I began with Katherine Swynford. Now I’m following her descendants, the people around Edward II and the places where their stories still leave traces.
Here you’ll find my visits, photographs and the questions behind my books. Choose a story to begin, or browse every article below.
Fotheringhay and its royal lives
A church, a vanished castle and the Neville family behind the royal names.
Eleanor Neville at Northampton
The battlefield and the losses that shaped a woman at the heart of my next book.
Latest articles
Newest first. For a route through the people and themes, visit Medieval Lives.
Grandma Evelyn
Evelyn photographed in c1930 carved tree sculpture of Katherine at Kettlethorpe the similar hairstyle amuses me My connection to…
Katherine, imagined
The Accolade (1901) by Edmund Blair Leighton Used in current paperback edition . Crop of Veronica Veronese (1872)…
Why Lincoln Needs to Celebrate Katherine Swynford
Information about Katherine’s tomb fastened with cable ties When most people think of Lincoln’s medieval heritage, their minds leap to soaring…
Katherine Swynford: Not a Footnote
Katherine Swynford has spent over six hundred years being explained away. Lover, concubine, footnote — labels applied long after her…
Katherine a life
Katherine Swynford enters the historical record quietly, as many medieval women do, through the households of others. Born c.1350…
Lincoln Cathedral Carving
This small 14th-century female head, carved in local limestone and tucked among the fabric of Lincoln Cathedral, has long invited…
