Quotes from Leanda de Lisle

If my faults deserve punishment, my youth at least, and my imprudence were worthy of excuse

Similarly, while the Tudors are often recalled in terms of a historical enmity with Spain, this too is history written with hindsight: the Armada did not take place until a generation after Elizabeth became queen.

But as Shakespeare's Richard II boasts, 'Not all the water in the rough rude sea/Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.

After a farcical trial for treason Clarence was executed in the Tower. The hard-drinking king may have thought the method a kindly one – he had Clarence drowned in a vat of Malmsey wine.5

There was no more dangerous a time in a nation's life than the passing of a ruler when the succession was in doubt.