Ask the Author: Ian Mortimer
Answered Questions (11)
Ian Mortimer
This is a good question - not least because there is a marked difference between how he treated his daughters and his sons with regard to their marriages. It's a long time since I was closely involved with rethinking Henry and his family but, sixteen years after that book was finished, my suggestion is that there was a family tradition among the men of marrying 'romatically' or by choice, not by arrangement. Edward III had chosen his bride (from five daughters). The Black Prince married an older woman, and that was a love-match. John of Gaunt made a love-match too, twice, in fact (wives 1 and 3), and Henry IV certainly did so himself with his second wife, if not his much-loved first. The only one of Henry IV's sons married in Henry's lifetime (Thomas) married his own choice of bride - and not entirely to his father's satisfaction. As a result, I don't think Henry saw his sons' hands in marriage as his to give away. In marked contrast to his daughters. But on that note, his vision of his sons' standing in line to the throne was very different from that regarding his daughters (as shown by his first Act settling the throne on his sons and the male line only). That is my best suggestion in answer to your question: he saw his sons as having the right to choose their own wives but not his daughters their husbands.
Ian Mortimer
Hi Jennie, thanks for your kind comment. I'm afraid I don't have any recommendations for a book covering that subject. Covering so much English history, I would never stop reading and never start writing if I delved into all the specialist secondary works there are connected to all the subjects I touch upon in the four TTGs. I work primarily by focusing on primary sources and only going to secondary sources where I need the expert advice in order to gain an overview. You may have noted that I focused specifically on a few key Regency sportsmen, such as Osbaldeston and Mytton, and for them I went to the autobiography of O and the book by Nimrod on M. Similarly for shooting and pedestrianism, I used contemporary works. So, I would be misleading you if I were to recommend any particular modern book on the subject. Sorry! All the best, Ian
Ian Mortimer
Dear Masha, thanks for your question and for your kind comment. The specific answer is that I am not planning any 'post-Regency'' TTGs. I wrote in the first and last vols about how the project was designed to make people try to understand our own time by coming to terms 'with at least two others'. I've now presented 4 periods. But as we approach the modern world, the contrasts are smaller, the surprises are fewer, the diversity of society is greater and the writing as well as the research is inevitably more complex (30 million people are harder to write about - as well as to know about - than 3 million). However, I do have plans for the TTG series in the future. Just don't hold your breath - I have other ideas that I will be turning into books over thenext 3-4 years. All the best, Ian
Ian Mortimer
I thought I had answered this question a year ago but Goodreads tells me otherwise. No, no one ever asked for the film rights. But I am very glad you enjoyed the book. As you can tell, there is a lot in there that is special to me, and I hope meaningful beyond the everyday historical understanding of the past.
Ian Mortimer
The second-stage proofs have gone back to the typesetter, illustrations laid out, and we're on course for hardback and ebook UK publication on 12 November 2020. It will eventually appear on Audible but not immediately; audio rights are with the publisher but I have yet to approve a choice of reader. I am going to start a 100-day couontdown to publication on the TTG twitter feed from 5 August, including one fact or quotation from the book each day.
Ian Mortimer
Thanks for the kind words. As for Tudor England, there already is one - to Elizabethan England - which came out in 2012. The third is to Restoration Britain (2017) and the fourth, to Regency Britain, will be published in the UK on 12 November 2020.
Ian Mortimer
Thanks for the question. To be honest, my interest in the Elizabethan period is no greater or less than my interest in the late medieval or the Restoration periods, or even the Regency. I suppose the sixteenth century is a bit of a high-water mark in our last thousand years, in that French had given way to the English language, and Catholicism to English Protestantism, and England's attention had shifted from rivalries with France to a wider outlook across the whole world and, indeed, towards the heavens. More great architecture survives from the period too, and more documentation and more portraits, and of course there's the creativity of its poets and playwrights, whose words speak directly to us. It has an earthiness and yet it was fascinatingly open to men of talent and education, it wasn't just the old brigade of the nobility and gentry holding court. So, yes, there's plenty to love - but in truth I am equally keen on the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. I tend to lose interest around the 1830s. Everything since then is really 'just the other day' - all that has happened of note since then is either based in technology (in the widest sense of the word) or extremist politics, or is just a continuation of what they started with the Industrial Revolution. All our modern preoccupations were cultural viewpoints by 1832 - political reform, democracy, relationships between the sexes, sexual identity, care for the poor, the social importance of scientific exploration, the wrongness of racism, the iniquities of slavery, the social responsibilities of government, the necessaity of quantification of the economy, and planning for the future, etc etc. As for what 'sparked' my fascination with the Elizabethan period - simply the fact that its legacy is all around me, in our culture, language, identity - everywhere, in everyone, everyday. If you can understand the root of things, you have a much better chance of understanding how society came to be as it is, and thus why things are as they are.
Hope that helps.
all the best,
Ian
Hope that helps.
all the best,
Ian
Ian Mortimer
Thanks for your question. However, I am in a poor position to answer as that book was finished in November 2004 - published April 2006 - and so I am somewhat out of touch with Roger of Clarendon (I am currently writing about Regency towns...) However, I can say that the reason for stating a 'lady of Clarendon' was that that was the appellation he was given, and illegitimate children of the highest-ranking men tended to be given names that reflect their place of birth. That was not always the case but as Clarendon was a royal palace and as the royal household had no employed women except cleaning women, I made the assumption that the woman was local. If Anthony has reason to believe that his paramour was a lady-in-waiting to Joan, then I think you should either trust his judgement or follow up his source (which was unknown to me at the time I wrote).
Sorry I can't be more helpful than that,
all the best,
Ian
Sorry I can't be more helpful than that,
all the best,
Ian
Ian Mortimer
Thanks for the q. I am not sure it is a trend - or, if it is, it is part of a long-established tradition. Lots of older history books, esp those written for the general public, are without notes, or only have a few, and often also lack a bibliog. And their judgements are often found repeated in other works. One ref to a medieval hospital founded in 1450 in Devon appears in a 1909 book & is cited by the authoritative work on medieval religious houses by Knowles & Hadcock - and the unreferenced original source seems to have been an incorrect supposition based on an indulgence granted that year, which relates to something else. Similarly, a series of economic history books by academics about 20 years ago - with no less than David Cannadine as series editor - eschewed all notes in an attempt to be more popular. I think this is a mistake. If a book is not properly noted, it is not rooted in past evidence but in the suppositions of the (modern) writers, as you hint, and that is not good enough. My question would be why so many well-educated historians contine to do what you mention - not chase up refs to find out how robust they are? Often it's just because they conveniently reflect a consensus of opinion - but as I keep telling people, a consensus is not evidence. Wise men, like fools, are often in agreement - and also like fools, they are often collectively mistaken.
Ian Mortimer
It is only 2 years - and you really wouldn't want me to rush it and write a poorly researched book now, would you?
Ian Mortimer
Many thanks for your kind comments. The next one will be a TTG to Regency Britain - but it's coming slowly, very slowly. Scheduled for publication in 2020. I hope you're patient!
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