1. professional reputation
2. standing with the public
3. impact on the public purse
4. conduct of foreign policy
5. preparations for succession

Starting from 1066 with William the Conqueror (overrated), through to a postscript for Elizabeth II (good), he hurls a revisionist Molotov Cocktail into our historical thinking.

How Can You Measure Monarchy?

Measuring Monarchy is not … an endeavour which aspires to construct some sort of league table in which every monarch who fits in the frame of England to 1603 and England and Scotland from that date is listed. The aim instead is to establish some general but enduring rules for deciding on relative merit, then to offer a series of case studies of who appear to be underrated and overrated respectively, and then to draw some threads together in concluding what it is that the underrated have in common.

The task is not as taxing as it might seem to be anyway. Comparing William I (the Conqueror) (1066–87) with Stephen (1135–54) is not an impossible aim as Norman England (once the invaders had become a fully occupying force) did not change that dramatically between the dates concerned. Henry II (1154–89) was succeeded by Richard I or Lionheart (1189–99). It is not that hard to draw a comparison between Edward III (1327–77) and Henry V (1413–22), where there is not a chasm in their timespans. The monarchs Henry VII (1485–1509), Henry VIII (1509–47) and Elizabeth I (1558–1603) are Tudor family. William III (1689–1702) is followed by Anne (1702–14). William IV (1830–37), Victoria (1837–1901) and Edward VII (1901–10) come after one another. These fourteen kings and queens comprise those who are to be awarded either an ‘underrated’ or an ‘overrated’ designation.

The Ratings

The use of terms like ‘underrated’ and ‘overrated’ only makes sense if there is some degree of consensus about those who are either ‘accurately rated’ or ‘fairly rated’. To a perhaps rather surprising extent, this writer believes that most historical observers would not have that much difficulty determining who should be rated ‘good’, ‘average’, ‘poor’, ‘terrible’ or ‘not rateable’.

The Good

The ‘good’ (excluding, as will be the case uniformly here, the fourteen monarchs scheduled for a closer inspection) include Henry I, Edward I, Henry IV (a slightly edgy choice, some would assert) and (on balance) Edward IV. As will be outlined at the end of this book, Elizabeth II may well fit here too.

The Average

The ‘average’ (in chronological order) would include William II, James I (possibly at the top of this division), Charles II, George II (perhaps close to the relegation zone), George V and George VI.

The Poor

The ‘poor’ (in order of their reign) contains John, Henry III, Mary Tudor, George I (although it is a judgement call between the first two Hanoverians as to who is the less appealing), George III (it was not his fault that he was consumed by insanity, but a device should have been found for abdication in these conditions) and George IV. They tainted the monarchy to a degree but were not overthrown.

The Terrible

The ‘terrible’ were actually thrown out. They number Edward II (removed by his wife, her lover and his own heir), Richard II (deposed by Henry IV), Henry VI (ejected by Edward IV), Richard III (although he has his defenders, who would not be pleased to see him placed in this company), Charles I (not a smart king even if the royalists were ‘wrong but romantic’) and his son James II (forced to flee).

The Remainder

There is then a small set of kings and queens who for diverse reasons are hard to categorise at all. Edward V disappeared from the Tower of London, assumed murdered as a child. Edward VI was a boy king under the control of first the Duke of Somerset, then the Duke of Northumberland. Mary II, in theory the joint monarch with her husband William III, was plainly the inferior party in that contract and died after just over five years on the throne. Edward VIII abdicated within a year so that he could marry Wallis Simpson (although there is a plausible lobby that would mark him down as ‘terrible’ for that decision and his liaisons with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis). Charles III is too new to judge.

The Evaluation Here

The central premise of this book is that a series of monarchs whom many would automatically list as ‘good’, even ‘great’, should not have that status and that a series of other figures (some of whom are well known but have been burdened by an unfair assessment) should be elevated from an ‘average’ ranking, which most of them would conventionally have, and now be evaluated as ‘good’ rulers.

There is, nonetheless, one final constraint that should be conceded at the outset of the operation. It is surely unavoidable even if strenuous efforts are made to minimise it. It cannot be obliterated.

It is subjectivity. Even if there were to be a universal consensus that the five measures which are about to be outlined are indeed the ideal means by which monarchs should be evaluated (and it would be a miracle on the scale of the loaves and the fishes if that were to come to pass), then that still leaves an immense amount to disagree about in how those measures should be utilised. At the extremes, there are occasions where it is absolutely clear whether a monarch did or did not leave the public finances in a better or worse state than they inherited, or engaged in wars which either did or did not make England, or England and Scotland, a bigger player on the European (later global) stage and whether the succession which would follow their deaths would be smooth or contested.

There are other instances, though, when it is not as clear-cut how to validate a verdict. There may be a case that the strength or weakness of the coffers was not a direct reflection on the monarch of the day, or that their options in the exercise of foreign policy were either wider or narrower, or that the succession question arose in circumstances which it was unreasonable for them to have expected.

There will doubtless be observers of certain figures, whom I believe can be dispassionately assigned as ‘underrated’ or ‘overrated’, who will examine the same acts or events in history and come to an entirely different conclusion as to how they should be interpreted. Subjectivity is destined never to be removed from historical deliberation altogether. In truth, it is the blood flowing in its veins.

Without an element of structure, and one which is not too open-ended or ambiguous, the aspiration to measure monarchy is lost before it has even started in earnest. We need some rules, or we have little chance of reaching findings, even if they will still prompt dissent thereafter. What are set out now are the five measures by which, it will be asserted here, we can examine the record of monarchs not only in terms of what their contemporaries might have thought, but more widely.

Extracted from Measuring Monarchy by Tim Hames

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How would you describe The Cleveland Street Scandal in 3 words?

Sex, power, cover-up / abuse of power.

What inspired you to cover this particular story?

It was a scandal that I was vaguely aware of, but I didn’t know much about it – we never covered this in history lessons at school in the 1980’s! It was the fact that Inspector Abberline, whom I knew was a key figure in the Jack the Ripper investigation in London’s East End in 1888 – the year before the Cleveland Street scandal – was put in charge of the inquiry which first intrigued me. The connection with Abberline didn’t seem to be widely known outside of Jack the Ripper researchers, known as ‘Ripperologists’. Then I discovered that no book had been written about the scandal for almost fifty years, so I was sure that I could find out more and add detail and cover the Abberline angle in more depth. But as research continued, I realised how much it was a story about the terrible mistreatment of gay men, the way that the Establishment closes ranks and abuses power to protect itself, and a massive cover-up which included the involvement of the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII.

As someone outside the LGBTQ community, how did you approach writing this book?

When I realised that it was in many ways an LGBTQ story, I did pause for a moment and wondered if I could take it on as a book project. Not being gay myself – although I have several gay friends – could I do it justice? But then I realised that the story itself was so powerful that I just had to accurately try to bring that story to life and tell it honestly, so that those unaware of this incredible incident in British history – and I suspect that there are many people who have never heard about it before – could become aware of it. The Cleveland Street scandal also set the template for Oscar Wilde’s prosecution for gross indecency six years later in 1895 (which I cover at the end of the book and show the links to the Cleveland Street prosecutions), and most people know about that. I wanted to raise awareness of how badly gay men were treated legally in the Victorian period and beyond: right up to 1967 in England and Wales, Scotland in 1981 and Northern Ireland in 1982. And at least 50,000 gay men who were demonised and prosecuted because of their natural sexual inclination – including Wilde – weren’t pardoned until 2020! So, I felt a strong sense of responsibility in presenting this story to a wider public, including of course those in the LBGTQ community who had little knowledge of it, and I hope that I did a reasonable job.

You refer to the late-Victorian gay scene in London as ‘a thriving subculture’. What can you tell us about it?

It was going on, in London anyway, and more openly than you might think, given that it was socially taboo as well as illegal. Since at least mid-Georgian times in the late eighteenth century, gay men had met in what were called ‘Molly houses’, but which really referred to places where they met – not always privately, and sometimes in pubs and coffee-houses. There was some male prostitution of course, but many of these meetings would have just been between gay men who mixed together, although passwords and codes were often used to communicate. Assignations and pick-ups would also take place in London’s large parks, but from the mid-eighteenth century the very centre of London began to really develop. The term ‘West End’ came into usage in the very early nineteenth century, and this offered new methods of meeting ‘Mollys’ or rent boys. As I detail in the book, the modern West End as we know it today – Charing Cross Road, Shaftesbury Avenue, Piccadilly Circus – was largely built from the 1850s onwards, and so by the time of the scandal in 1889 was largely in place. Lit by streetlamps, these thoroughfares were much safer than parks for well-heeled men to meet rent boys (and there were hundreds if not several thousands of them operating in London by that time). Pick-ups often took place as rent boys hovered in front of shop windows hoping to the catch the eye of a potential client. From there, it was off to private rooms or organised brothels such as at No.19 Cleveland Street. The gay subculture was thriving, and early gay slang known as Polari was already in use by the late 1880s.

The treatment of gay men and the deep prejudice you describe can feel very shocking today. Did anything especially shock you about it?

Gay men were persecuted, and made to feel inhuman, in a psychiatric, social and legal sense. And public opinion was very largely homophobic in late Victorian Britain (in rural areas unsurprisingly more so than in the cities) outside of the gay subculture which operated under the surface. As the saying goes, it takes a long time for minds to change. It is shocking through our much more liberated prism of over 135 years later. What shocked me most though was how the law was applied differently to those of low social standing – the rent boys or ordinary gay men, and those of social standing. The Cleveland Street scandal is a clear and documented example of how aristocrats were allowed to escape prosecution, while those of low station had to face the law. It’s the tale of discriminatory and simply unfair legislation coupled with massive class inequality, where those at the top of the hierarchy – in this case close to Queen Victoria’s Royal family – were protected as the Establishment closed ranks to protect itself.

There are many colourful characters on both sides of the law, and from across the class divide. Did anyone especially stand out for you?

This true story does have a ready-made cast of colourful and quirky characters. Ones that particularly stood out for me, for a variety of different reasons, were the crooked lawyer, Arthur Newton; the irascible Earl of Euston; the slippery pimp Charles Hammond and his sidekick, George Veck, who posed as a priest; the politician, journalist and theatre-owner Henry Labouchère; and the veteran and brazen rent boy Jack Saul.

This was the final case for Detective Inspector Abberline, the man who mishandled the Jack the Ripper case. How significant was his role in the Cleveland Street Scandal?

Abberline was very significant to the scandal, as he led the investigation into it. He was a methodical and earnest policeman, with many commendations, and did his utmost to uphold the law. But he was hampered in his investigation by higher authorities, and became very frustrated by this, as did his overall boss, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner James Munro. And it must be said that the police in this case wanted the law to be applied fairly. As I relay in the book from files in the archives and other sources, these officers (along with some members of the justice system) wanted everybody to face justice if they had broken the law, regardless of social standing. But pressure from the Prince of Wales’s fixers and a government compliant to that pressure made this very difficult.

Has researching this scandal changed your view of authority?

I’ve been researching history and crime for some time now, so to be honest I already had a jaded, sceptical (hopefully not totally cynical!) view of authority. The old saying, ‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’, which was incidentally coined by the historian and politician Lord Acton just two years before the Cleveland Street scandal, holds a great deal of truth. The levers of power in society control how we all live, and we are at the mercy of them. All that we can do is be vigilant and try to keep checks on that power. In a Western democracy we are very lucky to largely have free speech, but we still have to be aware that machinations are going on and levers are constantly being pulled behind closed doors. There’s nothing wrong with authority in itself, it’s just how it’s administered.

What conclusions, if any, do you think might be drawn between the cover-up at Cleveland Street and similar scandals today?

My conclusion is that when those with a lot or the most to lose have power, they will do anything to protect themselves and their position. In the Cleveland Street scandal, the very structure of society and those at the very top of the hierarchy, which held it together top-down, was for a few months in real jeopardy – namely the Royal family and the aristocracy. This could happen again, in a different way, and we must be watchful for those closing of ranks, which leads to injustice, abuse of power, and the suffering of those with little or no power. Whether it’s on a nationally governmental or local political level, within a corporation or company, or within a community, scandals will always happen, and cover-ups may also occur or be attempted.

What thoughts would you like readers to take away from the book?

The old adage is that we can learn from history. Details change as societies progress and structures are altered, but the same general patterns emerge repeatedly. I hope that this book puts a spotlight on the mistreatment of gay men and the abuse of power and privilege by the Establishment in the late Victorian period. We really can learn from what went before, and I certainly did while researching and writing this book. But there is a comical and farcical side to the book alongside the serious one, and I hope that readers are also entertained by it!

The post Ask the author: Neil Root on The Cleveland Street Scandal appeared first on The History Press.

Steadily, throughout the 2000s, I had searched for former members of the Association and done my best to ensure that they didn’t throw away records. Whenever there were files or memorabilia that the owner no longer wanted I was able to redirect these either to the British Library or the National Football Museum in Manchester. My own cellar revealed old minutes, newsletters and football programmes, all of which have been invaluable in compiling this book. I have not had access to a complete set of WFA minutes but I have done the best I could with whatever material was available to me – and it was a lot! Just as important, have been the memories of so many people who were involved with the WFA from its inception in 1968 and beyond.

Although, as the late Queen Elizabeth II said, ‘recollections may vary’, the memories of so many have helped to jog the brain cells to unearth long-buried stories. My thanks in particular to June Jaycocks, David and Marianne Hunt, Jenny Bruton, Pam Marlowe, Mary and Suzanne Hull, Bill and Viv Bowley, and many more. Almost all of whom I tracked down were kind and generous with their time and their help. Occasionally someone did not wish to talk to me, but I hope that I have done justice in recording what was a relatively short existence for the Association. The WFA was founded on voluntary effort, which continued even after we were able to open an office. Unsurprisingly, given the time span, I was too late to speak with some volunteers. Clubs, leagues and much of the Association’s business was down to their efforts. When it became obvious that our inadequate resources would not be enough to develop the sport as it deserved, we handed its organisation over to the Football Association in 1993. The 2022 Euros trophy and England’s silver medal from the 2023 World Cup are surely proof that we were right to do so.

Our determination

Since UK women’s football has found its way on to the sports pages of the national newspapers and even TV and radio news bulletins, there has been a steady increase in the number of books written on the subject. None, however, have been devoted to the re-emergence of the sport in the late twentieth century through the work of the Women’s FA following the Football Association ban of women’s matches from pitches under their control (and consequently the other British football authorities) in 1921. A ban that remained in place until the end of 1969.

Some women found a way to play football in the intervening years, but it took the selfless efforts of men and women in the 1960s to overturn the ban and secure a sound base from which today’s women’s players have benefitted. Breaking the Grass Ceiling attempts to record the struggles of the Women’s Football Association to become established and to recognise what those people achieved.

Extracted from Breaking the Grass Ceiling by Patricia Gregory

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Tuesday, 8 May 1945 was VE – Victory in Europe – Day. Germany had surrendered. It was the end of the war in Europe. It was a time for celebration, but it was also a time for reflection. On VE Day, a jubilant crowd of thousands made their way to Buckingham Palace in London. They clamoured for the royal family. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, with the two princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, went out on the palace balcony eight times. Prime Minister Winston Churchill joined the royal family on the balcony. That day he told the nation:

‘My dear friends, this is your hour. This is not victory of a party or of any class. It’s a victory of the great British nation as a whole.’

Winston Churchill, VE Day 8 May 1945

Far away in Germany, Adelaide Hall was in the middle of her ENSA tour. She was in Hamburg when she was notified that the war had ended. Adelaide then became one of the first entertainers to arrive in Berlin to congratulate the troops after the city had been liberated. She said:

‘There was not a street in sight – nothing. They had all been razed to the ground, and people were putting up little boards, made from bits of wood, to identify the names of the streets that used to be there.’

Adelaide Hall

After the war, her husband Bert couldn’t get her out of the uniform specially made for her by Madame Adele of Grosvenor Street. He told his wife, ‘The war is over now, honey, you can let that uniform go!’

Norma Best, from British Honduras, had joined the ATS in 1944. She was in London for VE Day and took part in the endof-war celebrations on the Embankment. She later reflected:

‘I think the spirit of the war was that we were all fighting to win. All we could think about is to get in there, do a good job, let’s get it over and done with. Colour didn’t come into it.’

Norma Best

In January 1945, the newsletter of the LCP [League of Coloured Peoples] noted that Ulric Cross had been appointed the first liaison officer for West Indians in the RAF. They added that the recent award of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) to Ulric was ‘a joy to every West Indian heart’. Ulric heard on the radio that the war was over, and he went to Piccadilly Circus in London to join the celebrations:

‘Everybody was overjoyed and I just didn’t feel like taking any part in it. So I went back home. I just felt that a lot of people had been killed. This was not a cause for celebration. The war did not stop people from being killed and a lot of my friends were killed, at least four or five from Trinidad. I was extremely glad the war was over.’

Flight Lieutenant Ulric Cross, DSO, DFC

In Jamaica, Connie Mark, who was serving with the ATS, remembered VE Day as a marvellous time:

‘Everybody was happy ’cause as far as we were concerned, the war was finished. Everybody was happy. Everybody just jumped up and down; the war was over, and it meant that no more of our people would be killed. We had parties, and everybody took it as an excuse to have a party, a drink up, and get stone-blind drunk. I didn’t used to drink in those days; I just went to all the parties that there were. Yeah, you were glad that the war was over, and people weren’t going to die. You didn’t have troop ships coming in with people sick, or blinded, or with missing limbs.’

Connie Mark

Cerene Palmer said that everybody in Jamaica wanted to know that Hitler was really dead.

‘They wanted to make sure it was him. They hung Mussolini so everybody could see him. You knew he was dead.’

Cerene Palmer

In England, another Jamaican, Sam King, was at his RAF hangar, repairing an aircraft, when victory was announced on the tannoy. Everyone was given the remainder of the day off, but they were told they would have to be back on duty the next day. Sam put on his RAF uniform and caught the bus into Weston-super-Mare:

‘It was different. The birds were singing. I got off the bus and I was on the right-hand side of the road, passing the George and Dragon. A lady rushed out: “Come along! You must have a drink.” She pulled me in the pub and said, “Bring rum for this airman, he’s from Jamaica.” I said, “I’m very sorry. I do not drink rum.” She said, “How can you not drink rum? You’ve got Jamaica on your shoulder!” She brought the rum and I had to drink the rum. Everybody was happy. It was VE Day. There’ll be no more bombing. No more killing. And especially for the women whose loved ones were coming home. It was good to be alive and I was alive.’

Sam King

Harold Sinson, from British Guiana, served in the RAF in Pembroke Dock in Wales. When asked about his memories of VE Day, he spoke of how everyone just downed tools:

‘Everything was free – there were drinks all over the place, there was dancing in the street. It was really exciting. It lasted all that day and all night – nobody knew what was happening, you just danced away until you had enough and you went back to camp and to bed. We got off the next day – it was wonderful. We spent time with our friends, and felt very humble for the things people did for us and the people who had died.’

Harold Sinson

Eddie Martin Noble was a Jamaican who was also in the RAF and serving in England. He said he was in Cambridge on VE Day when ‘the very the end of the war in Europe was announced’. In his autobiography, published in 1984, he reflected:

‘It is almost impossible for me to adequately describe here, after all these years, the incredible scenes of joy and sheer abandonment which took place in Cambridge that day and night. Complete strangers would hug and kiss you in the streets, shops and parks. There was dancing in the streets, and bonfires everywhere. In a park near the university I saw servicemen and officers take off their tunics and throw them on a massive bonfire.’

Eddie Martin Noble in his autobiography Jamaica Airman: A Black Airman in Britain 1943 and After

Eddie acknowledged that Winston Churchill was ‘a great war leader’. He believed that, without his leadership, the British people would have lost the war, ‘But, to put it bluntly, he was a bastard. As soon as the war ended they threw him out, and let a Labour government in, so that should tell you something.’

On VE Day, the Trinidadian singer Edric Connor was ready to broadcast the first instalment of a new BBC series of programmes called Serenade in Sepia. However, the live broadcast was postponed so that the BBC could do justice to the celebrations of the end of the war. It was decided that Edric and his co-star, Evelyn Dove, would record the programme on VE Day instead and it would be broadcast at a later date. However, getting to Broadcasting House on VE Day proved an almost impossible task for Edric:

‘Most public transport stopped running. Housewives left kitchens. Shops and schools were closed. All commercial and industrial activities ceased. The only way I could get to London that day was in a hearse. As I sat near the coffin I contemplated the dead body it contained. What a day to go to the BBC! Then I thought of the millions of people killed in the war and wept quietly. Somebody has to cry for the steel that is bent and the body broken against its will. Somebody has to cry for the children unborn and those born but hungry. Somebody had to cry for humanity. The hearse put me down at Oxford Circus.’

Edric Connor

Ambrose Campbell, the Nigerian musician and bandleader, was also drawn into the VE Day celebrations. On that memorable day he launched his new band, the West African Rhythm Brothers, in Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. Sixty years later, Campbell reflected:

‘Everybody had been waiting for that day so everybody was happy and jumping around and dancing and kissing each other, so we thought we’d join the celebration. Four or five drummers and two or three guitars and these voices singing. We had a huge crowd following us around Piccadilly Circus. You could hardly move.’

Ambrose Campbell

In Black London (2015), Marc Matera described Campbell’s participation in VE Day as a ‘spontaneous expression of hope for a transformed post-war social order’.

As the war drew to a close, Dr Harold Moody made a broadcast to the people of the Caribbean for the BBC’s Empire Service in their series, Calling the West Indies. Extracts were then published in the News Letter of the LCP. ‘VE Day has come and gone,’ he said:

‘The years of blood and toil and sweat have come to an end in Europe. The tension of war for millions is over. We are free, again in the continent of Europe. I have been in the midst of a peoples whose homes have been shattered, whose families have been battered, who themselves have been maimed. I have seen these people bear all these shocks bravely and with stoic resistance. I now see these same people breathing the air of relief, and, in their rejoicing, lighting those fires the sight of which, a while ago, would have struck them with terror … I have rejoiced in meeting from time to time the fine group of men and women you have sent over from the West Indies, British Guiana and British Honduras. Their doings and achievements have thrilled me beyond telling. They will be coming back to you, we hope, before very long now, just as I hope my five boys and girls in the services will be back again soon. They have all done magnificently as they battled against evil things. Now they and you will have to continue the war against those evil things which are hindering the progress and development of our beloved lands in the West Indies.’

Dr Harold Moody

On 24 April 1947, at the age of 64, Dr Moody died of acute influenza at his home in Peckham. Thousands of people from all walks of life, including many of his patients, paid their respects at his funeral service which was held at the Camberwell Green Congregational Church. In his biography of Dr Moody, David A. Vaughan said that Moody gave to the LCP ‘devotion, sacrifice, passion and zeal for the rest of his life and he held the office of President continuously until his death in 1947’. Sam Morris commented, ‘In his passing, the black people then resident in Britain lost a sound, sincere, dedicated but completely unpretentious champion.’

Pauline Henebery remembered the feeling of relief when the war in Europe was over, but it was short-lived for her because of the shock of what happened to Hiroshima, a city in Japan that was largely destroyed by an atomic bomb on 6 August 1945. Between 70,000 and 126,000 civilians were killed. She said:

‘I remember the news of that, and was just shattered by the horror, and what it was going to mean. It was just so, so awful. I had the most terrible feeling of guilt that this nation which I’d adopted had done this … well, it was the Americans, really, but still.’

Pauline Henebery

Baron Baker, a Jamaican who had joined the RAF in 1944, felt passionately about the role West Indian servicemen had played in the conflict, as well as the sacrifices some of them had made for the mother country:

‘Many of our blue blood blacks died for the establishment. I know it because I buried several … so many of our young Jamaicans, and West Indians, contributed immensely to Britain’s war effort. It should be remembered at all times. It should never be forgotten.’

Baron Baker

At the end of the war, Esther Bruce took Stephen Bourne’s mother Kathy, aged 14, to see St Paul’s Cathedral. Like so many others, Esther found it hard to believe that St Paul’s had survived the German bombardment of London (the Blitz, doodlebugs and V-2 rockets). For many, including Esther, the beautiful and majestic cathedral symbolised the hope and strength of the British people. ‘Look at St. Paul’s Cathedral,’ Esther said to Kathy. ‘There’s not a mark on it. We’re lucky. We’ve still got half a street, but some poor souls have ended up with nothing.’

Extracted from Under Fire: Black Britain in Wartime 1939–45 by Stephen Bourne

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A shrievalty, as the position was known, could be extremely lucrative, depending on how it was approached. Each sheriff owed an annual shire payment to the national exchequer – basically the tax owed collectively by the whole county – but how he organised that payment was left up to him, and if he collected more than was owing (as often happened), he could keep the difference for himself. Bribes, ex gratia payments, gifts and favours were also not unknown.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that many sheriffs gained a reputation for being selfish and grasping, none more so than the most famous (fictional) postholder of all: the Sheriff of Nottingham in the Robin Hood stories. Many suggestions have been put forward over the years as to the identity of the ‘real’ Robin Hood, but who might the real sheriff have been?

If we take the period in question to be the reign of King John – the most common setting for the legends – we can see that there are several plausible candidates. ‘Sheriff of Nottingham’ wasn’t actually a dedicated position at the time, as responsibility for that county was rolled up into the overarching post of ‘High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests’, but Sherwood was one of those forests, tying the shrievalty firmly to the legend, so these sheriffs are a good place to start.

From 1208 to 1224 the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests was a man called Philip Mark (or Marc), whom we can certainly class in the ‘grasping’ category. Philip had come to England from Touraine (which had been one of the French territories belonging to Henry II, but which had been lost by King John to Philip Augustus of France) in 1204. He was a close adherent of John and immediately gained a reputation for cruel and unethical behaviour. During his tenure as sheriff he ‘accepted’ an annual fee of £5 – a substantial amount of money at the time – from the citizens of Nottingham in return for ‘his goodwill and the maintenance of their liberties’, which sounds suspiciously like a protection money racket. He was accused of robbery, false arrest, unjust disseisin (the wrongful confiscation of goods), and the occasional threat to burn people’s homes to the ground if they didn’t pay up. He was so intensely unpopular that he was actually mentioned by name in Magna Carta as being one of John’s cronies whom the barons specifically demanded be removed from his post.

Philip is therefore a good candidate to be the basis for the fictional Sheriff of Nottingham, but in fact there is another man whose claims might be even more credible. With such a large geographical area to cover, Philip delegated most of his duties in Nottinghamshire, and all of the accounting the the exchequer, to a deputy named Eustace of Lowdham. This means that it was Eustace who was tasked with raising the shire payment for that county by whatever means he deemed necessary.

Eustace is connected to both of the regions most closely associated with the Robin Hood stories. He hailed from Nottinghamshire (his birthplace of Lowdham lay inside the boundaries of Sherwood Forest), and in addition to his time as deputy sheriff there, he was also later the deputy sheriff of Yorkshire. In Yorkshire he notably pursued, captured and executed an outlaw named Robert of Wetherby, and it was also during his tenure there that the chattels of a fugitive named Robert Hod were confiscated.

During his career Eustace accumulated a great deal of wealth and property, and he was known to be less than honest, charging far more money than was necessary and keeping the difference once he’d accounted to the exchequer for what was owed. His character and actions, and those of Philip Mark, bear striking similarities to Robin Hood’s legendary antagonist, and it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that the fictional ‘Sheriff of Nottingham’ is based on a later and half-remembered amalgamation of both.

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At her birth in 1889, Miss Dorothy Walpole, as she then was, seemed to have it all. Her family boasted an impressive political and literary heritage: ancestors included Sir Robert Walpole, Britain’s first Prime Minister and his famed son, Horace, author of the first gothic novel. Her father was heir to an earldom and her American mother the daughter of a wealthy railroad magnate. Dolly (as she was known) was raised in two of Norfolk’s finest houses, Wolterton and Mannington. But her privilege was tempered by several factors, including the early death of her mother and the clear desire of her father for a male heir.

When Dolly married a clever but poor army officer, Captain Arthur Mills, her father – by then the Earl of Orford – disinherited her and went on to marry a woman younger than his daughter. Life is often described as a journey. As an aristocratic woman with all the attendant advantages, Dolly could have taken the easy route, but the consequences of falling in love with the ‘wrong’ man saw her take another path. In doing so she underwent a metamorphosis and discovered much about herself, physically and mentally. Although she would never lose her love of donning a glamorous frock and downing a cocktail, for several months each year she left the decadent glamour of Jazz Age London for the wildness of desert, jungle and bush, where she found great solace.

Dolly had fallen in love with the Sahara when holidaying in Algeria. Her first expedition was in 1922 to Tunisia, to stay with the reclusive cave dwellers. Before Dolly, few women had chosen to journey through Africa, much of which was still little-known, and she became particularly known for her exploration in West Africa, becoming the first English woman in Timbuktu. Chugging along sluggish rivers on rickety boats she endured deadly heat, man-eating crocodiles and a male pursuer with teeth filed to sharp points. That achievement and the first of her six travel books, The Road to Timbuktu, cemented her reputation as an explorer and a travel writer.

In Liberia she was the first woman to cross the country to its furthest point, encountering cannibals on the way. In Venezuela she travelled over 800 miles through challenging terrain and along the Orinoco river. Everywhere she went, she stayed with local tribes whenever possible. Those who accompanied her on her expeditions were people she hired locally as guides, porters, interpreters. She never travelled with close companions, not even Arthur, who undertook his own journeys to find material for the successful adventure stories he wrote. They would reunite in their London flat, holiday together, then write and socialise.

Dolly travelled during a volatile period, when the world was emerging from the chaos of the Great War and re-shaping itself politically and culturally. She witnessed history in the making when Lord Balfour opened the first Hebrew University in Tel Aviv: her observations of the relationship between Jews and Arabs were prescient. In Iraq, she stayed with the Yezidi tribe, arriving via Aleppo in northern Syria and enduring a near-ambush by brigands. A century later, it is sobering to see that parts of the Middle East into which she ventured remain deeply troubled, and that some other places and peoples she wrote about have, at various times, continued to be the subject of distressing news.

Afterwards she shared her experiences with the world by turning them into compelling prose for her travel books and escapist stories for her novels, while undoubtedly being the only explorer who also wrote journalistic features on a wide range of topics for the emerging modern woman, now empowered by achieving suffrage. That she continued to enjoy the buzz of a social life when back in England provided a marked contrast with the other worlds she inhabited.

Today we take for granted the protection of inoculations for foreign travel. In Dolly’s time, smallpox, malaria and TB were rife, the number of people killed between 1900 and 1950 alone totalling more than those killed in both world wars. In several countries she explored, yellow fever was a killer: inoculation trials did not begin until 1938. Although she took precautions against certain illnesses, she succumbed several times yet survived, her petite, almost delicate frame enduring an extraordinary amount: no doubt she put her resilience down to the cigarettes she smoked and the alcohol she consumed whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Yet she also faced personal tribulations, including – ironically – a serious accident back home in London when she was at the height of her fame, and an emotional blow from her father. But she was buoyed up by her election in 1930 as an early female Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS). Always keen to foster a curious mind in the young, on her death in 1959 her most significant bequest was a legacy for a young woman member of the RGS to use for an explorative enterprise.

With no-one close enough to keep her memory alive, Dolly has been overlooked. Yet her curiosity, courage and sense of humanity showed the world extraordinary places and peoples, focusing always on what draws us together rather than what divides us.

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When did you first read about Joanna Plantagenet? And what inspired you to write a book about her?

I’ve known about Joanna’s existence seemingly forever, but she only ever appears in the background of works about the more famous members of her family: as Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine’s daughter, or as Richard the Lionheart’s sister. She’s just another name on the family tree – and, even then, only where the family tree bothers to include the daughters at all.

Many books have been published about Joanna’s male relatives and about her mother. However, the more I read about them, the more Joanna popped up in a series of wildly different and sometimes unexpected places: in France, in Sicily, in Cyprus, in the Holy Land, in Rome … and I thought to myself, just what sort of a life did this woman lead?

I therefore thought it was about time Joanna had a book of her own, and I’m very glad I was able to write it, because I’ve made some absolutely fascinating discoveries along the way.

What was the most difficult and most rewarding part of the research process?

It was certainly very challenging trying to find specific mentions of Joanna in contemporary medieval records (not to mention digging out my rusty and wasn’t-even-very-good-to-start-with Latin …). Most of these records were written by churchmen, who had very little to say about the deeds of women and even less interest in women’s personal thoughts and experiences.

But, as it happened, this also turned out to be the most rewarding part of the process as well, because those mentions are there if you look carefully, and I was able to dig out some very interesting material. Yes, the narrative of the Third Crusade is mainly about King Richard, but the occasional, almost throwaway ‘and his sister’ or ‘with his queens’ (meaning his wife and his sister) can tell us where Joanna was and what she was doing. I was also able to read the one and only surviving charter of her own, which was very exciting.

It was also fascinating for me to get to grips with some sources that aren’t very well known in England, for example the ones that tell us of Joanna’s time as queen of Sicily. Sicily was a very unusual kingdom in the Middle Ages: a place where Christians, Muslims and Jews all lived side by side in peace. So it was amazing to be able to bring that lesser-known aspect of history to the fore.

What is your favourite chapter in the book? Why?

This will sound a bit weird, but actually it’s Chapter 4, ‘To the East’, where Joanna gets shipwrecked off the coast of Cyprus. This event was unfortunate, of course, but the ensuing situation gave her the chance to demonstrate her leadership skills. She was on a ship with Princess Berengaria of Navarre, whom she was chaperoning, and also some men of lower rank – there was no father, brother, husband or other royal male in sight. So it was Joanna who had to negotiate with and fend off the ruler of the island, who was keen to get the party ashore so he could rob and do harm to them.

The icing on the cake of this episode is that one of the contemporary narratives we have, written by one of those same dismissive churchmen, was produced by an eye-witness who was actually there. And even he was impressed with the way Joanna comported herself in such a perilous situation.

How would you describe Lionessheart in 3 words?

Medieval women rock.

Have you learnt any life lessons from the women featured in the book?

From Eleanor of Brittany I’ve learned that I’m extremely lucky not to have been a minor female member of the Plantagenet family in the twelfth century! From the Damsel of Cyprus I’ve learned that you can make a mark on the world that will last for hundreds of years, even if nobody knows your name. And from Joanna herself I’ve learned that medieval women had to pick their battles very carefully – but that if they did, they could take control of their own lives and exert a great deal more influence on the world around them than they’re generally given credit for.

The post Ask the author: Catherine Hanley on Joanna Plantagenet appeared first on The History Press.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

It all started when Queen Elizabeth II died, in 2022. I was watching the spectacle that is crowning a new monarch, and realised that Princess Anne—the queen’s eldest daughter—had lived a life of restricted royalty, but without the direction that her brother, the heir, had always had. It made me wonder what her life could have been if she had been the heir instead.

Which is your favourite Queen that you talk about in the book?

Ohhhhh, a tough one! I think probably Isabella, the eldest daughter of Edward III. She lived a bold life in the 1350s when women had very few rights at all, and she was under the control of the most powerful man in the country: her father. And yet she refused to be married off, instead gaining for herself an independent income—I think the first princess to do so—and eventually marrying, for love, in her thirties. What an icon!

What was your biggest challenge while undertaking the research?

Honestly, the fact that there simply aren’t that many records of princesses in the early medieval period! Take William the Conqueror, for example. He began his reign in 1066, and there are plenty of contemporary lists of his children—that is, lists made during his lifetime. The trouble is, none of those lists agree with each other. Not a single one is the same! So we don’t exactly know how many children he had, what their birth order was, or even what their names were. Not exactly helpful!

Where did you gather your information from and what was the research process like?

I’m really fortunate that, thanks to my university, I have access to JSTOR which has hundreds of thousands of academic articles and reports of research. I also gained access to my local university library, including some primary sources, and I used my county’s integrated library network too. I was really fortunate!

The research process was really enjoyable, even though it was a little frustrating at times. I’ve loved history all my life, I have two history degrees, and yet there were many queens who could have been that I had never heard of. It was so exciting discovering them.

Was there anything especially surprising that you found in your research?

Most definitely; just how bold so many of these princesses were! Although their boldness has to be contextualised—boldness in the 1500s looks different to boldness now—it was astonishing how much agency these princesses were not given, but demanded.

How would you describe the book in one word?

Feminist.

What is your favourite chapter in the book? Why?

I’m a medievalist at heart, and so I had a huge amount of fun with the Edward queens. They lived during the height of the medieval era, from around the 1270s to 1370s. So much changed during that time, and the royal princesses had a front-row seat…and at times, were influencing those changes.

Have you learnt any life lessons from these women?

I think to be more bold! To be more open with what I want out of life, where I want to go, what I want to do. There’s nothing like the limitations on my life compared to theirs, and they still pushed forward to make joyful adventures for themselves. They are just so fascinating, and I can’t wait for people to read Regina and discover them.

The post Ask the author: Emily Murdoch Perkins on rewriting royal history appeared first on The History Press.

Her name is Margaret.

Daughter of Henry VII and sister of Henry VIII, Margaret was married to the King of Scotland at a young age in an attempt to create ‘Perpetual Peace’, as her marriage contract was termed – but after her husband died leaving her with two children, Margaret was no longer going to accept being a pawn for the men in her life.

Though she had been raised for a life of duty and service to her country, Margaret had decided she would rather take a young, handsome, charming husband. So against the advice of all, she did.

It is truly a tragedy for Margaret that her husband was unfaithful to her, something that many women of the time, even noblewomen, had to accept.

But Margaret wasn’t going to accept that. She was a Tudor. They aren’t known for accepting their lot.

In 1519, while her brother Henry VIII was happily married to Catherine of Aragon, Margaret demanded a divorce from her husband. Henry VIII was—hilariously, in hindsight—absolutely outraged. A divorce, in the royal family? Absolutely not.

Margaret was determined, and petitioned anyone who would listen for a divorce for eight years…to the point that Henry VIII eventually delegated replying to her begging letters (for a divorce and for money) to Cardinal Wolsey—because Henry himself was too busy writing letters to Anne Boleyn.

You couldn’t make it up.

After many years and military skirmishes with her second husband, including firing cannons at him from Holyrood Palace, Margaret finally gained her divorce in 1527. What she did next? Well, you’ll have to read Regina: The Queens Who Could Have Been to find out…

Make sure you follow Emily Murdoch Perkins on social media – @emilyekmurdoch

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Despite the plethora of general biographical material generated by the Windsor story during the last fifty years, an in-depth, balanced account of the greed and deceit permeating the horde of stolen jewels and artworks they acquired over a lifetime of subterfuge and public denial has never been published.

This is partly due to the mysterious disappearance of vast amount of Windsor archives assiduously preserved by the Duke at his various French residences between the time of his death in 1972 and the last years of the Duchess’s incapacitation and eventual death in 1986. There is a consensus these papers were either stolen by Windsor confidantes, confiscated by royal agents, or destroyed by loyal staff. Those artefacts that managed to survive do surface now and then, such as the small cache of material preserved by the Duchess’s former personal secretary Johanna Schutz.

In The King’s Loot, Richard Wallace has tracked down and sifted through the various competing contemporary accounts that exist and tested their veracity with surviving witnesses.

The 400+ footnotes used in The King’s Loot derive from four principal sources:

• The author covered the 1987 Geneva auction for Fairfax and visited Geneva to witness the first day of the auction (2nd of April) in the giant candy-striped marquee on the shore of Lake Geneva across the main lakeside avenue from the Hotel Beau Rivage (where an old register still had the 1939 signatures of the Duke and Duchess). He used notes of interviews and other first-hand observations of that time in Geneva that were not included in his Fairfax article.

• These primary experiences were supplemented with recent interviews of key witnesses willing to go on the record such as Michael Bloch (veteran Windsor author and assistant to the Duchess’s French executor in the 1970’s and 80’s), Sotheby’s investigative reporter Peter Watson, and Andrew Rayner, brother of the 1987 auctioneer Nicholas Rayner. Richard was also able to use other sources to corroborate comments made by nervous Windsor jewellers and haute couturiers reluctant to be cited for reasons of client confidentiality.

• Extensive references to first-hand contemporary accounts of key moments in the Windsor jewellery story (the fallout from the reading of George V’s will; Wallis Simpson’s escape to the Continent prior to Edward’s abdication; the wedding at Château de Candé; the burglary at Ednam Lodge; the death of the Duchess and her relationship with her executor Maître Suzanne Blum; and the Geneva/New York auctions) drawn from various sources such as The New York Times, The Daily Mail, The Times, the Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles (a member of Edward’s staff), Diaries of Sir John Reith (DG of the BBC and witness to Edward’s abdication broadcast), Diaries of Chips Channon (Society observer), the papers of Walter Monckton (Edward’s chief confidante) at Balliol college, and police files in the National Archives.

• A judicious sampling of relevant secondary sources.

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