![]() ![]() ![]() On the whole, however, Starkey and Hodge combine to present a history lesson that is gorily intriguing. Perhaps best known to BBC listeners as a radical libertarian panelist on Radio 4s The Moral Maze, he created the program David Starkeys Henry VIII in 1998. On the imminent death of Ann Boleyn, he quotes her saying: 'I heard say the executioner was very good and I have a little neck.' Starkey adds: 'She was correct on both counts and her head came off with a single blow.' Elsewhere, he relays the Calvinistic Doctrine of Justification by Faith in somnolent terms that have the reader, Patricia Hodge, sounding as if she is reciting a bus timetable. What we end up with is an entertaining and surprising profile of a child who was abused mentally by her father (he had her mother's head cut off), and physically by Thomas Seymour when she was a young teenager.Īlthough there is little in the way of criticism that can be directed at Starkey's biography of the Virgin Queen, he can be at times both glib and boring. What Starkey attempts to do is fill in the gaps that most school history books have left out. ![]() Viewed by many at the time as the bastard daughter of Henry VIII, Elizabeth proved herself an able and composed politician and queen. ![]()
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