James VI and I has long endured a mixed reputation. To many, he is the homosexual King, the inveterate witch-roaster, the smelly sovereign who never washed, the colourless man behind the authorised Bible bearing his name, the drooling fool whose speech could barely be understood. For too long, he has paled in comparison to his more celebrated – and analysed – Tudor and Stuart forebears. But who was he really? To what extent have myth, anecdote, and rumour obscured him? In this new biography, James’s story is laid bare, and a welter of scurrilous, outrageous assumptions penned by his political opponents put to rest. What emerges is a portrait of James VI and I as his contemporaries knew him: a gregarious, idealistic man obsessed with the idea of family, whose personal and political goals could never match up to reality. With reference to letters, libels and state papers, it casts fresh light on the personal, domestic, international, and sexual politics of this misunderstood sovereign.

Spring, 1523. Henry VIII readies England for war with France. The King's chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey, prepares to open Parliament at Blackfriars. The eyes of the country turn towards London. But all is not well in Wolsey's household. A visiting critic of the Cardinal is found brutally slain whilst awaiting an audience at Richmond Palace. He will not be the last to die. Anthony Blanke, trumpeter and groom, is once again called upon to unmask a murderer. Joining forces with Sir Thomas More, he is forced to confront the unpopularity of his master's rule. As the bodies of the Cardinal's enemies mount up around him, Anthony finds himself under suspicion. Journeying through the opulence of More's home, the magnificence of Wolsey's York Place, and the dank dungeons of London's gaols, he must discover whether the murderer of the Cardinal's critics is friend or foe. With time running out before Parliament sits, Anthony must clear his name and catch the killer before the King's justice falls blindly upon him.

'Beautifully written ... a unique tale told in a unique voice' - S.G. Maclean Summer, 1522. In a wave of pomp, Henry VIII's court welcomes the Imperial emperor, Charles V. Anthony Blanke, the son of the king's late 'black trumpet', John Blanke, is called to Hampton Court by his former employer, Cardinal Wolsey. The cardinal is preparing a gift for King Henry: a masque of King Arthur and the Black Knight. Anthony is to take centre stage. The festive mood, however, quickly sours. Wolsey's historian, charged with proving the king's descent from King Arthur, is found murdered, his body posed in a gruesome tableau. A reluctant Anthony is charged with investigating the affair. His mission takes him on the path trod by the historian, through ancient monastic libraries and the back streets of London. On a journey that takes him from Hampton Court to Windsor and Winchester, and which sees him lock horns with secretive monks, historian Polydore Vergil, and a new face at court, Anne Boleyn, he must discover the murderer, secure the great masque, and avoid King Henry's wrath.

On the death of Elizabeth I, Anna of Denmark, wife to James VI and I, became the first queen consort of both England and Scotland. She offered her subjects north and south of the border an ideal of consortship: an attractive, fecund woman with a flair for display. Yet, history has been far from kind to the first British consort. Anna has been castigated as frivolous, vain, stupid, and more interested in dancing and pleasure than politics. This is unfair. As scholarship has recently begun to show, the queen was a determined, intelligent woman whose contributions to the cultural lives of her kingdoms was to prove of major importance in late-Renaissance Britain. This study aims to contextualise Anna not as a woman of minor significance in relation to the queens regnant of the sixteenth century, but as an inheritor of the bloody legacies of previous consorts north and south of the border. What emerges is a woman of wit, intelligence, and taste, who exploited political faction to her benefit and that of her children; who was canny enough to manage a slippery husband and sovereign; who sought creative avenues to mitigate the increasingly troublesome issue of her foreignness; and who provided the public face of monarchy in the teeth of an errant king who placed little stock in public opinion.

The Elizabethan era is generally understood to coincide with the blossoming of English language - it was the age of Shakespeare, Sidney, and Marlowe. Yet it is known also as a period of brutality and repression: saying or writing anything against the state, the queen, or its governors might result in hanging, fines, or the loss of limbs. Defaming neighbours could and frequently did result in a day in court, with slander emerging as a byword for unacceptable speech and writing. Academic interest has long been divided into studies which focus on the power relations underpinning literary production, the ways in which authorities sought to suppress and censor transgressive material, or the role slander played in religious polemic. This book will explore the legal backdrop which helped and hindered the production and curtailment of slanderous and seditious material across multiple sites. In so doing, it will seek to uncover exactly how slander and sedition were defined, regulated, punished, and, ultimately, negotiated by those who grappled over control of discourse. Through examination of the legal, theatrical, and religious conditions of the age of Elizabeth, this study will provide an explanation of the rise of the flagrantly slanderous political discourses of the seventeenth century.