My books

The Forgotten Tudor Women: Margaret Douglas, Mary Howard & Mary Shelton (2015)

Everyone knows that Henry VIII had six wives, two sisters and two daughters. All of these women received attention in academic circles and are the subjects of countless biographies. Not many people, however, realize that Henry VIII also had a niece, a daughter-in-law and a mistress, who were close friends, but who today remain on the fringes of history.

Margaret Douglas was the daughter of Henry VIII’s elder sister Margaret, Queen of Scotland. She was imprisoned thrice, and each time, as she admitted, “not for matters of treason, but for love matters”. Her legacy includes marrying her son to Mary, Queen of Scots, and playing the doting grandmother to King James VI and I.

Mary Howard was the daughter of Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, leading peer of the Tudor court. She served as maid of honour to her first cousin, Anne Boleyn, and married Henry VIII’s illegitimate but acknowledged son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond. Widowed at the age of seventeen, Mary fought for her rightful jointure and was, by her father’s admission, “too wise for a woman”.

Mary Shelton, like Mary Howard, was related to Anne Boleyn and became her servant at court. Beautiful and skilled in poetry, Mary attracted Henry VIII’s attention and became his mistress in 1535, but many don’t realize how important her contributions were to the literary scene of the time.

This book moves Margaret Douglas, Mary Howard and Mary Shelton from the footnotes of history into the spotlight, where they deserve to shine along with their more famous contemporaries.

Golden Age Ladies: Women Who Shaped the Courts of Francis I and Henry VIII (2016)

“Two such courts as those of France and England have not been witnessed for the last fifty years.” Niccolo Sagudino, 1515

They had to be strong if they wanted to make it in a man’s world. They lived on the brink of the golden age of the European Renaissance and witnessed social and religious upheavals as the medieval world they knew crumbled to dust, replacing the old with the new.

In this new book, Sylvia Barbara Soberton paints a vivid picture of the rivalry between the courts of England and France during the reigns of Henry VIII and Francis I. Set against the backdrop of sixteenth-century court life are the interwoven stories of individual French and English noblewomen whose dramatic lives even the best of novelists would have trouble inventing.

Louise of Savoy knows that her son Francis is destined for greatness, but he faces new challenges after his accession, trusting his mother to become regent during his absence.

Mary Tudor agrees to marry Louis XII, a man thirty-four years her senior, but after his unexpected death, she decides to become no man’s pawn and marries for love, creating one of the greatest scandals in Renaissance Europe.

Claude of France may have been meek and submissive, but there is more to her character than meets the eye.

Brought up at the French court, Anne Boleyn boldly refuses to become Henry VIII’s mistress. Her refusal triggers the King’s divorce case and eventually leads to the change of religious persuasion of the entire nation.

Margaret of Alençon, Francis I’s sister, faces new challenges as her brother’s captivity after the Battle of Pavia propels her onto the diplomatic stage of Europe.

Queen Eleanor, Charles V’s sister, marries Francis I and struggles to find her place at the French court, where his glittering mistress, Anne de Pisseleu, reigns supreme and exerts more influence than any royal mistress before her.

Witnessing the warring political factions at court, the young Catherine de Medici, humiliated by her husband’s relationship with Diane de Poitiers, learns how to navigate the murky waters of courtly intrigue to emerge as the leading force on the international stage of sixteenth-century Europe.

Great Ladies: The Forgotten Witnesses to the Lives of Tudor Queens (2017)

There has been a great deal written about Tudor queens, but less so about those women who surrounded the throne, who may have held even more power and influence than those who actually wore the golden crown.

Some ladies who served at the Tudor court are only faceless silhouettes lost to the sands of time, but there are those who dedicated their lives to please their royal mistresses and left documentation, allowing us to piece their life stories together and link them to the stories of Tudor queens. These female attendants saw their queens and princesses up close and often used their intimate bonds to their own benefit. Some were beloved, others hated.

This is the story of the ladies of the Tudor court like you’ve never read it before. 

Dressing Queen Victoria: An Intimate Story (2018)

Queen Victoria was a figure larger than life, and her enduring legacy has proven larger than death as well. Yet, despite countless biographies, the real woman behind the regal persona still remains elusive.

This book offers a unique approach to Queen Victoria and explores her extraordinary life and long reign through the most personal objects of all – her surviving clothes and jewels. In this book, we follow Queen Victoria’s life through a unique lineup of dresses charting her journey from an oppressed teenager to the Queen who became a legend during her own lifetime and lent her name to an era.

Strong and clear comes her voice across the centuries in her own words set down in voluminous journals and letters. This is a story of Queen Victoria like you’ve never read it before.

The Forgotten Tudor Women: Anne Seymour, Jane Dudley & Elisabeth Parr (2018)

Anne Seymour, Jane Dudley and Elisabeth Parr all have their own unique stories to tell. Born into the most turbulent period of England’s history, these women’s lives interplayed with the great dramas of the Tudor age, and their stories deserve to be told independently of their husbands. Anne Seymour served all of Henry VIII’s six wives and brushed with treason more than once, but she died in her bed as a wealthy old matriarch. Jane Dudley was a wife and mother who fought for her family until her last breath. Elisabeth Parr, sister-in-law of Queen Katherine Parr, married for love and became Elizabeth I’s favourite lady-in-waiting. The Tudor age was a hazardous time for ambitious women: courtly life exposed them to “pride, envy, indignation, scorning and derision”, executions were part of everyday life, death in childbirth was a real possibility and plagues sweeping regularly through the country could wipe out entire generations of families. Yet Anne, Jane and Elisabeth lived through all this and left their indelible marks on history. It’s high time for these women’s stories to be heard.