Hello and welcome to Talking Tudors, a fortnightly podcast about the ever fascinating Tudor dynasty. My name is Natalie Gruniga and I'll be your host and guide on this journey through 16th century England. Are you ready to step through the veil of time into the dazzling and dangerous world of the Tudor court? Without further ado, it's time to talk Tudors. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Talking Tudors. I'm your host, Natalie Gruniga. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'd like to begin by acknowledging and thanking the generous listeners who continue to support Talking Tudors on Patreon. And extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who's taken the time to rate and review the show. As an independent podcaster, this means a lot to me. If you love the podcast, please consider joining the Talking Tudors Patreon community. Visit patreon.com/talkingtutors for more information. Once you sign up, you'll have access to exclusive posts, additional monthly life talks, a member-only book club, patron-only monthly giveaways to name just a few of the rewards. You can also support the podcast and share your love of Tudor history with the world by buying Talking Tudors merchandise. Check out all the products at talkingtutors.threadless.com. Now onto today's episode. I'm thrilled to welcome Tony Richards back to the show to talk about the fascinating life of Francis Walsingham, the daughter of Queen Elizabeth Spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. Tony was born in Pembrokeshire, West Wales, and spent part of his childhood in Kenya. He gained a BA degree in psychology and an MBA from Cardiff University. After careers in the Royal Air Force, the NHS, and local government, he became a full-time author of historical fiction. Tony's Tudor trilogy has become an international bestseller and he is in regular demand as a guest speaker about the lives of the early Tudors. Tony has returned to Pembrokeshire, an area full of inspiration for his writing. Let's dive straight into our conversation. Welcome to Talking Tudors, Tony. How are you? I'm great. Thank you very much. And hi from Tudor. What else? Wonderful. I love it. Here I am in my office in Sydney and there you are in Wales. You know how wonderful is the internet? I'm about caught up now from Pembrok Castle, where of course Henry Tudor was born and where I was born. Not actually, I wasn't born in the Castle, but I thought we're inside it. Oh, that's wonderful. No wonder you love the Tudors. So we're actually here today to talk about your new novel, but before we introduce that, would you mind just introducing yourself to our listeners and just telling us a little bit about you and your background? Yeah. Well, I've said I was born in Pembrok and that's what really got me going because I wanted to learn about Henry Tudor and all the books I could find were really quite dry and made them to be a miserably miserable old character. And I was just intrigued. And so I started gathering information for a possible book of my own. I used to write for magazines and journal and stuff like that, but I'd never written a book. I wrote a book on Project Management, which did rather well, but and I decided to actually make it a factually accurate historical novel because I completely understand people that do alternative reality and alternative history, but I wanted mine to be something that people could actually learn from and to try and get a flavour of the times. And I ended up gathering enough material for three books. So I, that's what I did a trilogy that which became the Tudor trilogy where Henry's born in the first book comes of age in the second on exile in Brittany and then becomes king after Bosworth in the third book. And I got so deep into it that in his last days, his little daughter Mary nursed him on his death bed really. And I thought, wouldn't it be fun to carry on her story? Because Mary Tudor married the king of France, who was pretty much old enough to be her father. And I thought, how did that work out? And you know, what's true and what's just myth. And then of course she ends up with a chap called Charles Brandon. And I decided to write the Brandon trilogy, which took me into Catherine Willoughby as his 14 year old last wife. And of course, Catherine Willoughby bridges the end of the Tudors into the reign of Elizabeth. And I thought, wouldn't it be fun to look at Elizabeth, not from Elizabeth's point of view, but from the point of view of three of her favourite men and three of her ladies. So I'm not even sure what you call a six book series, but it's two trilogies really. And what I enjoy is having them all intertwined so that the same people like William Cecil and Robert Cecil and the Queen herself pop up. But always from the perspective, from the point of view of my lead character. So the three men I chose were Drake, Essex and Rani, all with very different point of view. Drake worshipped the Queen literally, but had a massive chip on his shoulder. Essex was her, was the son she never had is the way I like to think of it. And then Rani was the captain of her guard. So that's three very different perspectives. And then the ladies had so many to choose from. I spent a year actually researching them all and trying to choose which ones I can really do. I would have liked to have done another six actually, but three I chose. And so I chose Penelope Rich, who I knew nothing about by the way. But she was so ahead of her time. And her mother was Lettuce, of course, who was the Queen's great nemesis and married the Queen's best favourite of all. And then that kind of led on to thinking about who would be next. And then that leads us to the book we're talking about today, which is another very underrated, I think, a little understood or poorly understood Elizabethan Lady, who is the daughter of Sir Francis Waltzinger. In fact, the only surviving daughter which we'll come on to. And what was it like being the daughter of the Queen's spymaster? How did that work? And then when I started looking at her adventures, I couldn't believe it. But the strange thing was that most of the book, without many books about her at all, actually, most of the mentions of her own books kind of forget about her third marriage and her later life at all. So half of my book really, it's almost divided into thirds, but I made sure that I did a proper job on the later part of her life, because she was still relatively young. It's a very important part of her life. And I'm now working on the sixth and final book. And it's a strange thing after being immersed in the tutors for 12 years. I'm actually starting to take an interest in the stewards now because I'm edging into the reign of King James. That's something I know very little about. I'm going to be one of the world's experts on it in three years' time, because I am going to write a steward trilogy. That's amazing news. Wow, you are absolutely prolific. I don't know how you do it, Tony. That's incredible. So yes, for the time, you are full time. That's right. I'm actually doing it full time. And I'm so grateful to all the people that have supported me, bought my books and audiobooks and everything like that. Absolutely. Because it does mean that I can actually not have to wait about doing anything else. And I got a great system, because what I do is I research in the summer, and then I write through the autumn and winter, and then I edit in the spring. So I do that one book a year every year for the last 12 years. And I've been full time all of that time. So I did try writing two books in one year, but as you will know, it catches up with you. If you have to edit two books at the same time, that's a nightmare. And listen to an audiobook, which is nine and a half hours long. Yeah, goodness. That's a long time. So what about Francis' family and her early life? Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yes. Well, there's a lot that's been written about her father, Francis Walsingham. But the thing that I'd never really latched onto was how much Elizabeth the Queen took advantage of him. And as she did with everybody else, really, she made him meet the costs of his own spy network, which bankrupted him. And he was forever saying to her, "Excuse me, can I have like a bit of money to pay these people because they're giving you vital information and there's going to be a Spanish almaada blah blah blah." And she'd say, "Yeah, yeah, no problem. Go and see William Cecil, he'll sort you out." And then William Cecil would remember a subsequent engagement and not pay him. So it was awful. And in fact, when Francis Walsingham died, he was buried in St Paul's at midnight to avoid his creditors finding out. That's how bad it was. So he died, broke, basically. Not through any fault of his own. He was very astute, but because the Queen had him a fortune, which they never got back either. That's the same thing. And her mother was quite an interesting character because she was also ahead of her time and believed that girls should be well-educated, not just in how to run a household and how to be a good maid of honor for the Queen. But in multiple languages and the classics of the time and really far more insightful thing is about politics of court, which most of those at court had to learn that the hard way, quite honestly. Francis had the benefit of a better education than the most men, and I hadn't really latched on to that because if you look her up anywhere, you'll find people who are a little bit dismissive about her. I don't know why. And I played with that idea and thought about what she might actually do with that really quite good intelligence. I also found a little snippet of information was that she had what these days we would call photographic memory. So she could actually recall the whole of Philip Sidney's poems without having to actually look them up or anything. And I used that in the book because what a lovely thing to have. I wish I had that. I've got the opposite in that I recall some vital fact, but not where I read it. And then I have to hunt for a mountain of books to think, well, after I see that, which is an opposite to a photographic memory, I think. Wonderful. And so let's talk a little bit about when Francis actually first comes to court. You've already said she's got this father that the promenade at court. Do we know when she first makes her first kind of debut at court? The relationship between Francis and Queen Elizabeth is fascinating because she actually quite dislikes her because of the way her father has been treated. And the one person were the two people that her father confided in about this treatment with his wife, of course, and his daughter. And so he was always complaining, really. But yet again, he's going to have to sell some land because the Queen's going to come and visit on a progress. And they really can't afford a plague of locusts just now. So he'll have to sell more land and he'll have nothing to show for it because he won't be any better off, really. You know, nothing's ever reimbursed. And what would have happened was that she would have decided fairly early on that she did not want to be one of the ladies in waiting just spending all of her time in the privy chamber laughing at the Queen's jokes and flat train now with banal platitudes, you know. So she would really would like a career, which was out of the question. So there's a bit of a sort of tension right from the start. She would have been introduced to court when she came of age, but her father was very aware of the issue. So he arranged her first marriage when she was 16. So if she hadn't have got married, she was over a power, really. If she said no, which I think he would have respected, then she would have become a maid of honor wearing white and eventually become a gentle woman of the privy chamber. And she could have been a common old maid of the privy chamber, which means that she died a maid at the age of 60 or something. And that's not the life that she wanted. She wanted to have children and her family and a handsome husband that loved her, et cetera, et cetera. So this marriage at 16 to her absolute amazement was to one of the most eligible bachelors of court, Philip Sidney, who was he was brilliant to everything he turned his hand to do because he was a poet and a champion jouster. And he won the loyalty of his men. And he was so no, but he was almost the last of the classic knights, I think. He expected to inherit the Earl of Leicester's fortune. And then, of course, the Earl of Leicester had a son, which as far as Sidney was aware, then that meant he'd inherited nothing and had to become a self-made man. He wasn't to know that the son was to tragically die. But you know, the way it worked out in terms of Philip Sidney's life is he went off to make his reputation in the wars in the Netherlands. And the twist from the point of view of the book is that Francis, being Francis, decided that she would go there with him. It wasn't unheard of wives accompanying their husbands to battle because they would stay safe back at the base, you know to me. But it was quite an adventure for a girl that had never really left the country, you know. She had actually been, when she was five, she was caught up in the Huguenot battles in Paris, the massacre, where Philip Sidney was a guest of the Walsinghams, by the way, so that she had actually known him since she was a child. And he'd been a very young ambassador at the time. It shows the sort of money he was, because to be an ambassador to 18 is ridiculous really, they're normally old men with great beards. Yeah, that is very young, isn't it? Yeah, but anyway, the idea of going really to quite a dangerous country, I'm amazed that her father allowed it, quite understood, because all he had to say was no. The thing I've played around with is, did he love her? Because in my previous book, Penelope, he was Penelope's lover, not very secret lover either. And he wrote Astrophil and Stella, which Penelope was Stella. And if you've ever had a chance to look at it, it's all about how wonderful Penelope is thinly veiled. And well, it's unrequited love, because she gets made up to somebody else, and so he cannot marry her. So, he doesn't marry Francis grudgingly, but she's sorting through some papers in her father's study one day and she finds a letter from Philip's father thanking him for settling Philip's debts of £6,000. And hang on a minute, so this is all set up, you know, really. But they all were, weren't they? That's how it was. Exactly, exactly, and what did that work? Yeah, absolutely. And what did the Queen think of this match, Tony? Well, traditionally, she wanted people like Francis to be around her young, attractive women surrounding her and looking at her daughteringly. So, the idea that they'd find a get-out clause and get up and marry at 16, she wasn't up for that. She thought she'd get at least two years up to her. So, she refused the marriage. On the grounds that Philip certainly had yet to inherit and was not really of any substance. But also, Francis wasn't in the open anyway. So, her father was really a self-made man, but he was a knight. He was not from nobility. And it was Sir Francis Wussingham, who basically had to put his own career on the line and almost threatened the Queen. You know, if you want me to carry on doing this, then you're going to agree to this marriage, because it's what I've already agreed. And that's how it worked. That's the politics of the court. It was a lot of negotiation and give-and-take. And really, she wasn't that bothered, because she had 12 other ladies to look after. Exactly. And talk to us a little bit about what happens to Francis's first husband, Philip Sidney. Well, tragic. It's tragic. And it's classic Philip Sidney, whereas the story goes that they were going to ambush the enemy at a town called Zutfen, and he was the commander of the cavalry, along with one Robert Devro, the Earl of Essex. And then he noticed that his men were poorly equipped. And the reason for that is that, as always, it's been his job to pay for their equipment. It doesn't seem fair, does it? And you think that the state will pay for their equipment, but the other stole it off fallen enemies and fallen comrades. Or they just did without armor, you know? And in those, they had archibuses, so they had muskets, really. We're moving on from when people just fighting with swords to when they were actually firing guns at each other. And Philip Sidney decided to throw off his armor in front of the men dramatically and say, "Look, you know, I'm going to go in the same as you, take the same risks as you, follow me, and I'll make sure you're okay." And, sadly, when they were about to do the ambush, somehow worded leaked out, and the enemy had doubled its strength, learned it was like they were seriously outnumbered, and Philip's horse was shot out from under him. But he was shot in the thigh, which, even these days, is a very serious injury. If he'd been wearing his army, it might have glanced off the bullet, because they weren't that powerful these old muskets. It shattered his thigh, and Francis is at his bedside, and basically the doctor comes in and says, "Well, we'll put a poultice of mud and herbs on it, and pray. You can pray if you want, that might help." And, of course, very quickly, he gets septicemia, because though there was not a proper understanding of hygiene or contamination or infection and things like that, sadly, for them, I was thinking about this. Even these days, if you have a shattered thigh bone, and it's in battlefield conditions, and it's not dealt with very quickly, that could be something that probably would cut your leg off. He's delirious, and he wakes up, and he says to Francis, "Please don't let them cut off my leg." The idea, even now, but in those days, to be an invalid was worse. It's rather dire, I think, and sadly, he does, without even knowing that she's carrying his second child, because they did have the first child. That's really where the book starts. You mentioned Robert Devereaux there, so let's talk about Francis' second match that she makes. How does that come about, and what is the first response? What an unlikely match that was. I think I've mentioned that Robert Devereaux was the second of the three Queen's favorites that I wrote about a couple of years ago. I'd really been over this ground, and I'd concluded these days, we would say that he completely lacked what we would call emotional intelligence, and that he was very bad at reading situations of people and thinking through all of that. He would act quite impactuously, and my theory is he never actually says this to the Francis, but I think that he agreed for Philip's death, but he was there, of course, you see in Netherlands, and he agreed to see that Francis married well, and that little Elizabeth was properly cared for and also married well. Then later on, he just had a string. If you list all the ladies of court, you can cross out a couple of the older ones, but most of the rest had some kind of liaison with Robert Devereaux. I think he was intrigued by her because she was so different from the normal maids of honor that he was used to with her several languages and her obvious intelligence and her insight and her political skill and all these things. So what a surprise that he asked her to marry him. The historians have divided some think that it was just before her father died, and that her father was furious about the whole thing and thought it was most unsatisfactory. And others think it was while she was still in a complete crisis of her own future after loss of her father, who she was very close to. It was a marriage that was never going to work out with a happy ending, I think. I don't think you'd have. She promptly got pregnant with him, and even when she was in her confinement, he was enjoying himself with several different ladies at the same time, but not very discreetly being Robert Devereaux. So that was very sad for her, I think, and she tried her best to be a good wife, and she never loved him, I'm sure of that. But she tried her very best to make the marriage work to the extreme of actually trying to understand his ill-fated rebellion being actually at Essex House with Penelope when it was all kicking off. I think that she should be more assertive with him, because she should have been strung for him where he was weak, and she could have changed his life. Did you touch on that rebellion a little bit, Tony, in case our listeners aren't sure which rebellion? What happened was you'll have to read the book, as they say, isn't it? But the short version is that he was an expert at obsessing the Cecil's. William Cecil was the Queen's treasurer, and Robert Cecil was being groomed as his successor, and was really the hand at the tiller for the Queen, as William Cecil got older. William Cecil, by the way, goes right back to Catherine Willoughby, and that he wanted to marry Catherine Willoughby, and they were extremely close, and in lamentation it was seen by Catherine Parhe, the dedication page mentions them both. But Robert Devereaux constantly found ways to upset William Cecil deliberately, I think, and then William Cecil decided he should be got rid of, and there were a thousand ways that he could get rid of him now. But it was a bit like a certain well-known former president of America, is that even if you've got an infinite number of things that you could accuse them of, they are quite slippery customers, and they always find ways, and his way was to go to the Queen, and either apologize or whatever. And it ended in tears because he decided he would get rid of the Queen's evil advisors by force, and he got his Welshmen up from Wales, and there were lots of soldiers unemployed kicking around in the streets, and he thought the people of London on his side, when he actually marched on the palace, he didn't want to kill the Queen, by the way, that's a misconception that people have got. He wanted to save her from her self-serving advisors. He really got arrested, and his men, a lot of them met a traitor's fate, which is an awful way to die, and he got thrown in the tower, and basically made a full confession, and was executed. So that left France with a very uncertain future, because she had no money, all her lands, all her husbands, all her lands and properties would have been her husbands, and then those would evolve, because he was at a station where they basically seize all of their lands and everything for the crown. So everything was at the Queen's discretion, then, including Essex House in the Strand, even the Walsingham House, which advances her inherited from her father and Barnarmas, which she'd inherited from her mother. So she had lots of properties, but it all looked very bad, and she could end up destitute, and that's where Penelope steps in, because Penelope had married a millionaire, you see, Robert Rich, and then been very clever in making sure that she had lots of money from which she siphoned off into various secret bank accounts and stuff, that she was able to help. France is tied over, but it didn't look great, and a lot of people end the story there. I say a lot of people, if you, like I said, if you look up her story, it doesn't really seem to go on much from there generally, but there's a whole another third of a book after that. I know because I had a little pile of books at the side of me, and I was only two-thirds of the way through my book, and they were all coming to an end, so I could see they, some of them, had given one page to the rest of her life, which was quite interesting. So tell us a little bit about what life's like, then, for Francis after Robert's execution, and about that final part of her life that not many people talk about. Penelope's husband, Charles Blount, gets Robert Devro's job fighting the rebels in Ireland, and does a tremendous job of it, whereas Robert Devro left in disgrace. He caught the flux, which is a battlefield form of dysentery and from drinking contaminated water, so out of fairness to him, he was in no state to lead a battle against rebels defending their own country. They call them rebels, by the way, they were people defending their own countries, so they wouldn't see themselves really as quite that, and Charles Blount came back to our sixth house when he could, and he brought with him the captain of his cavalry, a chap called Richard Burke, and Francis is introduced to him and finds him rather charming. They're very similar. He's five years younger than her, actually, and so this is another interesting dynamic in that they couldn't be more different, but he also couldn't be more different from Robert Devro, or even Philip Sidney. He's got some of the qualities of Philip Sidney. He's very loyal, very decent in terms of his values, and she rather likes him, but then in a massive turn of events, like happens in Elizabethan court, we think it was Robert Cecil. He always had a thing for Francis, by the way, and he might have liked to marry her, but she wasn't up for that for various reasons, and I think it was a thing of timing. She didn't dislike him particularly, but she'd been aware that he was working against her father with his own spy network for much of the time, and the queen was very clever because she used to compare notes, so she would get the Cecil's spy network to find out what was happening in Spain, and then she would get the Francis waltzing them to let her know, and she should compare the two and see if they were the consistent, you know? It's quite clever, isn't it, really? Very clever. Some people underestimated this but I think because that was her own doing, but what happens is that she decides that it wasn't really Francis' fault, the Essex rebellion, and that she should be allowed to keep Essex House, waltzing them house, barn alums, and as a sort of sweetener to be given an estate in Kent, which somebody had died in testate or something, and it had gone to the crown, and it was in Kent, so Elizabeth couldn't make a bother to even visit it, you know? And this Richard Burke, his army service is over really, so he's kind of a bit of a loose end, so he agrees to escort Francis and her children to this place in Kent to see what it's like and whether it's someone she'd like to spend the rest of her days, and in the course of that it slowly emerges, that he's not only one of the wealthiest men in Northern Ireland, he's actually an earl and at the Earl of Clannery and a card he keeps all these close to his chest and reveals things one, but he's also the worst possible thing that a man could be, which is a Catholic, this is from Francis' point of view, before, I mean, you know, before I offend all the Catholics, and her Protestant faith has been tested so often with all of the things in her life, she decides that if it means becoming a Catholic to be allowed to marry this handsome young Irishman, then so be it, how by can it be? And she quite enjoys the whole process of converting to Catholicism and, you know, a whole new world is opened up to her, she completely re-valuates everything that she's held there because her father was a staunch Protestant and her mother as well, so what a thing to do, that shows an insight into her character, doesn't it? It's like people that suddenly convert to Islam that have been, you know, staunch Christians all their lives, and what they find is that there is a whole another dimension to everything which they'd previously been unaware of, and when they get to the estate in Kent, they find it's hundreds of acres of prime real estate, and there's a dilapidated old mansion on the top of a hill, there's a painting by Turner, which I found, which is of the house that they built there, because they raised that to the ground and using her husband's Richard's money, they actually re-build one of the finest houses in Kent, which becomes somehow, and everything looks, and that should be the end of the book, and they ordered it happily ever after, except the queen died, which they kind of knew was going to happen, but they thought, well, you know, we're happy hearing Kent, and you might remember that Francis got a daughter called Elizabeth, and she lives with her husband at Beaver Castle, and King James, on his way down to take the throne, stays at Beaver Castle, because there's plague in London, so he's in no hurry for the coronation, that can wait till the worst of the plague is over, which is taken near the third of the population, and through that, of course, there's privileged connection with the new king, so they decided to introduce themselves to him, and he promptly appoints Francis' husband Richard Burke as his right-hand man in Ireland, so makes him kind of like, on the Irish version of the Privy Council, the adviser to the king, which gives him a power which is off the scale in terms of power and influence, and when Francis realizes that this means he's going to be away indefinitely, he won't just be away for a year, he could be away for 10 years, you know, however long, how long does it take to sort Ireland out, you know, and he decides the only thing to do is to go to Ireland with him with our entire family and try and make a go of a life in Ireland for as long as he's got this post as governor of the region, they end up in Athlone Castle, I don't know if you've been to anywhere like... No, I haven't been to Ireland yet, that's on my list. Yeah, well, it's easy for me because it's just, I can actually see it through binoculars on the top of the Boselli herds on a clear day, I hasten to... I can see the Wicklow Mountains, just the tip of them on the horizon, so I went across the Wicklow Mountains and spotted across to see if I could see a Pembridge or but I couldn't, sadly, but anyway, I have explored these areas, so beautiful countryside, and Athlone Castle is pretty grim and bleak, but they decide to set up home in his country estates, and being Francis learns to speak some of the Irish language and becomes very integrated with it all, so I thought that in itself is a fascinating sort of postscript to such an amazing life, you know. It's ordinary, what a story. It's... I really enjoyed researching it, and I think... I hope that comes through in the book, because I think you can tell when somebody's had a great time researching it. There's not at all any moment where I had to think, "How can I find another thousand words for this chapter?" It was more a case of what am I going to leave then, so I wrote it, one of my great heroes is Hilary Mantell, and although I wouldn't tend to be anything like as good as her, I took her cue from Wolf Hall, where it's written in present tense, and I've kind of got used to that style now, so readers don't seem to even notice it. I really like that. I find it really immersive, actually. Yes, it's a bit of a skill, because if you're writing in past tense, then it's just a little bit more pedestrian. It's a right in present sense. You have to put yourself in the skin of the person, which is why Hilary did it, of course, and when Cromer's father kicks in while he's lying down, how does that feel? How does it feel to be kicked in the head by your own father? Is that the first page or something? I think it's the opening line, isn't it? Luckily, Francis never gets kicked in the head, but she does have a child a year, pretty much, and I was almost running out of different ways to describe the process without it becoming repetitive. Sadly, she suffered some awful miscarriages, and I had to research that, but to not include it would not do justice to her the sort of strength of character that she had, but also the burden that she then carried, you know? What I did, my wife is my beta reader, so she actually kindly is the very first one to go through all of this, and tell me if from a woman's point of view, whether I've got it right or wrong, because we've got two children, she's been through that twice. Whether I've overdone it or underplayed it or whatever, that was quite interesting. Amazing. I can see why you're so fascinated by her. She sounds like an incredible woman, and it's lovely that you've shed some light on her, because really I hadn't heard very much about it, to be honest. No, that was part of the funnest, to find these really quite powerful and influential women, who have almost been dismissed until now, and then, you know, like Penelope to help people, I've had feedback from readers saying that they'd never heard of Penelope, and now they feel they really understand her, you know, which is, that's the best that you can hope for, really, isn't it? Absolutely. So, Jamie, do you think you're going to miss the tutors when you move into the Stuart realm? Well, I was at a dilemma. I'll be quite honest with you. I was at a bit of a, what do you do when you've done the, don't shut down them to death, but you've done the tutors for over a decade, and that's what you're known for, is the tutors, and where enough to go from there. And I started researching another person from history, who I might still write about, so I shouldn't say who, but she was the wife of the famous English artist who had a fascinating life, and because I'm kind of, my best-selling books are all the ones about the ladies, it is interesting, and it how that works is that the ladies outsell the men two to one, no question of it. And I didn't think that's how it would be, but that's how it is. And so, I'm actually going to write about three Stuart ladies, and that's going to be a trilogy. My old trick, I never wrote from Henry VIII's point of view. I always wrote other people's perceptions of Henry VIII, and same with Queen Elizabeth, and I'm going to do the same with King James, is that we're going to see King James through the eyes of some of the people around him, and we have to make draw around conclusions then about where they'd write, and if they misunderstood him, that's what I enjoy playing with. I mean, my first degree was in psychology, and I think some of that still, that was a long time ago, but some of that still comes through in my writing, and the psychology of relationships, it fascinates me. And then when you add to that the layer of history and authentic detail, and what I love to do is to look for those little tiny details that make all the difference, and then think through how people might have felt about the consequences of things. You're wonderful. Well, I imagine that all your readers are so excited that you're continuing your writing journey, and so if people want to find out more about you, Tony, and your books because you do have many, where's the best place for them to go? Oh, it's really easy because my website is TonyRiches.com, and if I'd like to say, if you go into Amazon and just type TonyRiches, or into Google now, there is a mother author called Anthony Riches, who writes about Romans. He's my evil twin. We've agreed that he'll never write about Tudors, and I'll never write about the Romans, but my sister once congratulated me about a big display of my books in Waterstones, and I thought I haven't got a big display of books, and when I looked into it, it was him. He had a big display of books in Water, and I got all the credit for it. Isn't that nice? That is lovely. We do him again, Mr, because he is actually the treasurer of the Historical Writers Association, so people quite often just Google TonyRiches and get me, but so I've also got a very popular blog, which is called The Writing Desk, and what I do is I do I do constant book reviews now, because what I find is that, why read a book? I love it when people find the time to review my books, and so I'm very selective about what books I choose to read, because of my time, and generally I've got something positive to say about them, so I do that, and I also support book launches for other authors, which is a real win-win, because it drives traffic to my blog, and they benefit because I get shared with Goodreads and everything, so I enjoy all of that. It's more than a hobby now, it's become a way of life, but like yourself really, if anyone called what you do a hobby, I think you'd get a little bit. Oh yeah, it started that way, but now it's definitely a full-time, maybe two full-time jobs by now. How do you really what a blog was when I started my blog? So there we are. Oh fabulous, well I'll add the links to the show notes to make it really easy for people to find you and your work, and I have to thank you again, Tony, for being so generous with your time and for coming onto the podcast and talking tutors with us. Yeah, thank you very much for having me. I really enjoy it, and I look forward to coming back with the last of the Tudor books, last of my Elizabethan series, who is another intriguing woman who was not well-educated and had to teach herself how to read and write. So that's quite interesting, you know, what a difference from Francis. Well, that sounds fascinating, and I look forward to that, and thank you again, Tony. Thank you very much for me. Well, that brings us to the end of this episode of Talking Tutors. Thank you so much for joining us. I absolutely love to hear from listeners, so if you have any comments or suggestions, or just want to say hi, please get in touch with me via my website, www.onthetutotrail.com, where you'll also find show notes for today's episode. If you've enjoyed the show, please share the podcast with friends and family, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. I also invite you to join our Talking Tutors podcast group on Facebook, where you can interact with other Tudor history lovers and hear all the behind the scenes news. You'll also find me on Twitter, my handle is on the Tudor trail, and on Instagram as the most happy 78. It's time now for us to re-end the modern world. As always, I look forward to talking tutors with you again very soon. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] (upbeat music)
