YESTERDAY Part 3: THEATRICAL HIGHLIGHTS by Adèle Geras

The real highlight of my theatrical life at Oxford was appearing in an anti-capital punishment review called HANG DOWN YOUR HEAD AND DIE in my first year. The show transferred to the Comedy Theatre in London in the spring of 1964 and was a huge success. I will write about it on another occasion, but this centenary production of ALICE IN WONDERLAND in 1965 was also memorable. This is how I wrote about it in YESTERDAY.

The original Alice was one of the daughters of the Dean of Christ Church,

and when the weather permitted, we rehearsed in the Dean’s Garden: a place not generally open to the public. I couldn’t quite get over it. Not having very much to do at rehearsals, I used to lie on the grass and watch the others and say to myself: this is it. This is the real Alice’s real garden. She must have sat here with her sisters. I’m not a believer in ghosts, but I did look for Alice because that small garden was an enchanted place. What I had to do in the play was this: sit up a tree on a specially-designed platform and very time someone sang a song (How doth the little crocodile? You are old, Father William, etc) I had to sing the original Victorian hymn or song that Carroll was sending up. I think I was supposed to be Alice’s sister. All that could be seen of me was the hem of my long skirt peeping through the foliage. This was fortunate because I didn’t have acting permission and appeared in the programme under a pseudonym. The reason for this was: I’d used up my acting ration appearing as (sic) Zenobia Bogus-Bogus in a musical called (sic again) You Can’t Do Much Without A Screwdriver…..

[Addendum: written now rather than in 1992 and not from the book: Here is a photo of me,in that show, on the left, with an actor called Ian Marter, courtesy of the wonderful David Wood who has an unbeatable archive of such memorabilia.]

And here is another of me and Diana Quick beating up a policeman during a production number called EMANCIPATION, which had something loose to do with the Suffrage movement. Diana is on the right of the policeman in the middle as you look at it and I am on the left....doesn't matter! It's a fun photo if a little indistinct.

During the Summer Vacation we took the production (of Alice in Wonderland) to the Minack Theatre in Cornwall and set it among the rocks and crags overlooking the sea. Every night, in that amazingly beautiful place,

I pitted my unamplified voice against the waves of the Channel, which much of the time were obligingly whispery and quiet. Most of the company slept in a large church hall. All the sleeping bags lined up on the floor looked like rows and rows of butterflies in the larval stage of their development. Vince and I had a tent in the churchyard, and tents soon ousted caravans from their number one position at the top of the “Uncomfortable Habitation” chart. It rained unceasingly the first few days we were in Cornwall, and at night time, moisture seeped in under the groundsheet despite our best efforts.

Have written a fairytale. Will travel? Not always! – Katherine Roberts

In less than a month, Grail of Stars, the final book of my Pendragon Legacy quartet for young readers about King Arthur’s daughter, will be published – at least it will be published here in the UK. But not as yet in the US, since this series is considered “too English” for the American market.

Too English!

King Arthur

Well, yes... this series is based on the legend of King Arthur, who was inescapably an English king and/or warlord, if he existed - of which there is some doubt. But King Arthur is killed in battle the day before the first book begins, so my series is actually about his daughter Rhianna Pendragon, a purely fictional character, and her three young friends – also invented by me, one of whom is a fairy and decidedly un-English (though I have to admit he’s not exactly an American fairy, either!)

And yes, as a traditional background for Rhianna’s quest, I did place my Camelot in Somerset on Cadbury Hill, and I located one of the gateways to the enchanted isle of Avalon a few miles away at Glastonbury Tor – although Avalon itself, being fairyland, could be anywhere, even in America. Other ‘English’ scenes are my battles, one of which takes place at Hadrian’s Wall (so possibly our northern cousins would dispute that), and there are plenty of dragon capers around the Welsh valleys in the third book - again not really English. Some of the action in the books takes place on the shores of Avalon, and the fourth book takes my characters across the sea to the Grail Castle - another enchanted location, and maybe somewhere you can reach by boat from English shores, which leaves things wide open, though my bet’s on France.

But I can see what American publishers mean. After all, this is not the first time one of my creations has failed to travel across the Pond. My Seven Fabulous Wonders series - a mixture of fantasy and history based on the old gods and monsters of the time - also failed to sell to an American publisher, since although these books are not English, they were considered “too European” for the American market.

Too European!

The Great Pyramid at Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (my own painting).

They were maybe even a bit too European for the English market, according to a recent survey reported by the Daily Mail. Apparently, only 61% of the British population can name one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the most popular choice being the Great Pyramid (though asking which of the three pyramids at Giza is the actual Wonder might reduce that percentage - if you're curious, it's the oldest one on the right, also the largest, the tomb of Khufu). Only 21% can name a second Wonder on the list, and a mere 6% can list all seven. In fact, an embarrassing 12% of Britons today cannot name a single one, and consider these monuments listed by the ancient Greeks as the wonders of their world to be boring! I suppose the clue is in that word “ancient” – those largely vanished old temples and statues have a bit more competition now that we have so many more modern wonders to marvel at. Also, remember, the world of the ancient Greeks was based around the Mediterranean and Persia, which did not include America.

If you are a US publisher, you'll probably gently remind me at this point that publishing decisions are based on other factors than geographical boundaries, that it’s an increasingly cut-throat business, and everyone is watching the bottom line these days. All of which I understand – I’m no starry-eyed debut author, and I'm not picking on our American cousins by any means, since the same could be said of books that do not travel to China, or even fail to make the short hop across the channel into modern Europe - although in their case there is an extra cost involved with the need to translate the story into a different language. Happily, my Seven Fabulous Wonders did eventually make it into 12 languages, perhaps proving their European appeal, and the Pendragon Legacy is making a good start with French and Turkish deals agreed and others hopefully in the pipeline.

Yet it seems this failure of fantasy stories (which are essentially fairytales, and therefore ought to travel quite easily) to cross geographical boundaries is not a recent thing. I bought this book from a second-hand bookstall the other day, because I fell in love with the beautiful cover:

It is a collection of the original fairytales by the Brothers Grimm, who lived in 18th/19th century Germany, and contains some of perhaps the most famous fairytales of all time. There are detailed notes on the stories in the back, and I was particularly fascinated by the “omitted tales”, and the reasons they were thrown out of this collection at some stage.

These omitted tales include:

Too French!

The Nightingale and the Blindworm, Puss in Boots, Simple Hans, Bluebeard, Okerlo, and Princess Mouseskin were all omitted in 1819 because of their French origins. (Any historian out there hazard a guess as to why?)

Too Scottish!

The Hand With the Knife was omitted in 1819 because of its Scottish origins.

Too Dutch!

The Castle of Murder was omitted in 1819 due to its Dutch origins.

Too Mongolian!

The Faithful Animals was omitted in 1850 because it came from a collection of Mongolian tales.

And a couple of other reasons not really to do with geographical boundaries, but more with culture:

Too Historical!

The Children of Famine and Saint Solicitous were omitted in 1819 because they were too much like legend. (Um, King Arthur's daughter, are you listening?)

Too Gruesome!

How some Children Played at Slaughtering, The Stepmother, and The Children of Famine (doubly unpopular, that one, it seems.)

As you've probably noticed, the omitted tales include some of our best-known fairytales such as Puss in Boots and Bluebeard, so clearly fashions change over time, and also change when stories cross geographical boundaries. How Some Children Played at Slaughtering could even be an early forerunner of  The Hunger Games, one of our most popular YA series today!

So maybe I should not be too upset by “too English” and “too European”, or even "too historical" and "too gruesome"? I am after all an English author and have always felt more European than American culture-wise, even if we do share a language. Perhaps that is why my muse is drawn towards European legends and history? Also, writing something European does not necessarily mean it won’t be published in America – it just has a harder time over there. For example, my Alexander the Great novel from the horse's mouth I am the Great Horse, which one American reviewer (the 2 star one if you follow the B&N link) slammed as unsuitable for children due to its gruesome battle scenes and suggestion of homosexuality, had a hardcover American edition. It did not in the end make it into paperback over there – although I am happy to report this book is now available worldwide as an ebook (see below), crossing geographical boundaries at the click of a key.

The main downside of such labels, of course, is financial. The American market, love it or hate it, is essential in terms of making a living at this writing business. I am now in that scary space between books when I need to decide what to write next, and embarking on new work that I know is going to slam into a geographical wall is probably not the most sensible thing for my career right now.

Of course, in hindsight, I could have set my Greek gods and monsters from the Seven Fabulous Wonders in an American summer camp (like Percy Jackson), or put King Arthur’s daughter and Avalon in space (like the other Pendragon Legacy), shaking off their “too European” and “too English” objections at the outset. No doubt the same approach would work for many other English or European ideas. But they would have lost some of their essential culture and soul along the way. The book that is really begging me to write it next – the one I started last week, meaning to do an hour maybe and ended up writing into the night – is set in ancient Rome. European history again, arghh! I haven’t dared tell my publisher about it, because I do have more American-friendly fantasy series idea, although in the wayward manner of my muse I’ve not written a word of that one yet.

I just know what my editor is going to say...

***

Katherine Roberts writes fantasy and historical fantasy for young readers.

Visit her website for more details www.katherineroberts.co.uk

If you are a slightly older reader, you might like to try her Alexander the Great novel,

now available as an ebook from:

Amazon for Kindle

Apple itunes

Kobo

Nook

Manners for Men - Joan Lennon

In the third Slightly Jones Mystery - The Case of the Cambridge Mummy, young Victorian scallywag Matthew Bone gets taken in hand by Miss Sally Forth to be taught manners. So I needed to learn some first. I went looking for late 19th century etiquette books and found ...

... Mrs Humphry.

I love Mrs Humphry. When I first got my hands on Manners for Men I kept sitting down to read it, and then leaping up to find some boy to read it to!

"Listen to this!" I kept yelping.

"At the breakfast table unkempt hair, untended finger-nails, and a far from immaculate collar are occasionally to be seen ... the ill-bred young man may be traced from room to room by the litter of newspapers and magazines he leaves behind him ... In this young man's own room there is chaos. The maids have endless trouble in clearing up after him ... His handkerchiefs, his socks, and collars are lying about in every corner of the room. He is too indolent even to put his boots outside the door at night that they may be cleaned in the morning. To save himself trouble he bangs all the doors instead of gently latching them."

Tell me about it, Madge.

But she is sincere in her desire to help these young hooligans and sympathises with their awkwardness and fears. Take dinner parties, for example:

"To converse with a perfect stranger is always one of the initial social accomplishments to be learned, and it is not at all an easy thing at first. It needs practice. Ninety men out of every hundred offer a remark upon the weather; but unless there had been something very extraordinary going on in the meterological line, it is better to avoice this subject if possible ..."

But what then?

"I have known a good beginning made with some such remark as, "Do you know everybody here?" This leads perhaps to the acquisition of some information as to the other guests ... The floral decorations often lead up to conversation. The colours of the flowers remind one of pictures, and the lady on one's right may be asked if she has been to any exhibitions that may be open. If so, what pictures she liked best. Does she paint? Has she read the novel of the hour? What does she think of it? Does she bike? At this rate our novice gets on swimmingly, and may safely be left to himself."

She is also happy to answer more specific questions on how to proceed:

"A young man once asked me if it would be etiquette to offer an unknown lady an umbrella in the street, supposed she stood in need of one. I replied, 'No lady would accept the offer from a stranger, and the other sort of person might never return the umbrella.'"

Sometimes it is enough to gently point out an area of weakness:

"It requires some expertness and practice for a man with a moustache to take soup in a perfectly inoffensive manner. The accomplishment is worth some trouble."

Mrs Humphry may have the knowledge, but she makes clear that there is more to becoming a well-mannered gentleman than just reading her book:

"If manners are not practised at home, but are allowed to lie by until occasion calls upon their wearer to assume them, they are sure to be a bad fit when donned."

You can't argue with that.

And rest assured that Mrs Humphry did not leave the ladies to wander without assistance in the minefield of late Victorian etiquette. Next month, Manners for Women! I invite you, as politely as I know how, to join me then.


(This post is recycled from my own blog, several years back.)

Joan's website.
Joan's blog.

The Blackboard Jungle - with Dinosaurs - by Katherine Langrish

C.S. Lewis, in his inaugural lecture as Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English in the University of Cambridge, wrote with customary charm and wit of his value as a sort of living dinosaur.  He termed himself a citizen of what he called Old Western Culture – in sympathy with it in a way in which he felt his audience was not.  And he offered this as both a disqualification and an advantage: 

You don’t want to be lectured on Neanderthal Man by a Neanderthaler, still less on dinosaurs by a dinosaur.  And yet, is this the whole story? If a live dinosaur dragged its slow length into the laboratory, would we not all look back as we fled?  What a chance to know at last how it really moved and looked and smelled and what noises it made!  … Where I fail as a critic, I may yet be useful as a specimen.

I was thinking about this recently as I looked through some of my old manuscripts and rediscovered a piece of writing from an (ancient) unpublished novel. A school morning, first day of term: full school assembly.

Coughing, shuffling, the slide of the khaki drugget underfoot.  Herring-bone pattern of woodblocks showing through where a seam had split.  Mr Green the music teacher coming in, talking over his shoulder to Miss Sykes: ripple of interest among the girls. Mr Green was young and wore a beard: he was married, but everyone thought he fancied Miss Sykes, and it made the older girls jealous. He sat down at the organ and played some church music, stopped, grinned at Mr Harvey who was up on the stage fixing hymn numbers, and made the organ groan heavily and breathily.  Then he made it squeak.  Laughter interrupted the general chatter. Then he went back to Bach, and the Head came in, wearing his black gown over his suit, and banged for silence. The noise in the Hall gradually ebbed away into loud shushings from boys who knew the safe ways of being noisy.  Precarious silence.

            “I’m very glad to see you all here again…”

            Ha ha

            “…especially our two new first forms who will please stay behind after assembly.  I’m sure we’re all going to get down and work hard this term…”

            Get down from what?

            “…so by the Christmas holidays you will startle your parents by being models of perfection and bringing home first class results.”

            The laugh came that he had expected, but loud, hard and prolonged.

            “Well now – well now –” the noise subsiding – “I shall have some notices to read after the service, but now we will all sing” – he turned in relief – “Hymn number five hundred and ninety-eight.”

            Mr Green bent to the keys.

            Oh God our help in ages past…

This is a fairly accurate description of a typical morning at my own grammar school in – say – 1974. It's a historical document now. How things have changed! Back then, we had a religious assembly every school morning, complete with Bible and New Testament readings, two or three hymns, and some kind of brief but bracing homily, usually about doing our best. Nowadays full school assemblies are rarely held (for one thing, most secondary schools are simply too big to fit all the pupils in one hall) and religious assemblies - except in church and other religious schools - are not held at all. This is simple common sense. Even in my day, Jewish and Roman Catholic pupils were excused from attendance (we envied them: it gave them time to finish their homework), and in a multicultural world it’s impractical to waste school time on a cap-raising exercise aimed at the established Church. But there you go: one huge difference already between Then and Now.

A small one – what modern child has ever heard of a ‘drugget’?  I don’t know myself where the word comes from; but that was what we called the massive canvas covering which had to be unrolled over the polished hall floor every morning to protect it from the stampeding feet of three hundred and sixty schoolchildren.  It used to slither about underfoot and get ruckled up, but it did the job. Another big difference – ‘two new first forms’?  Only two!  Most schools I visit these days have anything between four to six: a year group can often be around a hundred and fifty to two hundred children. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY newcomers to be settled in and taught the ways, each and every September.  That’s almost half the entire pupil count of my old school.

Lastly, in the state sector at least, what secondary school head teacher in this day and age is going to be seen dead wearing an academic gown?  Far from encouraging respect, it would make him or her an object of ridicule.  For you will see that one thing which has not changed at all is the ever-bubbling rebellion, cynicism and disrespect which is the natural state of things when hundreds of energetic young people are shut up indoors all day and told to sit still and listen. At my well-respected 1970’s country grammar school, we regularly reduced one naïve young teacher to tears – especially after she came into school on the Guide festival of Thinking Day wearing her Brown Owl uniform…

Politicians may believe children owe teachers respect.  Children don’t see it that way: they are made to attend school...  Teachers know they have to earn pupils’ respect and earn it afresh every day via a complicated balancing at least as tricky as this...

... and even trickier to make it appear easy and natural ( like this...)

Teachers have to be approachable but authoritative, helpful but strict; they have to have eyes in the backs of their heads and ears like a hare’s: they must be able to sum up characters like a psychologist: must be able to distinguish – in a second – ignorance from insolence, deliberate laziness from honest bewilderment. Teachers need the cunning of Loki, the wisdom of Odin and – to mix mythologies – the patience of Job. They need to be able to remember the names and faces and capabilities of hundreds of individual children. All that, before they even begin to teach a lesson. And here is something else that hasn’t changed: not all of them can do it. There always were and always will be teachers who, by sheer force of personality, can capture the attention and respect of a class: and there were and always will be teachers – good people with excellent qualifications and a real desire to pass on knowledge – who simply can’t manage it.  And their lives will be hell.

As an author I love doing school visits, but I prefer doing full days to half days, because after a morning of talking to a hundred and fifty excited children, there is no way I can go home, settle down, and spend a peaceful afternoon writing.  There is simply too much adrenaline whizzing around my system. The Blackboard Jungle, it used to be called.  It hasn’t changed as much as you’d think, and most of the dinosaurs are still there.


PS. Oh - and the tightrope walker?  She is Signorina Maria Spelterini, crossing the Niagara Gorge on a highwire in 1876. She performed this feat several times, and in the first picture, just to make things a little more difficult, she is wearing peach baskets on her feet.

The secret of the orange sheep - by Eve Edwards

Mark Twain was a clever chap.

For research for my next book project, I am thinking about late nineteenth century writers and he bobbed to the surface today.  He is not alone in his wit in this era, of course, but I was reminded today of just how apposite are so many of his sayings.  You probably have heard repeated over the last few years his banking wisdom: 'a banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.'  Really, I think after reading that there is no need to go study that degree in Economics; he has said all you have to know.

One of his most famous sayings is 'Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.'  That's where the orange sheep come in.  Our family holiday took us to Glenlyon, a glen just north of Loch Tay in Perthshire.  Imagine the rolling hills, clouds that hang on the mountain sides making the dark pine plantations seem like they are on cold fire, the birds of prey poised over prey, glorious stone bridges arching like grey cats stretching over a peaty rivers, green fields full of orange sheep with black faces and legs...

Come again?

Yes, orange sheep.  Not the usual mark of tupping on the back or ownership smudge but completely orange.  If you don't believe me, here is the picture.

Please note the rectangular plantation behind courtesy of the Forestry Commission - the Scottish landscape going very post-modern.  The vision of tangerine sheep provided my family with an hour of speculation, ranging from the boring (dipping treatment) to the fashion statement to the invasion by alien sheep theory.  The problem for a writer is that you can't just drop that into a passage of description without it seeming, well, very odd and in dire need of explanation.  In the real world, such things aren't explained, they just are.

As if to underline this point, just down the road from the orange sheep is the noted village of Dull.  Twinned with Boring, Oregon.

How can we be expected to drive safely, people of Dull, if you sprinkle your fields with alien creatures?  Now I am having nightmares about what exactly you might see on one of their highland safaris!

Mark Twain had clearly come across a few of his own 'orange sheep' moments to make his comment.  I wonder if any reader of this blog has one or two to share with us, particularly if they have found them as part of research for a historical book and had to discard them as too unusual to fit in fiction?

(P.S. My latest book, Dusk, is now out.  Sadly lacking in orange sheep but there are some very surreal 'real' moments from World War I, taken from diaries or accounts of the time.)

From Blog to Book - Lucy Inglis

Four years ago this month I started the Georgian London blog, to discuss the lesser known aspects of the eighteenth century city. The blog gained traction quickly as it explored immigration, disability, crime, sex and other subjects like retail culture and music.

In turn, that blog meant an agent found me, and almost a year after the blog’s first post I had signed a deal with Viking books (a Penguin imprint) to write Georgian London: Into The Streets. Although I had been working in the eighteenth century for a decade, there was still considerable specific research to be done on each area of London and how it evolved through the Georgian period. That research also fed the blog, but it was important to only blog the stuff that wasn’t going to make the final cut for the book. Sometimes it was hard to choose!

Any writer will tell you that time moves at a different pace in the publishing world. It is the complete opposite of blogging and social media, which are perfect for instant gratification. Publishers are used to taking their time to make sure that every element of the book is right, not just the text. For writers, sourcing maps and images, and securing permissions quite literally takes months. But there is little to compare with seeing and holding your finished book for the first time.

The book is out this coming Thursday, so I’m feeling like a nervous mother putting her only child into school for the first time. But the journey from blog to book has been a tremendous process in which I have learned so much. Not just about a subject I love, but about how books are made, the collaborations that are necessary between writers and editors, the teamwork involved in making books as beautiful and covetable as they are.

I’m still very proud of the Georgian London blog and it is still the largest online collection of free material on its subject. People often ask me why I began writing ‘for free’, about such a niche subject. One Sunday, in the summer of 2009, I stood on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral and listened as the bells called to worshippers and tourists alike. People loitered chatting, or climbed the steps and went inside. I imagined this clamour was almost exactly the same as it had been three centuries ago. I recorded it on my telephone and walked home.

For years I had dragged my husband to churchyards, houses, demolition sites, public monuments and hidden memorials, telling him the stories of people long dead: cabinetmakers, slaves, domestic servants, weavers, chimney sweeps and prostitutes. Back at home I played him the recording, my precious moment of shared experience with Londoners of the past. His dry recommendation was to start blogging the tales I had accumulated and what I believed about Georgian London. The blog’s instant and enduring popularity reassured me that there were people who were as interested in these stories as I was, and that interest sustained me through the long journey of writing the book. It is a tribute to the people of the eighteenth century city and testimony to the eternal feeling that if I could just run fast enough through London’s endless archives I will catch them, grasp their coat tails and make them tell me everything about being a Georgian Londoner. And that is why I blog for free, because the best blogs whether written by one person, or like this one, many, are the ones that are born out of a deep passion on a subject, any subject. The passion of the contributors is what makes them stand out from the millions of others out there and I'm proud to be a History Girl. So if you have something you love as much as we love history, get to it and start blogging, you never know where it might take you.

I hope my love of Georgian London is evident in the pages of my book. My book! Four years ago I hadn’t imagined I would ever say those words. Now I can. It’s been an incredible journey. And as of Thursday, a new one will begin.

Golden boys by Mary Hoffman

I am currently reading Dan Jones's excellent book The Plantagenets. It's a huge slab of book and yet takes us only from Henry l to Richard ll, which is where I usually begin. (Apparently a second volume is planned). It opens with the story of the fate of The White Ship and that has led me to muse on just how many "lost princes" there are in English Royal history and why there has been so much insistence on having a "spare" as well as an heir.

William Aetheling (1103-1120)

William was only seventeen, known as the "Aetheling," the equivalent of the later Prince of Wales title that puts the stamp of "heir to the throne" on the firstborn son of the king. Much was expected of young William, the son of Henry l and Matilda of Flanders. He was good-looking and "a prince so pampered" according to Henry of Huntingdon, that he seemed destined to be "food for the fire."

But it was another element that claimed the prince. Married for just a year (to Matilda of Anjou) and already Duke of Normandy, William seemed to have the world at his feet. He boarded The White Ship at Barfleur, supposed to follow his father's vessel across the channel. But like many a seventeen-year-old he saw no harm in a little drink or two first; he would easily overtake the king's ship in the calm waters.

One or two drinks turned into a full-blown binge,not just for the young prince and his courtiers but also - disastrously - for the captain and crew. When the ship did finally set sail, it hit a rock in the harbour and went down with a massive hole in its side. William and some friends made it into a life-boat but the Aetheling turned back to rescue his illegitimate half-sister (a Matilda, like William's mother and wife). The life-boat was then swamped by survivors scrambling to board it and it too sank. There was only one survivor of this shipwreck - a butcher, who had never intended to go to sea.

You might say that nothing in William's life became him like the leaving of it. A whole courtful of golden boys and girls went down with The White Ship and Henry l was left without a male heir. The widowed king re-married quickly but had no more sons and THAT was was led to the whole Stephen versus Matilda battle for the English throne, Matilda having been Henry's daughter and not deemed worthy to reign as a mere woman. (Matilda was clearly the equivalent of Amelia in the twelfth century).

Henry the Young King (1156-1183)

Henry, the "Young King," was crowned in his father's lifetime, an odd practice that the current Prince of Wales might like to see revived. He was the second son of Henry ll and Eleanor of Aquitaine, his older brother having already died. (But Henry and Eleanor had three other "spares" including two who would go on to be King - Richard l and John).

Young Henry had wide blue eyes and red-gold hair; he was crowned at the age of fourteen, married to Margaret of France at sixteen (and crowned again just to make sure) but by eleven years later he was in conflict with his father and younger brother Richard and caught dysentery campaigning against them. He died at twenty-seven.

The Black Prince (1330-1376)

By the time you get to the Black Prince, who died two centuries later, the title of Prince of Wales has been established for the heir. He was hardly a "boy," since he died at forty-six, but he was another victim of dysentery and died a year before his father, Edward lll. The Black Prince was the father of Richard ll, himself a younger brother, and his death heralded what would be another fight for precedence between brothers and their sons, later known as the Cousins' War or the Wars of the Roses.

Arthur, Prince of Wales (1486-1502)

Here's another golden boy whose early death gives us one of the biggest "what if"s of counter-factual historical fiction. Arthur was the oldest son of Henry Vll and should have been the second Tudor king. He was married to Katherine of Aragon in 1501, at the age of fifteen, after a two year betrothal. Whether that marriage was consummated or not became, more than twenty-five years later, the subject of much speculation and inquiry as Henry Vlll, Arthur's younger brother, sought to disentangle himself from having married his brother's widow. Arthur died of "the sweating sickness" or perhaps TB within months of his wedding, and the rest is history - some of the most popular aspects of it.

Henry Stuart (1594-1612)

Henry Stuart was another handsome young prince who died tragically young. He was the older son of James l of England and Vl of Scotland and Anne of Denmark. He was another athletic and popular Prince of Wales, much more popular than his father in fact. But he died, probably of typhoid fever, after swimming in the Thames, aged only eighteen.

Frederick Louis (1707-51)

This is a rather neglected "lost prince," the eldest son of George ll and Caroline of Brunswick. He too is denied "boy" status but he did die before is father, of an abscess on the lung. Fortunately, Frederick had married and had a son, who became George lll.

Edward Vlll (1894-1972), later Duke of Windsor

And so to the 20th century, where another golden boy, who did reign as king for most of 1936 but was never crowned, found a new way to disappoint all the expectations loaded on him. Fortunately, there were several "spares" and his younger brother became George Vl, the father of the present Queen.

Don't you think all these lost princes would make a good book? Are you listening, Dan Jones? It's only seven in eight hundred years, unless I've missed someone out, but the consequences each time one was lost were enormous for English history.