There was politics behind the choice of East Anglia for Elizabeth’s summer progress in 1578. During the course of the summer, Elizabeth stayed twice with Philip Howard, Earl of Surrey – heir of the foolish traitor Thomas Howard, fourth duke of Norfolk – just turned 21 that June. Kenninghall, Norkolk's great palace, had been shuttered... Continue Reading →
Thomas Kyd: fragments of a life
The life and work of Thomas Kyd offer a perfect example of the problems posed by the erosion of evidence over time – see my post here – since what little we do know seems wholly arbitrary in its survival, yet also hints at the enormity of what we have lost. Kyd, a prosperous scrivener’s... Continue Reading →
More on the Shakespeare authorship question
Many thanks to those who have taken the time to comment on my previous post on the Shakespeare authorship controversy. Since one of those, from Howard Schumann – sorry I can't work out how to link to it – is from an Oxfordian perspective, I thought I should reply more fully. My general point is... Continue Reading →
Sir Walter Ralegh’s letter to his wife, the night before execution
To mark the anniversary of Ralegh's execution in 1618, I thought it worth posting a letter he wrote to his wife from his prison cell in Winchester in December 1603. He had been sentenced to death for treason on 17 November, and wrote this letter, most likely on 8 December, expecting to die imminently, perhaps... Continue Reading →
Who’s to blame for the Shakespeare authorship controversy?
Thank God. Someone (Dispositio, here, hat-tip Dainty Ballerina) is writing something sensible on the Shakespeare Authorship issue. The whole blog is worth reading, and the basic argument – more needs to be done to counter the conspiracy theorists – is surely right. But I was particularly pleased to see someone say this: “the entire authorship... Continue Reading →
Thomas Cobham: a life of recklessness and reprieve
I didn't know a great deal about Thomas Cobham when I came across his name in the Middlesex Session Rolls, where he is recorded as one of two men standing surety for a young Walter Ralegh on December 19, 1577, after the latter's servants had been arrested for a drunken assault on the nightwatch in... Continue Reading →
The unstable sea and its secret sources: an 11th-century voyage of discovery
A few years ago I wrote a book called Impossible Journeys, which was a collection of travellers tales about journeys to places which do not exist. Some of those places are relatively well known; indeed El Dorado has passed into the language as the very definition of a chimeric destination. Others, such as Norumbega and... Continue Reading →
The Grotian moment: Hugo Grotius and the invention of international law
A lawyer serving a life sentence escapes from prison hidden in a bookcase: as a plot point it would have the sort of ironic neatness that gives novelists and screenwriters a bad name. In this instance, however, it is true. It happened on 22 March 1621. The prison was the 14th Century castle of Loevestein,... Continue Reading →
The gains doth seldom quit the charge: Henry Noel at the court of Elizabeth I
This is the third in my series of posts on a disparate group of courtiers in the 1570s and 1580s – for the purposes of this blog, I am calling them the Lost Elizabethans – who I first encountered researching The Favourite. Although well known in their day – I suspect both Noel, the subject... Continue Reading →
Dreams of escape – George Gifford: courtier, con-man, conspirator
Despite the notoriety which still clouds men like Anthony Babington, executed in 1586 for plotting to assassinate Elizabeth I, history's selective memory has been kind in overlooking the dubious career of other men who flirted with regicide in the same period. Indeed, one man, despite never having attempted the act, seems to have been almost... Continue Reading →
Deleted scenes
As I wrote and edited The Favourite, I became aware that there were many subjects about which I wanted to write, but which didn't fit neatly into the structure of the book. Many of these were portraits, whether of men in Ralegh's circle or of others caught up in the deadly dramas around Elizabeth I... Continue Reading →
Chiswick Book Festival
I was delighted to be asked to talk at the Chiswick Book Festival for the first time last week. (There are some photos of the event online here.) The festival, which is run by the lovely people at Midas PR, is great fun: there's a good sense of camaraderie and community, by no means dampened... Continue Reading →
Mathew Lyons 