Mary II at her Toilette
If an image of Queen Mary II comes to mind, it is not usually one of her at a dressing table. This post explores an unusual ceramic object depicting Mary in this way, manufactured...
Category: Blog
‘King James Did What?! With Who?!’: Anne Murray, the mistress of James VI
In recent years, James VI & I has featured heavily in the uncovering and celebrating of hidden histories. A cursory Google search finds him referred to as homosexual, bisexual, and a ‘queer king’. The...
Christian II of Anhalt: An obsessive diarist and courtier manqué during the Thirty Years War
Among the self-testimonies of the first half of the 17th century, the diary (written mostly in German, but also in French and occasionally in Italian) which Prince Christian II of Anhalt (born 1599 in...
A Sonnet for a Former Princess
Between 1538 and 1543, the Tudor literary courtier Henry Parker, Lord Morley (about 1486-1556), presented the future queen Mary I with a New Year’s gift that included ‘an Italion ryme called soneto’ in English.[i]...
William Davison: A Re-Introduction
For early modern historians, the cast of the Elizabethan polity may seem all too familiar. However, one privy councillor is much less recognisable. As a diplomat and principal secretary, William Davison participated in events...
Exploring Monarchy in Medieval Europe: 1000-1500
In early 2025, Routledge will publish a History textbook entitled Exploring Monarchy in Medieval Europe: 1000-1500 (EMME), a work which is currently under construction by Dr Elena (Ellie) Woodacre (University of Winchester), Dr Lucinda...
‘Bless’d be the Fertile Princess’: The Representation of Motherhood in Anglo-Hanoverian Art, 1714-1751
Motherhood has been inextricable from the experience of royal women across the globe throughout history. In monogamous monarchic systems, the focus of reproductive anxieties and ambitions was traditionally the queen consort. A fecund royal...
Anti-Popery, Scottish Identity, and the Uses of Travel at the Early Stuart Court
In the Jerusalem section of his 1632 travel account, the Scottish adventurer William Lithgow paused to tell a story that had taken place closer to home, in Whitehall. One day in 1612, Lithgow wrote,...
Margaret Douglas’s Verse-Fashioning in the Henrician Court
Like most scholars I know, there is very little I can say about my field without immediately wanting to append, “…but that’s not quite right” or “from another perspective, though….”. This post focuses on...
A Female Aristocrat Memoirist’s Account of the French Court’s Struggle for Survival (1789-1792)
In 1832, Pauline de Tourzel, countess of Béarn, composed her memoirs entitled Souvenirs de 40 ans (1789-1830): Récit d’une dame de Madame la dauphine (published in 1861), a major portion of which consists of...