Helen Castor, 56, is an academic, author and broadcaster whose acclaimed books include She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth and Joan of Arc, both of which she also presented as television documentaries. She is a fellow commoner at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Her new book, The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV, explores political rivalries and the most audacious coup of the 14th century. It has been described as a “dazzling tour de force of epic royal history” by Simon Sebag Montefiore and a nonfiction book of the year by Andrew O’Hagan.
What drew you to the story of these two men?
It encapsulates everything I love about medieval history. I’m interested in power and how it worked in an age where you’ve got no standing army, no professional police force, no modern communications – how does a government in Westminster rule a whole country? You’ve got these two individuals – first cousins, almost exactly the same age but such utterly different men – brought to the point where the failings of one mean that the other has to take over, causing a whole different set of problems. If you wrote it in fiction it would look too neat. And of course the fact that Shakespeare has told their story so gloriously is a whole other layer drawing you in.
