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...bringing history to life.
Happy New Year 17 January 2012
Christmas and New Year have come and gone. I was very pleased to receive an OBE for services in education and we are off to the palace on the 16th of February.
Of course this has not distracted me from the murderous arts! I have been editing the ‘The Straw Men’; I do hope my readers enjoy it and I have been mapping out a new Canterbury tale. I am trying to get that balance between the Gothic and the murder mystery. I am intrigued with the idea that there is an ‘arch demon’ responsible for those murderous acts and assassinations which can trigger dramatic changes in the history of man, such as Caesar’s assassination or the death of the Archduke of 1914.
I am also looking at ‘The Last of Days’ about the final months of Henry VIII’s life. Henry’s councillors were no better than a Mafioso gang. I just wonder, if they all turned on their royal master. I firmly believe that Henry VIII was walking along the same path as many a Roman Emperor. He rejected the Catholic Church, yet he also rejected the Reformers. In some of his later speeches he began to argue that only he could validly interpret scripture and pronounce on religious issues. When I read evidence such as this I think, oh dear, a political tyrant is bad enough but one who thinks that he has been divinely appointed by God to decide on all matters is highly dangerous. Did Henry’s councillors, those men with wolfish hearts and bloody hands, recognise the danger and decide to do something about it? Anyway, ‘The Last of Days’ will investigate the final dark days of the Great Beast’s reign.
All the best for 2012.
