I was honored to welcome Dr. Tracy Borman to the 2019 Tudor Summit. We chatted about various subjects including the Tudor wardrobe, the relationship between Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, and Katherine Parr, among others.
Links:
Check out her website tracyborman.co.uk
Follow her on Twitter @TracyBorman
Her books:
The Private Lives of the Tudors
Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII’s Most Faithful Servant
Henry VIII and the Men who Made Him
The King’s Witch
Transcript: Dr. Tracy Borman on the Private Lives of the Tudors
Heather:
Hello and welcome. The very first speaker today needs no introduction, but I’m going to share her biography with you anyway. Tracy Borman studied and taught history at the University of Hull and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1997. She went on to a successful career in heritage and has worked for a range of historic properties and national heritage organizations, including the Heritage Lottery Fund, the National Archives, and English Heritage.
She is now Chief Executive of the Heritage Education Trust, a charity that encourages children to visit and learn from historic properties, through the Sandford Award scheme. She’s also the joint chief curator for Historic Royal Palaces, the charity that manages Hampton Court Palace, the Tower of London, Kensington Palace, Kew Palace, the Banqueting House, Whitehall, and Hillsborough Castle.
She often appears in television and radio and she’s a regular contributor to history magazines notably BBC history. She gives talks on her books across the country. I’ve got links here on this page where you can learn more about her and visit one of her talks. So I am thrilled that she is here sharing with us about the private lives of the Tudors. Welcome to Tracy Borman!
Perfect well I’ll just start by welcoming you and thanking you for being part of this event that we do, and it’s such a thrill to have you here and to have you able to share your knowledge and and be so generous with your time.
So your whole book on the private lives of the Tudors, I wanted to ask you about privacy in general. I thought that was such an interesting concept – the concept of privacy. You had a whole lot about the idea of being in separate chambers even for the king and queen, was a relatively new kind of idea. Can you talk a little bit about what privacy meant, not just in the court but for people in general?
Tracy:
Yeah, I think we need to be careful with the use of the word privacy for the Royals because in a sense it was very different to what we might expect today. So really the king and queen would never have been fully alone, or incredibly rarely. Always attended by a veritable army of servants, friends.
Henry VIII filled his private quarters with fifty people and that was considered private. So I think we shouldn’t think that privacy meant solitude, and having quiet time. Actually what it meant was being away from the public court. That was where the privilege lay.
And that’s why getting access to those private apartments was so thrilling for the Tudor court. It meant that you were high in favour if you stepped over that hallowed threshold and were able to attend or visit the king and queen in private. That really meant something.
Heather:
The idea of of privacy, but you also then talk about a lot of the different sorts of domestic things that we don’t necessarily think of when we think about the Tudors – and we think about this kind of court life. You have this great story about Henry VII. We often think about him as being this very dour kind of man but he really liked card games and he enjoyed tennis. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Tracy:
Yeah, I think that’s what surprised me most about this book is that when you look at the private lives of the Tudors, every single one of the kings and queens change quite dramatically when you look at their real selves in private.
Actually Henry VII is a shining example of that. As you say, you tend to see him as kind of bit of a miser, a bit dour, dare I say a little bit dull. But in private, he was a bit of a party animal. He loved to host these extravagant gatherings in his private apartments. He had professional tennis coaches on his accounts to help him improve his game. He invited all sorts to feasts and enjoy his hospitality in private.
He spent lavishly on his wardrobe as we can tell from his accounts. It was quite astonishing. Three million pounds or the equivalent in the first two years, he lavished on his wardrobe. A completely different view of Henry VII soon began to emerge for me. I think in a way he was the most surprising of the Tudors in private for me.
Heather:
You also talked a little bit about the clothing, how it was almost a necessity, and also the amount of money he spent on his clothing changed throughout his reign.
Tracy:
It did, and it was fascinating to trace when he’s spending the most on clothes and that’s always when he’s feeling under threat from rival claimants, the so-called pretenders to the throne. Suddenly, he’s spending a lot on clothes again, because he feels the need to project his majesty.
You must remember he’s just the first Tudor King, the Tudors aren’t expected to survive. We know them now as probably our greatest dynasty, but nobody thought they were going to stay around. So Henry has to really try hard to safeguard his image, his dynasty, to convince people that really he deserves to be king.
Heather:
It wasn’t even just clothing, right? It was the wall hangings. You talked about a particular tapestry that he probably saw when he was in exile and then–
Tracy:
All of that, everything had meaning, not just for Henry VII, but in particular I think for him. So he would surround himself with the most lavish furnishings. he actually made sure to employ the same tailor who had served Edward IV, the popular Yorkist King, in order to sort of emphasize the continuity. You know, we’ve just got another natural king on the throne, has every right to be there. Everything had significance.
Heather:
Didn’t he also do something similar with educating his children? Use some of the Yorkists teachers?
Tracy:
Exactly, which was really important to him. Of course his wife was Yorkist, to be fair, Elizabeth of York of course. But I think it was just this sense of “there’s nothing to see here. It’s just a natural succession from one dynasty to the next. All very legitimate.”
But of course, his claim was far from that. He was descended from an illegitimate line. Many saw him as a usurper. So he constantly had to do this sort of PR campaign really to convince people that he had every right to be there.
Heather:
It’s almost like he won by right of conquest, more so. What do we know about, what he was doing with that, in his mind and what he felt?
Tracy:
He gave little away in terms of his recorded sayings or what he wrote. To me, it’s perhaps not that surprising that he doesn’t actually confide much insecurity in what he says. But I think we really sense that from how he spends his money, how he tries to really create this invincible kingly image that was very far removed from how he was in private, which is just surrounded by a very, very small number of intimates.
Because he didn’t trust people. He didn’t like to show many people his vulnerability. So in contrast to Henry VIII, you had, as I mentioned, 50 people attending him in private, there were probably just less than 10 for Henry VII, because he just didn’t like to give too much away about his real self.
Heather:
Speaking of private, what do you think about his marriage with Elizabeth of York? Sometimes historical novelists tend to make things of that they weren’t so happy, but what do you think the truth was?
Tracy:
I think is quite surprising, there was every reason for them not to be happy. They’re from rival houses, York and Lancaster, and yet there does seem to be a genuine affection that grew between them. It was a very successful marriage, certainly domestically. Elizabeth literally delivered as a royal wife, filling the royal nursery.
But I do think there was a deep respect, even a love between them. You just have to look at Henry’s reaction to her death to know that certainly he esteemed her, and he had to retreat into his private apartments for many weeks. He was so grief-stricken. I think that’s real. You do get a sense of the genuine affection that existed between them.
Heather:
I love that picture of them kind of coming together, even despite the problems of their families, and just saying like okay we’re gonna make this work.
Tracy:
Exactly me too. On paper, it shouldn’t have worked. It was just a political marriage. Even if they were doing their duty, they probably didn’t enjoy it. But you do get the sense, as I say, that both of them were genuinely fond of each other, which is actually probably one of the best love stories of the Tudor age, not that there’s all that much to compare it to, actually.
Heather:
Oh, I have a little note here that you don’t seem to like Charles Brandon very much. You have a bit in here talking about Henry when he was young and his friends, and you talked a little bit about Charles Brandon and his marital issues with this aunt and cousin.
I thought it was interesting because there’s two different people talking about Charles Brandon at this Tudor Summit, one of them is Tony Riches who has this new novel out, and then the other one Sarah Bryson. It’s interesting because I read that I was like, “Hmm I’d like to see this other perspective of Charles Brandon.”
Tracy:
It’s funny you picked that up, because actually I did end up liking Charles quite a lot. I think he’s a rogue though, you know he leads Henry astray in his early days. He’s not exactly a great role model in terms of marriage and relationships. You mentioned the scandal with the aunt and the young ward that he wanted to marry.
Despite that though, he’s so charismatic and you can see why Henry’s drawn to him. He’s almost like the elder brother that Henry never had because he doesn’t really know Arthur that well, Henry. He doesn’t have that much in common. Arthur is raised to be King so he can’t be as carefree as Henry. Whereas Charles Brandon has none of those responsibilities.
You just get the feeling that is a meeting of minds with those two. So I did like Charles. I think not a great influence, but certainly was an outlet for Henry’s wilder side.
Heather:
You talked a little bit about Henry and playing dominoes and and the different things that he would do. I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about what he would have done in his private space for recreation and for fun.
Tracy:
Absolutely. Well that’s exactly those are the key words with Henry VIII. Because he saw his private space as this place of entertainment and that’s why he filled it. He had the largest number of staff in his Privy Chamber of all the Tudors. So 50, that’s quite a lot of people to be constantly in your presence when you’re supposedly off-duty.
But he saw it as entertainment. He played cards. He would take most of his meals in private. He loved to drink. He loved to chat. It was mainly male company, actually. Because this was very much the arena for Henry’s friends. If you’re a king you’re attended by male attendants, whereas a queen it’s female. So it’s not that he’s having flirtations and liaisons in private. In fact, most of those have played out in public, ironically. It’s more about the male friendships.
Shameless plug for the latest book, my new book on Henry VIII and the men who made him really does give a very different perspective of him. It stops us obsessing, I hope, with the six wives interesting though they are, and makes us realize that actually there’s a whole depth to Henry that we don’t usually see in terms of his friendships with men and how they influenced him.
Heather:
I’d like for you to talk a little bit about just this myth that people often have of him as the tyrant. I think people kind of understand that that’s just a caricature, but he was really in a lot of ways kind of insecure. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Tracy:
I really hope to do some myth-busting with the book. I’m not the first historian to do it by any means, but I don’t think he was just that one-dimensional monster, tyrant. You have to look at where that behavior is coming from. Partly he was very indulged in his youth as the spare heir. So he was allowed to just follow his own will and pastimes to a greater extent than his brother.
But he was increasingly insecure and paranoid and not without reason. People like the Duke of Buckingham had been plotting against him earlier in the reign. He’s also a man plagued by ill health and from that, comes a lot of insecurity, because he’s having to retire from his duties a lot of the time as the reign progresses.
He of course feels that he doesn’t know quite so much what’s going on. He doesn’t have such a grip on affairs. That’s gonna make you feel actually quite vulnerable. I think that’s the side to Henry that you definitely see in his later years. And just how manipulated he is by the men around him, that’s what astonished me. How easy it is to pull the wool over his eyes.
Take Thomas Cromwell for example, he was absolutely stitched up by the Duke of Norfolk and Stephen Gardiner, who kind of hinted to Henry that Cromwell was plotting treason. I mean it’s ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. If Henry had been in his rational mind he’d have seen that. But he was paranoid and he was suspicious and fickle by this stage. He allowed himself to be led by these men who ultimately did away with Thomas Cromwell. And Henry soon bitterly regretted it. He realized what he’d done.
Heather:
And they almost got Katherine Parr too.
Tracy:
They did, but thank goodness they didn’t. But absolutely very, very close. It’s said that it’s only thanks to them accidentally dropping the order for her arrest and her discovering it. Then she got to Henry first and did that brilliant speech about, you know “I’m sorry, I’m just a silly woman. I shouldn’t be dabbling in all of this.” Pity she had to say that, but it kind of got her out of trouble and she lived to fight another day. But it was a vicious world.
Heather:
I’d like for you to tell me a little bit about Thomas Cromwell, because you’ve written about him as well, and there seems to be a lot more interest in him again now too. So what about him do you love?
Tracy:
I love his irreverence more than anything else. I think how he got on in life, not just for Henry, but in his early career is, he kind of had this cheekiness, if you like. He was not afraid to say to great figures of authority what he actually thought. And to maybe poke fun a little bit to use humor. He was said to make even his enemies laugh. He was very, very cheeky.
I just loved that quality because Henry is surrounded by sycophants and flatterers. So you can imagine what a breath of fresh air Cromwell is when he arrives. He just tells Henry what he thinks. He makes fun of other men in Henry’s entourage and it’s a bit of a game to him. You get the feeling he doesn’t take it too seriously in terms of the critics that he has to face up to.
Henry really respects him for it. I think Henry does have bullying tendencies and of course, bullies always respect being stood up to and that’s exactly what Cromwell does. But I think as well Cromwell’s genius is about him recognizing that even these great figures even Kings and he meets the Pope once, they’re still human beings. He finds out what makes them tick. What their weaknesses are. How he can just get them what they want. That’s what he’s brilliant at.
Heather:
That’s really great. It’s neat to see such an interest in these different people. They become popular for a bit because of books and the movies. It’s neat to see them having their day in the sun. What do you think about his portrayal in Wolf Hall?
Tracy:
I love it. I love it! In fact, it was Wolf Hall that inspired me to write the non-fiction biography, because I thought, well this is an all-together different Cromwell to the one we see in the history books. Which one is correct? The more I researched Cromwell, the more I thought actually Hilary Mantel nailed it. I think she’s got closer to the real Cromwell than the historians who in the past have depicted him more as a villain and as very cynical. Just using the Reformation for political gain.
I don’t think any of that was true. I think Hilary Mantel gets across his charisma, which he must have had to engage Henry and to stay in his favor for so long.
Heather:
So moving on and just talking a little bit about the other side, with Elizabeth. I found it so interesting I’ve been really interested in John Dee and you wrote about John Dee a lot as well. If you could share with me a little bit about her interest in alchemy, because that’s something you don’t often hear about. If you can tell me a little bit about that?
Tracy:
It’s astonishing, isn’t it? You kind of think all of these secret dealings were going on, and isn’t it amazing that Elizabeth had this whole interest in the occult, and astronomy, and alchemy. Trying to find the elixir of everlasting youth. John Dee definitely helped her in all of that.
So it was said that they had secret rooms at Hampton Court where they would practice alchemy. Of course, this is at a time when the Reformation is in full swing. A lot of those sorts of beliefs are seen as borderline heresy, and so Elizabeth taking quite a risk by dabbling in all of this kind of thing.
I do think it’s tied as well, and certainly, I’ve got a sense it’s tied up with her very keen sense that she’s aging and that she’s she needs to secure her dynasty. She hates any sign that she’s growing at all older or more frail. So there’s a sort of underlying desperation to this, as well as a genuine, I think fascination in the arts.
I love how much she consults Dee. So she consults him about the most positive date for her coronation, for example, and things like this. Quite big decisions she assigns to Dee her astrologer, mathematician, mystic. It’s quite extraordinary, but it’s all bound up in one foot for Elizabeth.
I think that if I may share my favorite fact about John Dee. It’s that, less well known that he was also a spy for Elizabeth and she sent him on various missions overseas. He wrote back in code and we still have the letters that he sent back in code, and his code name was 007. That is so priceless! There must have been some way for Ian Fleming got to know about that for James Bond.
Heather:
The original 007. It’s so interesting because he was kind of the last in that line of, before the Enlightenment, when science and the occult were one. Where you could have the largest librarian in England or in Europe even, I wasn’t it in Europe that is he had the largest library?
Tracy:
According to one source, yes.
Heather:
And you still have a conjuring table.
Tracy:
Yes, I know! I love that. It’s a kind of melting pot of different ideas, approaches, beliefs. It’s very much as you say this transitional period where it’s still okay to kind of believe all of that, while still being a really well-respected scholar and academic. What a time. It’s fascinating.
Heather:
In some ways, it’s almost like that we’re coming full circle today. With holistic health, and people not necessarily thinking that science has all of the answers all the time.
Tracy:
I encountered a lot of that when I wrote my book on witches and the witch hunt in the early 17th century and just how much of that and those beliefs are sort of coming full circle. So we’re not seeing witches as being evil anymore. There’s a whole white witch movement and Wicca and all of that. I think history does kind of repeat itself and go in circles, doesn’t it, a lot of the time.
Heather:
Yeah. Well it’s one of the that makes this period so fascinating too, is that it’s this sort of transition into the modern world. Yet in so many ways, the idea of information being freely available and nobody being able to control it and fake news, and that’s like the printing press.
Tracy:
Isn’t it just? Absolutely. Everything’s so relevant at the moment in particular it feels. In a way witch hunts have never gone away. You just have to look at kind of modern-day politics. But as you say, fake news, PR, it’s all there in the Tudor period.
Heather:
You mentioned PR. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? The Tudors were masters at propaganda.
Tracy:
Oh, masters. I think nobody more so than Elizabeth, actually. Henry was pretty good. Henry VII, her grandfather was. But Elizabeth, wow. You’ve got it covered on all bases with Elizabeth. In terms of projecting her own image, she is fantastic at it through portraiture which admittedly they’d all used. But she has almost a kind of standard portrait and accepted portrait which is the mask of youth and she never ages. In fact, she probably gets younger as the portraits go on.
But she’s also brilliant at showing herself to her people. Their magnificent progresses. She’s a great speechmaker. She knows the sort of language to use that’s really going to connect with people. The way she constantly refers to herself as married to England and that is a stroke of genius.
Because as well as making the people feel loved because she calls them her children, it also silences those who were pressuring her to marry. It’s is a great answer, well who better to marry than England? “I’m married to my kingdom,” and I think she is just actually a genius at PR.
Heather:
Yet it’s interesting because that whole idea of seeing England, well not necessarily be married, but she got some of that from Mary’s speech at the Guildhall, no?
Tracy:
Yes! she learned a lot from her half-sister. I think poor old Mary is much maligned and yet a lot of what Elizabeth learned from her was what not to do, I think admittedly. Don’t marry a foreigner, for example, against the wishes of your people. Don’t be too dogmatic in issues of religion. Well, she’s often misquoted as saying she’s not going to make windows into men’s souls, but that was the sense of it for Elizabeth.
She was much more pragmatic, but she had really, really benefited from seeing how her sister did it. As I say in a way it was a kind of negative example but it was such a learning experience for Elizabeth. I think arguably she wouldn’t have been as successful if she hadn’t had that training for those five years when her sister was on the throne.
Heather:
Well how do you feel, you talk about a little bit of myth-busting with Henry in your book. How do you feel about Mary in general?
Tracy:
Yes, I really grew to like Mary quite a lot writing about their private lives. I think like her grandfather Henry VII, she was much more fun in private to that reputation in public. She loved a party. In her private apartments. On one occasion drinking so much that the Spanish ambassador was scandalized. He wrote back about it, how much the queen of drunk that evening. She had a jester. She liked to gamble.
There’s a whole other different side to Mary. The is certainly a lady of passion, obviously, she fell madly in love with Philip II having just seen his portrait. But there’s an awful lot to like about her. I do really warm to her through her attitude to her then infant half-sister Elizabeth, when Anne Boleyn had been executed.
Mary really took pity on Elizabeth. She had every reason to resent this little girl because of what her mother had done to Mary’s own mother Catherine. Yet she felt sorry for her, and she actually tried to restore Elizabeth to their father’s favor.
So I think Mary was at heart a very good woman, if that’s not too simplistic to say. Of course, her reign is known as a brutal time. She herself is referred to as Bloody Mary for good reason, but that what lay behind her actions and the Protestant burnings was an absolute burning faith. An intense piety.
She’s not doing it to just quell her opponents. She really believes these people are damned, that she’s trying to get them to recant. I’m not making an apology for what she did with the Protestant burnings, but it came from a place of genuine belief.
Heather:
And certainly, if you see something, they saw it is like a cancer on society right? if you see something like that you have to cut it out.
Tracy:
You have to act. She didn’t want her people to be damned and to suffer and to really carry on the wrong path. She wanted to convert people to bring them to what she saw as the right path. Admittedly, she perhaps didn’t do it the right way but that was the age and that’s how you dealt with these things.
Heather:
And certainly Elizabeth wasn’t completely clean with the way she treated Jesuits.
Tracy:
Oh, no. No, no. She’s had a much less press over that though. You’re right. All the focus has been on Mary, but Elizabeth did not shy away from brutality when it was required. And increasingly as her reign progressed, and she was feeling insecure with threats from Mary Queen of Scots, and the hints of another Armada, yeah absolutely. Her regime came became increasingly brutal.
Heather:
Wasn’t that the period when torture was used the most of any period in English history?
Tracy:
Well is it certainly well recorded in Elizabeth’s reign. I think the thing is with torture, it probably went on at a similar level for quite a lot of the Tudor period, but it was tended to be not recorded all that much. So in my day job as joint Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, I talk about this a lot in the context of the Tower, because the Tower of London is seen as a place of torture and execution.
In fact, we have hardly any records of torture there. There are only a handful but that doesn’t mean say it didn’t happen it happened under the radar I think.
Heather:
Well, that actually brings me to, I can ask you about your day job. You have a wonderful day job.
Tracy:
I’m very lucky for my day job. At the palaces, at Historic Royal Palaces I spend my time mostly at Hampton Court Palace. I sit in a Tudor part of the palace. Of course, there are two parts to it the Baroque and the Tudor. I am in Edward VI’s former nursery. That’s now the curator’s office. So it’s not bad. I can’t say it’s still decked out as it would have been.
But my role at Historic Royal Palaces as Joint Chief Curator is, with Lucy Worsley, to manage the curators team. We are really like the historians for the palaces. We research the stories. We give talks. We do media work. We help with exhibitions. It’s incredibly exciting, and of course, the best bit of the job for me is going in the spaces that not many other people get to see.
Lifting up the signs that say private and just walking on through I absolutely love that. I have to share with you though that probably nine out of ten of those spaces are really boring. There’s something like a broom cupboard and it’s not that exciting. But you just occasionally get a real gem that isn’t open to the public and that’s what makes my job incredibly exciting.
Heather:
Tell me about these new chambers that are going to be opening up.
Tracy:
Well that is the most exciting thing. We’re still working out how we can do it but the one question that’s asked perhaps more than any other at Hampton Court is, “Where is Henry VIII’s bedroom?” Until recently visitors have been told, “Well it doesn’t exist”. When William and Mary came in the late 17th century they demolished half the Tudor palace, including that.
In fact, it does exist. It’s in the main tower. It’s a luxurious suite of private lodgings that Henry built later on in his reign and it included a bedroom, bathroom, jewel house, study. It was this luxurious private apartment. We, through a re-examination of building accounts, realized that we do have it actually. What we thought was just courtiers lodgings, was Henry’s private apartments.
So what I am leading a project now to do is to open those up. Because can you imagine the thrill and the excitement. I hope it’s not just me who is excited by this fact. Just let the public in and let them stand in the spot where so much of history unfolded. Of course, the sad thing is that those rooms have changed a great deal.
Henry wouldn’t recognize them today over the centuries, particularly in the 18th century they’ve been subdivided, floor levels have changed. But I still think the magic of taking people into the space that was Henry’s bedroom, his private world, is second to none. It’s probably the biggest discovery that’s been made in a very, very long time in terms of Tudor spaces. So I’m desperate to open them up to the public.
Heather:
How long do you think it’ll be before they’re opened?
Tracy:
We’re asking for a bit of patience. it’s going to be, I would say, at least four to five years because what we need to do at the moment, it’s things like fire escapes. The rooms aren’t necessarily set up as visitor spaces. Because of course it’s in rather a significant building you can’t just make alterations overnight. It’ll take a lot of permissions, a lot of work. I’m sharing this news with you very, very early in the process but it’s going to be worth the wait I think.
Heather:
That’s awesome. That’s so exciting.
Tracy:
I should say as well that one of the spaces that adjoins Henry’s bedroom, and that we do know exactly what happened in that room, is the room where Jane Seymour gave birth to the future Edward VI, and then where she died. Again it’s closed to the public, but as part of this program, we really hope to open that up too, because how thrilling would that be?
Heather:
So exciting. There’s such a magic to being in those spaces. It’s interesting, I’m from the U.S., from Pennsylvania, and it’s not nearly as cool as what you do, but my very first job when I was 15 years old I had a weekend job as a docent at a Revolutionary War Museum.
Tracy:
Oh wow.
Heather:
Yeah and it was a guy who, he was actually Irish and he’d been adjutant general to George Washington and we had his house from 1792. The person who was the curator he had not studied curating with you, he was extremely lax, and he would sometimes say “Heather go down and close up the house for us and lock things up then bring the key.”
I would be down there by myself. We didn’t use gloves. He had his traveling desk and all his medical instruments. We didn’t use gloves for any it. It was just really awful. But I remember standing in his medical office and we had his library and his desk and all of that and I would be closing up the shutters. It was like you could feel them right there. If it’s almost like when you’re in those spaces, I think about Einstein and the theory of relativity and times are all relative and maybe it’s all happening. I could really get philosophical about it all.
Tracy:
Yeah, I absolutely get that. I totally get that, and when I get that feeling as well is, when I’m on my own in the palaces. Whether it’s Hampton Court early in the morning. There’s this particular passage between the kitchens and the Great Hall that I get absolutely, it feels like time is slipped. I almost wouldn’t be surprised to see a Tudor courtier just passing me in the corridor.
There’s something incredibly special about having those places to yourself, much as we love and welcome visitors. If you happen to be in a historic space, you just get my shivers down the spine moment, don’t you?
Heather:
How much time do you think you get by yourself in those kind of places?
Tracy:
To be fair it’s probably half an hour either end of the day it’s not actually that much. Tomorrow morning however, I am gonna be at the Tower of London before it gets light, I’m doing some filming there. So that’s going be quite special. I might have a little bit more time before the film crew arrives. That is particularly, you can absolutely sense, whether you believe in ghosts or not, you can kind of sense history when you’re walking around the Tower.
I quite like early mornings. you tend to think about being there after nightfall but actually I think the very, very beginning of the day before the sunrise is actually really special.
Heather:
That’s just amazing. So I’m just trying to think, you’ve been so generous here with your knowledge. Tell me about your books. I mean I’m sure people know who you are. But if anybody isn’t sure about your books and what they all are, I want to give you plenty of time to share about your work. Where people can watch your shows. All of that kind of stuff.
Tracy:
Thank you because I tend to forget all of that stuff. Although I got in a plug for the latest book. So yeah my latest book Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him. I am a Tudor historian first and foremost. So most of my non-fiction books are about the Tudor period. Although I have written about the wife of William the Conqueror, and George II’s mistress. So I’ve kind of spanned the periods. I’ve written about the Tower of London and my new book for Historic Royal Palaces is about Kensington Palace which is fascinating.
As of last year, I’ve now gone into fiction and I’m writing a trilogy based in the very, very early Stuart court. So think Gunpowder Plot, witch hunts, very, very dramatic time. The first one is called The King’s Witch, the second one is The Devil’s Slave. I am literally handing in the copy edit tomorrow, so it’s a busy day tomorrow. So that’s all good. I think I’ve got what I think it is twelve books now. I know I should know off the top of my head but you kind of live from one book to the next.
Then in terms of TV thank you for mentioning that. Because I’ve got a new series out on our screens pretty much any day now called Private Lives. So this was inspired, I did a series on the Private Lives of The Tudors, the book. This one is just six people from history and their private life. So from Adolf Hitler to Napoleon, it’s quite a broad range. That’s going to be out on the Yesterday Channel, and the Smithsonian in the States.
I’m also, what I’m up to tomorrow, we’re starting to film a new series about the Tower of London called Inside the Tower of London which will be broadcast later this year. So I’ve got lots of bits and bobs. I’ll think of other things I should have told you about.
Heather:
Do you sleep?
Tracy:
Yeah sometimes, when my daughter lets me, as well. I’m sure you get this as well, since having children, I have become so much more focused because the time you get, when it’s yours, you have to make most of, because it’s limited. So that has probably made me more productive, I have to say.
Heather:
I quite agree I think back to all those evenings of just sitting on the couch and thinking, what shall I do now? Oh I don’t know. Let’s just sit here and play a game of Candy Crush for an hour.
Tracy:
I can’t actually remember those times anymore. I have to say one of the great joys of my life, I don’t if you get Horrible Histories over there but is seven o’clock in the UK every evening. My daughter and I sit down to watch Horrible Histories and it’s just the biggest treat. I don’t make her watch it. She genuinely loves it.
Heather:
That’s fantastic. I love Horrible Histories. So if people want to find out more about you, you have a website which I will link to as well. TracyBorman.co.uk
Tracy:
Yes so that’s got all the events I’m doing. It’s got my latest books etc etc. and I’m also on Twitter and Instagram and all that kind of thing. So yeah, there’s ways to connect.
Heather:
Perfect. Well, thank you so, so much. It’s coming up on Horrible Histories time for you there.
Tracy:
Oh good. Okay, thank you, otherwise I’d be in trouble. She’s be in here telling me–
Heather:
Well, there you go. So we don’t want to keep you from that. But you’ve just been so generous and I so appreciate your time.
Tracy:
Oh, it’s been such a delight talking to you. Thank you.
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