David Starkey's comments about female historical novelists.

[ItsMargotBeauregarde]

I'm going to nail MY colours to the mast and say he's a tit, I know that King Henry was the KING, and all his wives weren't kings, but shoot me, I'm interested in them too. And I'm interested in the courtesans and the wives and their lives and all the other interesting details that the male historians leave out.

Philippa Gregory, You rock so don't pay any attention to that baffoon, who is clearly just pissed that people aren't buying his boring books and are buying juicy philippa Gregory books instead.

There. Rant.over.

link

is he just not stirring up publicity for his new series?

this mail links says the bbc tudor programme, but I just saw him on channel four and it was female writers he was taking a pop at.

Is he the one who is supposed to have destroyed the career of the historian Elton? Sorry if a bit off topic, but would love to see a link re that.

He is clearly a complete narcissist.

It does remind me of the "women know your limits" sketch.

He's right about the BBC Tudors series though - it was just so far off, you couldn't even claim dramatic licence. It made it very difficult to follow when events were just so far out of sequence.

Yes, even if there's a angle of truth in there, it is joyless, narcissistic begrudgery. Thanks for articulating what it is about him I can't bear.

LOLOL Crackfox.

OP, I'm with you here.
I want to know how people lived. 52ish% of people are women. The idea that we should ignore the women because they weren't the ones in power is just daft.
Plus it struck me as rank hypocrisy given that Starkey himself has done a book & tv series on the six wives of Henry VIII.

I watched the first episode of the new Henry VIII series last night & it was good fun and great to see the original sources but it drives me mad the way he's so certain about everything.

Starkey prob knows (if he purports to be a decent historian) that certainty in history is ludicrous. But all TV history is like that - it's like there is just one story to be told. And that's it. Science programming can be bad, but at least it (sometimes) allows for the idea that there is dispute/lack of consensus. DH is a (bloody good) historian, and this drives him mad.

Sounds like TV PR from starkey. I don't know people who work in his area, so don't know how he's really rated as a historian.

I've developed a real want for history info on Henry VIII, his wives and other people from that time and century. I love it and all because I read a Phillipa Gregory book and then all of hers. It's great to her it from the other side rather than the kings.

Yes Kathy, newsflash to this guy, people are allowed to be women.