Richard II
The mystique of Henry V remains as powerful as ever
The belligerent young hero of Agincourt really was the model of a medieval monarch, doing the job exactly as it was supposed to be done, according to Dan Jones
The real Dick Whittington and the folklore legend
In that dark world the air pulsed with the melancholy clangour of bells. If, as legend has it, the chimes…
Henry IV: unsightly usurper and megalomaniac
Poor old Henry IV: labelled (probably unfairly) as a leper, but accurately as a usurper, he has been one of…
The Peasants’ Revolt — such a thrilling moment in English history — has eluded novelists in the past
Considering that it was, as Melvyn Bragg rightly puts it, ‘the biggest popular uprising ever experienced in England’, the Peasants’…
Turn this play into a film and it’ll win Oscars – Hollywood can’t resist a posh Brit battling disability
God, what a title. The Gathered Leaves. It sounds like a tremulous weepie about grief and endurance with a closing…
A window on Chaucer’s cramped, scary, smelly world
Sam Leith describes the frequently lonely, squalid and hapless life of the father of English poetry
Pick of the crime novels
Stuart MacBride’s new novel, A Song for the Dying (HarperCollins, £16.99, Spectator Bookshop, £14.99), is markedly darker in tone than…
James Delingpole: I'm in love with Shakespeare — and with David Tennant's Richard II
‘Dad, it’s three hours long,’ says Boy, worriedly. ‘Yeah. And whose bloody fault is it we’re going?’ I want to…
David Tennant plays Richard II like a casual hippie
Gregory Doran, now in command at Stratford in succession to Sir Michael Boyd, launches his regime with Richard II, intending…
