by Simon Schama
The Wilton Diptych, 1390s. Richard II presented to the Virgin by his patron saint, St John the Baptist, and Sts Edmund and Edward.
Richard II; portrait from Westminster Abbey, c.1395.
Oxnead Hall, one of the houses of the Paston family in Norfolk.
Panel from the medieval rood screen in Binham Priory, showing a painting of Christ as the Man of Sorrows superimposed with text from Cranmer's Bible of 1539.
Henry VIII, by an unknown artist, 1520.
Thomas Wolsey by an unknown artist, c. 1570-99.
The Field of the Cloth of Gold (detail), by an unknown artist, c. 1520.
Catherine of Aragon, by Michiel Sittow, 1503-4.
Anne Boleyn (detail), by an unknown artist, 1570-99.
Thomas Cromwell, by Hans Holbein, c. 1530
Thomas Cranmer, by Gerlach Flicke, 1546.
Anti-papal Allegory of the Succession, 1549. Henry VIII on his deathbed gestures to his successor. On Edward VI's left stands Somerset, while the royal council sits around the table.
Mary I, by Master John, 1544.
Elizabeth in her coronation robes. by an unknown artist.
Mary Queen of Scots, by Frangois Clouet, 1558.
Queen Elizabeth dancing the volta with Robert Dudley, by an unknown artist. c. 1581.
Elizabeth I, the 'Pelican Portrait', by Nicholas Hilliard, c. 1574.
Henry Stewart, Lord Oarnley (detail). by an unknown artist, late 1550s.
The Earl of Bothwell, miniature, by an unknown artist.
The Earl of Leicester, red chalk drawing by Frederico Zuccaro.
Sir Christopher Hatton (detail), by an unknown artist, 1589.
The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots, watercolour by an unknown Dutch artist, c. 1608.
'The Ditchley Portrait' of Elizabeth I, by Marcus Gheetaerts the Younger, c. 1592.
PICTURE CREDITS
BBC Books would like to thank the following for providing photographs and for permission to reproduce copyright material. While every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge all copyright holders, we would like to apologize should there have been any errors or omissions.
Section one
1 Ian Bremner; 2 Ian Bremner; 3 Ian Bremner; 4 British Museum; 5 English Heritage/ Skyscan Balloon Photography; 6 Michael Jenner; 7 Ian Bremner; 8 Martin Davidson; 9 Michael Holford; 10 Michael Holford; 11 Michael Holford; 12 Michael Holford; 13 The Art Archive; 14 Mike Ibeji
Section two
1 British Library; 2 Musées du Mans; 3 Sonia Halliday & Laura Lushington; 4 British Library; 5 British Library; 6 British Library; 7 British Library; 8 AKG London; 9 Ancient Art and Architecture Collection; 10 Ian Bremner; 11 Ian Bremner
Section three
1 Collections/Malcolm Crowthers; 2 Public Record Office; 3 British Library; 4 Collections/Roy Stedall Humphreys; 5 Ian Bremner; 6 British Library; 7 Bridgeman Art Library; 8 Bridgeman Art Library; 9 Mike Ibeji; 10 British Library; 11 British Library; 12 National Gallery; 13 Dean & Chapter of Westminster; 14 John Parker
Section four
1 John Parker; 2 National Portrait Gallery; 3 National Portrait Gallery; 4 Royal Collection; 5 Bridgeman Art Library; 6 National Portrait Gallery; 7 Bridgeman Art Library; 8 National Portrait Gallery; 9 National Portrait Gallery; 10 National Portrait Gallery; 11 National Portrait Gallery; 12 Royal Collection; 13 Viscount de L’Isle; 14 Bridgeman Art Library; 15 Scottish National Portrait Gallery; 16 Scottish National Portrait Gallery; 17 British Museum; 18 National Portrait Gallery; 19 AKG London; 20 National Portrait Gallery London
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I DOUBT WHETHER the BBC wants to think of itself as a repatriation service, but the fact is that A History of Britain has been a homecoming to the country I’ve not lived in for twenty years and a subject I’ve not taught for ten. Returning expatriates, vision clouded either by sentimentality or by hypercriticism, may not be the most dispassionate narrators of their nation’s history. When Janice Hadlow (then of BBC2) first asked me to think about tackling a television history of Britain, my immediate response was that my distance from the debates of specialists obviously disqualified me from the job. But Janice urged me to think of that distance not as a liability but a potential strength, something that would make me earn my understanding through reacquaintance and give me some connection with viewers and readers who themselves would be anything but experts (although regular encounters with taxi-drivers who turn out to know everything about the battle of Hastings and the Black Death have made me wonder about that assumption). By betting that the excitement of rediscovery would outweigh the perils of unfamilarity, Janice, with Alan Yentob and Michael Jackson – who together conceived the project – were making a huge gamble. As far as we are concerned it has been the gamble of a lifetime.
In the end, it was impossible not to respond positively to Alan and Janice’s passionate belief that a history of Britain was the kind of thing that television was made to do: to inject fresh energy and drama into well-known stories and bring less well-known ones before the biggest possible public; to restore and reanimate history as a shared public enthusiasm, something not remote from our contemporary lives but fully a part of it, especially at a moment when the whole issue of national allegiance and identity is once again a serious question rather than an easy assumption.
Though there is one name on the cover of this book, A History of Britain has been, from beginning to end, a collective work, inconceivable without the courageous talents and inexhaustible energies of my friends and colleagues at the BBC. Martin Davidson has been, throughout, an extraordinary partner in this work: sharp-focused, imaginative and (when the going seemed rough) able to bring calm, clear thinking to a project and to a narrator not famous for his mastery of those qualities. I have been incredibly lucky to have worked with a team of producers willing to share my own often idiosyncratic vision and from whom I have learned more than can ever properly be repaid within the conventions of these acknowledgements: Clare Beavan, Ian Bremner, Martina Hall, Liz Hartford, Tim Kirby, Janet Lee and Paul Tilzey. Mike Ibeji, together with Ian Bremner, put in an astonishing amount of hard work to help fill in the monumental gaps in my knowledge of medieval history and point me towards the scholarship and issues with which I needed to engage. I’m also deeply grateful to a tireless and intrepid band of research assistants on both textual and visual sources without whom the enterprise would have been hopelessly handicapped: Melisa Akdogan, Alex Briscoe, Amy Eisner, Karen Green, Patrick Keefe, Joanne King, Ben Ledden and Chloë Schama. As cameraman for the majority of programmes in the series Luke Cardiff has been, literally, a visionary. And at BBC2 I’ve been sustained throughout by the committed support of Paul Hamann and Jane Root. Making sure that a television presenter-writer is kept from going completely off the rails has to be one of the most demanding jobs in the world and I can only thank Sara Fletcher, Claire Sharp and Theresa Lydon of the History Unit of BBC2 for their loyalty, efficiency and thoughtfulness both on location and off.
At Columbia University I’m deeply grateful to Provost Jonathan Cole for giving me the extended leave needed to tackle this apparently interminable work and to my colleague David Armitage for all kinds of scholarly help and inspiration. John Brewer, Stella Tillyard, Amanda Foreman, Eliot Friedman, Mindy Engel Friedman, Jonathan Gili, Tanya Luhrmann, Jill Slotover and Terry Justo have all been good friends to the intrinsically hubris-laden nature of this enterprise and to its author.
This book is, though, far more than a ‘tie-in’ to the television series, and treats the subject matter and issues of our history at greater length and in much closer detail than a mere transcript of our scripts would allow. Stuart Proffitt read the manuscript with his usual eagle eye and pointed out, as ever, ways small and big in which it might be improved. Margaret Willes made many helpful suggestions on early drafts. Professor Andrew Pettegree and Dr John Hudson were kind enough scrutinize the text for glaring errors but any that remain are mine alone. At BBC Worldwide I’m fortunate to have had in Martha
Caute a generous, patient and discriminating editor, and I’m also grateful to Sheila Ableman, Sally Potter and Chris Weller for their sustained belief in the importance of tackling the subject on the scale it undoubtedly deserves. At Talk Miramax, Tina Brown and Jonathan Burnham have been committed to bringing A History of Britain to the widest possible public in the United States. From the minute she heard about it, Tina has been a fanatic enthusiast for the whole project, well beyond the call of our friendship.
Over the years of its writing and production, a project of this scale has taken more than the wear and tear usually inflicted on the family of the arch-culprit and I’m grateful as always to Ginny, Chloë, Gabriel and Gus for the daily doses of love and domestic happiness that have immunized me from exhaustion. At Peters, Fraser & Dunlop,Vanessa Kearns has always been ready to help smooth my and my family’s extended stays in Britain and much else besides.
A History of Britain has been, throughout, an amazing act of faith by a small group of people – Alan Yentob, Janice Hadlow, Martin Davidson, my television agent Rosemary Scoular – all of whose unswerving belief in the project and in its author has been the most touching (and unnerving) event in this writer’s long career as an historian. But one of my fellow-travellers – Michael Sissons – deserves the lion’s share of thanks, not just for giving me the courage to tackle this project and see it through to realization, but for helping me fulfil my life as a writer over thirty years of shared adventure. He has ever been the pilot in the storm.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abbreviations BM Press – British Museum Press; CUP – Cambridge University Press; OUP – Oxford University Press; UCL – University College, London; UP – University Press
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Vol. III 1189–1327, ed. Harry Rothwell (OUP 1996)
Vol. IV 1327–1485, ed. A. R. Myers (OUP 1969)
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The Mabinogion, trans. Gwyn and Thomas Jones (Dent 1993)
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Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, trans. T. Forester, Vols. I and II (Bohn 1905)
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CHAPTER ONE
Abels, Richard P., Alfred the Great. War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England (Longman 1998; Addison-Wesley 1998)
Barber, Richard, King Arthur: Hero and Legend (Boydell & Brewer 1994)
Birley, R. E., Vindolanda. A Roman Frontier Fort on Hadrian’s Wall (Thames & Hudson 1977)
Bland, Roger, and Johns, Catherine, The Hoxne Treasure (BM Press 1994)
Bowman, Alan K., Life and Letters of the Roman Frontier: Vindolanda and its people (BM Press 1998; Routledge 1998)
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Breeze, David, and Dobson, Brian, Hadrian’s Wall, 3rd rev. ed. (Penguin 1991)
Brown, Peter, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity AD 200–1000 (Blackwell 1997)
Campbell, James et al. (eds.), The Anglo-Saxons (Penguin 1991)
Carver, Martin, Sutton Hoo: Burial Ground of Kings? (BM Press 1998; University of Pennsylvania Press 1998)
Crummy, Phillip, City of Victory: The Story of Colchester (Colchester Archaeological Trust 1997)
Cunliffe, Barry, Ancient Celts (Penguin 2000)
Cunliffe, Barry, Iron Age Communities in Britain, 3rd ed. (Routledge 1991)
Cunliffe, Barry, Roman Bath (Batsford/English Heritage 1995)