriage to Darnley as the surest way to achieve that goal, so Margaret cannot be said to have given her the idea. That said, she is the leading advocate of the Darnley strategy, which was eventually the one that Mary adopted.
In terms of where Margaret’s ambition came from, her parents’ fortunes in Scotland did create the circumstances in which she had to operate: she was born in England because her mother was driven out of Scotland and she spent her adult life in England because of the conflict between her half-brother and her father.
Q: Tell me about how Margaret served as an intelligence agent for multiple governments. What about her background and life history made her an ideal person to gather information?
A: Margaret was involved in intelligence gathering in various ways over the course of her life: she built alliances with French, Spanish, and Scottish diplomats; she had her own network of servants and allies bringing information to her, and she was a conduit for Scottish news, especially during Lennox’s regency. Again, this was partly about personality and partly about circumstances. Personality-wise, she was discreet, she commanded loyalty, and she had a talent for making unlikely friends. On top of that, there were her personal connections and her place at court: for instance, she got to know lots of Spaniards and Hispanophiles during Mary I’s reign, which proved important later on.
Q: Ultimately, which namesake do you think Margaret Douglas resembled more—her great-grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort (mother of Henry VII), or her own mother, Margaret, Queen of Scots?
A: This is such a wonderful question and I have spent a lot of time asking it myself! My instinct is that she had more in common with Margaret Beaufort. All three women had great ambitions for their children and were important political figures themselves, but Margaret Tudor could more or less take for granted that her son would be a king and she got to exercise power in conventional roles, first as a queen consort and then — briefly — as regent.
Margaret Douglas and Margaret Beaufourt, in contrast, could not assume that their sons would become kings and they had to craft roles for themselves. Interestingly, they were both noted as readers and there was a certain murkiness about their places in the line of succession — the Beaufort line had started out illegitimate and Margaret’s own legitimacy was repeatedly questioned. It’s quite fitting that they’re buried in the same chapel!
Feature image via Wikimedia Commons.
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So High a Blood
Helen Dumont
MBR Bookwatch.
(May 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Full Text:
So High a Blood
Morgan Ring
Bloomsbury Press
175 Fifth Avenue, Suite 315, New York, NY 10010
www.bloomsbury.com
9781632866059, $35.00, HC, 368pp, www.amazon.com
Synopsis: Amidst the Christmas revels of 1530, a fifteen-year-old girl arrived at the court of King Henry VIII. HalfEnglish,
half-Scottish, she was his niece, the Lady Margaret Douglas. For the next fifty years, Margaret held a unique
and precarious position at the courts of Henry and his children.
As the Protestant Reformations unfolded across the British Isles and the Tudor monarchs struggled to produce heirs,
Margaret had ambitions of her own. She wanted to see her family ruling a united, Catholic Britain. Through a
Machiavellian combination of daring, spying, and luck, Margaret made her son into a suitor to her niece Mary, Queen
of Scots. Together, they had a powerful claim to the English throne--a claim so powerful that Queen Elizabeth I feared
they would overthrow her and restore both England and Scotland to the Catholic faith.
That marriage cost Margaret her position, her freedom, and her beloved son's life.
From the glittering Tudor court to the Tower of London, Lady Margaret Douglas weathered triumphs and tragedies in
an era of tremendous change. Yet she never lost hope that she would see her family rule throughout the British Isles,
which eventually happened when King James (I of England, VI of Scotland) united the crowns in 1603.
Critique: An impressively detailed biography in which author Morgan Ring is able to draw upon previously
unexamined archival sources, "So High a Blood: The Story of Margaret Douglas, the Tudor that Time Forgot" to
provide a consistently fascinating and extraordinarily informative account that is a compelling read from cover to
cover. While very highly recommended, especially for community and academic library biography collections in
general, and English Tutor History supplemental studies reading lists in particular, it should be noted for students and
non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "So High a Blood" is also available in a Kindle format
($21.24).
Helen Dumont
Reviewer
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
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Ring, Morgan: SO HIGH A BLOOD
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 15, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Ring, Morgan SO HIGH A BLOOD Bloomsbury (Adult Nonfiction) $35.00 4, 25 ISBN: 978-1-63286-605-9
An introduction to one of the Tudor family's least-known women.Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII, was married
to James IV of Scotland and bore his son, James V. Her second husband, Archibald Douglas, fathered her daughter,
also named Margaret. She is the subject of Ring's dramatic history of 16th-century England, a tempestuous period that
has been the subject of many books--for good reason. Henry VII's claims to the throne were based on distant family
connections, and they fought back many usurpers. That fragile hold on the throne would continue throughout the
family's history; save the short reign of Edward VI. For decades, the Tudors fought to control the country's religion,
alternating from Catholic to Protestant to Elizabeth's acceptance of the "private devotions" of Catholics. Even
Elizabeth changed after the Catholic "Northern Rebellion" and the pope's bull excommunicating her. As the Tudors
worried about succession, young Margaret Douglas should always have been a factor--and she was, until a fight with
her uncle, King Henry VIII, at the end of his life saw her removed from the succession. Margaret was also the half
sister of the Scottish king, James V, and married to Matthew Stewart, the Scottish Earl of Lennox. Margaret was born
into this political intrigue, and her life is a perfect example of Tudor machinations. Though she bore eight children in
one of the happiest marriages in the Tudor dynasty, only two sons survived. One of them, Henry Darnley, was the
object of their ambition, and his son would one day become James VI. Ring ably shows Margaret's adaptation to
religious mores and to the caprices of kings and queens, though she is less successful in that perpetual stumbling block
of books about English history: connecting names, titles, and relationships. A wealth of correspondence and a strong
knowledge of the period combine in a capable book showing life at these strange medieval courts.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
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Ring, Morgan. So High a Blood: The Story of
Margaret Douglas, the Tudor That Time Forgot
Katie McGaha
Library Journal.
142.3 (Feb. 15, 2017): p96.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Ring, Morgan. So High a Blood: The Story of Margaret Douglas, the Tudor That Time Forgot. Bloomsbury Pr. Apr.
2017. 352p. notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9781632866059. $35. BIOG
In her debut, Ring (history, Cambridge Univ.) delivers a comprehensive biography of the niece of one of England's
most notorious monarchs, King Henry VIII. While overshadowed by her famous relatives and the political events of
the time, Margaret Douglas (1515-78) rose from her abandonment by her mother, Margaret Tudor, to follow her own
ambitions, as well as those of her children and grandchildren, risking her own safety in the process. The author
compiles a plethora of research, including contemporary sources, to reveal Douglas's integral role in the Tudor and
Stuart dynasties. Alison Weir's The Lost Tudor Princess became the first biography on the royal, and this new study
serves as another excellent contribution, perhaps leading to a trend of interest in Douglas. VERDICT Recommended
for readers of Tudor history, and the women who made their mark during the era. In addition to the many intriguing
stories here, readers will enjoy Ring's ability to put them together into a captivating narrative.--Katie McGaha, County
of Los Angeles P.L.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
McGaha, Katie. "Ring, Morgan. So High a Blood: The Story of Margaret Douglas, the Tudor That Time Forgot."
Library Journal, 15 Feb. 2017, p. 96. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
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So High a Blood: The Story of Margaret
Douglas, the Tudor that Time Forgot
Publishers Weekly.
264.7 (Feb. 13, 2017): p61.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
So High a Blood: The Story of Margaret Douglas, the Tudor that Time Forgot
Morgan Ring. Bloomsbury, $35 (368p) ISBN 978-1-63286-605-9
In this quick-paced overview, Ring, a doctoral candidate in history at Cambridge, depicts a determined Tudor family
survivor who eschewed tranquility in favor of scheming for the thrones of England and Scotland. Margaret Douglas's
calculated maneuvering resulted in the marriage between her son, Lord Darnley, and Mary, Queen of Scots, and the
succession of their son, James VI of Scotland (and I of England). Ring intends to rescue Margaret from the popular
role of overbearing mother to her "spoiled" son, but she provides little textual support for her claims. Mary, Queen of
Scots, appears as a lightly drawn figure with hazy motives and Darnley seems almost an afterthought. The relationships
between Margaret and the reigning Tudors takes center stage, especially the rash romantic entanglements and shifting
court alliances. Still, it's hard to sense Margaret's charisma and the strategic abilities that allowed her to remain a
claimant while repeatedly switching alliances as her family's needs changed. Interestingly, Ring successfully argues
that Margaret's strong midlife adherence to Catholicism--after years of remaining privately Catholic--derived from the
needs of her children, both living and buried. Ring's work has its flaws, but it's suitable for introductory reading on
Margaret's complex life. Agent: Anna Power, Johnson & Alcock (U.K.). (May.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"So High a Blood: The Story of Margaret Douglas, the Tudor that Time Forgot." Publishers Weekly, 13 Feb. 2017, p.
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Gale Document Number: GALE|A482198199
Mathew Lyons
WRITER & HISTORIAN
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Review: So High A Blood by Morgan Ring
AUGUST 2, 2017 LEAVE A COMMENT
So High A Blood explores in detail the life of Margaret, Countess of Lennox, a Tudor princess without whom, perhaps, there would have been no Stewart succession and no subsequent union between England and Scotland.
Born in 1515, Margaret was the daughter of Margaret Tudor, the eldest daughter of Henry VII, by her second husband Archibald Douglass, the Earl of Lennox. Her life in many echoes that of her cousins, Mary I and Elizabeth I. The stain of bastardy hung over her birth, owing to the complex legal status of her parents marriage, and she was herself at times close to the English succession under both Henry VIII and Mary. She was reported to believe her own claim to throne stronger than Elizabeth’s, comments which helped earned her a spell in prison when Elizabeth came to hear of them.
It wasn’t only her alleged bastardy that stood in Margaret’s way. She remained a devout Catholic, and she was both English and Scottish, to the discomfort of all, it seems. Margaret was born in England while her mother was in temporary exile and would spend most of her life here. However, her estates were largely in Scotland – even if she wasn’t always able to assert her ownership of them, or of their revenues. As such, she was uniquely ill-positioned to manipulate events in either country to her advantage.
That did not stop her trying, however. What she couldn’t achieve for herself, she aimed to do for her children. Of the eight she gave birth to, only two survived to adulthood. One of those, Henry, Lord Darnley, was murdered aged 21, less than two years into his marriage to Mary, Queen of Scots. Margaret had connived to bring the two together – which Elizabeth saw as part of a plot to overthrow her and had Margaret committed to the Tower as a result – and, you could argue, her work was ultimately vindicated: it was Darnley’s brief marriage to Mary that produced James I of England.
Morgan Ring has written an absorbing account of Margaret’s life, and has found a fresh angle from which to view the Tudor court, which is no mean feat. If at times Margaret herself seems to fade from the scene as tumultuous events at both courts take centre stage, that is perhaps only fitting for a woman who had to fight all her life for what she believed to be her due.
This review first appeared in the Times Literary Supplement.
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The Favourite
Mathew is a writer and historian based in London. His most recent book, The Favourite, the first book-length exploration of the love affair between Walter Ralegh and Elizabeth I, was published by Constable & Robinson in March 2011.
He is also the author of Impossible Journeys, compared by The Guardian to a 'non-fiction Calvino', and There and Back Again: In the Footsteps of JRR Tolkien.
Popular posts
An exchange of poems between Sir Walter Ralegh and Elizabeth I
Henry VIII and his bastard children
What's in a name? Walter Ralegh vs Walter Raleigh
Richard Topcliffe: the Queen's torturer
The decline and fall of Twyford Abbey
The Favourite: out now in paperback
Available 21 June 2012
Contact
Email me at info@mathewlyons.co.uk
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Recent posts
Mary, Countess of Pembroke: poetry, patronage and power
Of God and Jonson: theatre history, new things and non-events
Wilton History Festival: the Countess of Pembroke and her circle
Forgotten London films: Underground (1928)
Forgotten London films: Run For Your Money (1949)
Forgotten London films: Waterloo Road (1945)
Forgotten London films: The Happy Family (1952)
Forgotten London films: No Trees in the Street (1959)
Forgotten London films: London Belongs to Me (1948)
Forgotten London films: St Martin’s Lane (1938)
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What I blog about
Anthony Babington Ben Jonson Books and literature Deleted scenes Early Modern life and culture Elizabethan Catholics Elizabethan court Elizabethan London Elizabethan theatre Elizabeth I Elsewhere on the internet Films Henry VIII History Today Impossible Journeys Interviews and reviews Journalism London Lost Elizabethans Mathew and his work Miscellaneous Personal Poems Politics Pre-Reformation culture Public history Publishing and the media Reviews Sir Walter Ralegh The Favourite Thomas Kyd Traitors and terrorists Travelling players and theatrical troupes Victims of persecution William Shakespeare
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