From My Blog

Peter Paul Rubens at Tate Britain

As the new exhibition ‘Rubens and Britain’ is about to open at Tate Britain, I thought you might like to see the article I wrote about Rubens’ work in London for the Tate members’ magazine. The God-maker Who Did His Job Too Well In 2008 Tate Members helped to buy Peter Paul Rubens’ important oil

I defend my bonnet again! Well, not literally – but I explain my philosophy

Interview by Tim Jones in the Borehamwood Times Historian, author and broadcaster Lucy Worsley is the chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces, the independent charity that looks after Hampton Court Palace, the Tower of London and Kensington Palace among others. Tim Jones spoke to her about her mission to make history as popular as the

I respond to my detractors and defend my bonnet!

‘My View’ in the Daily Mail Weekend Magazine, 15 October 2011 I was surprised recently to find myself being attacked by my fellow historian, Alison Light, on Radio 4’s Today programme. She accused me of ‘cheapening history’ by ‘dressing up in bonnets and climbing in and out of carriages’ (as I did, with gusto, in

In my (tea) cups tonight on BBC4

Well, you wait all your life to be interviewed about tea-cups, and then it happens three times in quick succession.  I’m with C.S. Lewis when he said that ‘you can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me’, and tea is my favourite drink.  I also like

I eat eight raw oysters straight from the salty sea

Tomorrow when I go to the office I’m going to have rather a swanky answer to the question ‘what did you get up at the weekend’? I went oyster fishing, and have the sunburn, the slightly queasy sensation from sea-sickness and over-indulgence, and the cut hands to prove it.  I was in Whitstable and thereabouts making a

A quick history of domestic lighting

The history of domestic lighting has been governed by economics, but also by snobbery and tradition, and occasionally by a dangerous desire for novelty. As ‘If Walls Could Talk’ is being repeated on the TV at the moment, I thought you might enjoy a quick history of domestic lighting. Yawn, what a dull subject, you

Poor old Peter the Wild Boy – article in The Telegraph

Here’s an article about Peter the Wild Boy which appeared in the Telegraph a little while ago.  He also has his own page here, an extract from my book about him and his colleagues in the royal household called Courtiers, The Secret History of the Georgian Court. National Treaures Live: Peter, the feral child who captivated

Rehabilitating Old Naughty – my article in today’s Guardian

George IV: the rehabilitation of Old Naughty. Britain’s Most Useless  Monarch deserves some credit for presiding over a transformative decade … Lucy Worsley in The Guardian, Monday 29th August Endless Jane Austen film adaptations have given us the idea that the Regency was a classy, pretty, palatable period of history. Notable for their muslins, tea

The Byronic look: overweight and unattractive, article in The Guardian

The Byronic look: overweight and unattractive.  BBC series on Regency Britain paints an unflattering portrait of ‘self-regarding poser’ Lord Byron. Mark Brown in The Guardian, Saturday 27 August 2011 When a man is noted for his Byronic looks he is generally chuffed – dark, handsome, attractively unavailable. Slightly morose, it’s true, but in a sexy

Eight things you need to know about The Regency

From The Radio Times, 27 August 2011 He was the ‘fop at the top’, but the Prince Regent was more than a crude caricature, says historian Dr Lucy Worsley. Well, almost … 1. They called him the Prince of Whales… Today the word ‘Regency’ sounds classy and elegant: Jane Austen, tea parties, pretty gowns and