Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Kate Williams (Part One)

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Joining Emily and Raymond this week is the brilliant historian, author and presenter Professor Kate Williams - who took us for a very royal walk in London’s St James’s Park.Kate has two cats at home - but she was VERY taken by Raymond. She actually asked if she could take him home - as well as comparing him to Anne Boleyn (which we’re taking as a compliment!) Our chat with Kate covers everything from red hair, to her childhood time machine and how she went from the shy girl at school to one of the country's most loved historians. You can follow Kate on Instagram @KatewilliamsmeYou can also listen to Queens, Kings and Dastardly Things - a brand new history podcast hosted by Kate and Robert Hartman - wherever you get your podcasts! Kate’s most recent book The Royal Palace: Secrets and Scandals is available now! Follow Emily: Instagram - @emilyrebeccadeanX - @divine_miss_emWalking The Dog is produced by Faye LawrenceMusic: Rich Jarman Artwork: Alice LudlamPhotography: Karla Gowlett  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I was dreaming that I was being cuddled by Charles II and I woke up and my weighted blanket had got on my head. So I just was like, I was smothering myself and I thought it was Charles II. He'd landed on me. This week on Walking the Dog, Ray and I went for a stroll with wonderful historian Kate Williams. And given her love of all things royal, it was no surprise that she chose to meet us just up the road from King Charles's crib in London, St James's Park. Kate is a very familiar TV face

having popped up on everything from royal wedding coverage to Would I Lie to You and Celebrity Mastermind. Yes, of course she won. But I originally came across her via my good pal, Frank Skinner, when she was the resident historian on a radio four show they did together. And I've become a bit of a huge fan ever since.

She's someone who manages to make history so entertaining through her books on subjects like the rivalry between Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I. or the fascinating story of Lord Nelson's great love, Emma Hamilton, and her brilliant documentaries on figures like Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II. Kate and I had such a lovely walk, chatting about all sorts of things like the time machine she made as a child,

my weird obsession with Henry VIII, and her obsession with her two cats, because Kate is very much a cat person, but she's also very much a rape person, which is partly why we adore her so much. Kate, by the way, has also just like, launched a brilliant new podcast of her own called Kings, Queens and Dastardly Things, where she and the journalist and royal expert Robert Harbin

will be diving into history's greatest royal mysteries and scandals, and I think you're going to love it, so do give it a listen. I'm going to shut up now and hand over to the wonderful professor herself. Here's Kate and Ray Ray. Now, Raymond, you're coming home with me, aren't you? When you go on holiday, Emily, I'll look after him. When's you going, tell me, I want to know. Don't go into a kennel. I'll have him.

I mean, it's quite a start to the podcast, Kay, William. You're trying to steal my dog. Yeah, it's true. Which way should we go, Kate? Did you get him from a dealer? A dealer. Like a dog kind of dog reader. A dealer.

I've got some shit shoes for you. Oh, Raymond, you're so handsome. Look at everyone admiring you in the park. Do you like him, Kate? I love him. Look at him, Kay. He's off. He's off.

Another redhead, Kate? Yes. Do you spot other redheads and think, one of my people? I would. Yes. Do you know, there's a redhead convention in Ireland, I believe, and it's all about the history of redheads and lots of redheads getting together

and discussing all the different things that redheads experienced, like, you know, obsessed with Factor 50. And they also have a speed dating section in this convention, and it's called the species survival. Because apparently redheads, are really the only main group who don't want to date someone who looks like each other. So have you ever seen two redheads together?

Well, we should say I can exclusively reveal the producer as a redhead. Have you ever dated a redhead fame? Never. Never. Because you'd look like siblings. People would assume. Why don't headheads date each other? Is your partner redhead?

No. And Henry VIII went through every type of lady, but never a redhead. But the daughter was a redhead. Well, yes, yes, but the jeans were strong. The jeans were strong in the Elizabeth I tribute to Henry VIII. A lot of early portraits are painted to make her look totally like him. She says I've got the body of a weakened feeble woman but the heart and stomach of a king.

So a lot of the portraits have painted to make her look even more Henry-like. And she made her face, there's a lot of theories that actually Elizabeth I first didn't really have the pale skin. She painted it up. It was fashion, of course, but she painted it up to make herself look paler and look more like her father to ensure this notion of Tudor legitimacy. So yes, she liked to be redhead. But again, I don't think Elizabeth I first dated any redheads. I don't think Robert Dudley was a redhead.

You know, I've got this theory that redheads, like a dark, like Henry VIII, he broke the country apart for Anne Boleyn, who had flashing dark eyes and dark hair and not pale skin when the fashion at the time was pale and plump. I have a theory that a lot of redheads like to go for kind of darker hair. Oh, interesting. So this is why they have to go to the Redhead Convention,

speech of survival because people like me and Faye. You're going to kill your people half. Somehow we keep surviving. Even though we don't date, Redhead Somehow we carry on. Raymond, he will do this. He's got fans. Raymond, please, come on.

He's a bit of a thirst trap. He loves the likes. He is gorgeous. But he's got what I always call that, the look at me, Jean. So Raymond has the come hither look. Raymond is like the ambulance of dogs. Is he? So handsome. flashing dark eyes like Amberlin.

What is a flashing eye? I mean, that's the first time you've ever been compared to Anviline and it's a good moment for you. So look, I should formally say I could not be more thrilled to have this woman on my podcast. I'm with the very fabulous Kate Williams, Uber historian, brilliant writer. I've just got massively into your book

so we're going to talk about those. And I know you're about to launch a podcast, which is really exciting, about time. And when I say about time, that sounded aggressive. I meant about time because that's just my dream, the idea of you doing a history podcast. Our podcast is Queens, Kings and Dastardy Things about all kinds of royal scandals,

royal mysteries, royal murderers. Because it always fascinates me that, obviously not far from Buckingham Palace, we could just see it over the trees, that the image of royalty is tries to be so strict and majestic, but really behind the closed doors, it's scandal and gossip and it's murder. So Kate, I want to kick off with Kate the early years

because I'm interested in your story. Well, we should start at first with the whole dog question. So you don't have a dog yourself? I don't have a dog, but it's an ongoing conversation at home. And I think once we've finally done some building works, then I'll get a dog. I've got two cats. And we've tried to put one on a cat lead,

but it hasn't really been very successful. We take him out on the cat lead and he basically sits under the next door neighbour's car. That's all he does. So it's a start. I'd like to have a dog because there's nothing like a dog. My grandfather, and it was a Welsh farmer and so he had all these amazing dogs,

all these incredible, intelligent dogs. And he had a dog called Scan that was my favourite. We always used to play with him. So they were working dogs. They didn't come in the house. But they were always such wonderful dogs. And my father grew up on the farm in North Wales. And one of his favourite dogs was called Don.

And Don used to come and pick my father up from the school bus. He used to walk down to pick him up and then walk him home back to the farm and take him in the mornings. And I didn't think that's... How did Don remember what time to go for the bus? Don knew. So, you're a dog fan. So I want a dog. And, you know, you can't look at the royals and not study the history of dogs.

The, so many wonderful royal dogs in history. We're not far from Marlborough House where there's a dog cemetery there, special dog cemetery. in Marlborough House for the royal dogs. In Marlborough House, which is quite open to the public. Sometimes you can go and see this special pet cemetery there and there was Caesar that was Edward the 7th's favourite dog and I'm afraid, bit like Her Majesty, he always used to bring the dog with him at every moment.

And with Her Majesty, no one minded, but they did mind with Edward the 7th that the dog was always there, but he was devoted to him. So we've got so many great royal dogs in history. We were just talking really, I want me about the history of dogs coming in, Can Queen Victorian have dogs? She had so many dogs that she was devoted to. In the Opium War, when the summer palace was being burned down,

the army, one of them, took an imperial dog, and brought this imperial dog, Imperial Chinese dog, back for Queen Victorian. And that's like Ray, Imperial Chinese dog. So would it have been a bit like Ray, maybe? Yes, we've got pictures of Lutie. But I do feel very sorry for Lutie, because the Queen had many dogs, and the other dogs didn't really accept him.

So it was rather a lonely life for poor old Lutie. You know what? Ray has rather a little. lonely life because he's so fabulous and refined the other dogs are a bit jealous oh looks that's sweet isn't it they're all sleeping these geese is that geese Kate I'm glad it is gays we've got a geese who got some ducks they're very tamed do you think they're just used to being fed and things I think they used to being fed we should say where we are so when I arranged to meet you today Kate you didn't

let me down because you went straight for a royal park I went straight for a royal park I thought where is a great park and I thought Raymond is a But essentially the king of dogs, where does he belong? So we're in St James's Park, and this is, well, it's kind of right in the centre of everything, isn't it? It's near Buckingham Palace, Admiralty Arch. We've got Horse Guards Parade where we see Trooping the Colour. And I think in the 2012 Olympics it was beach volleyball there in Horse Guards Parade. Was that right? I think it was.

Oh, yeah. And do you know what happened to me at St. James's Park last time I came? Gone. So they have the Pelicans in St. James's Park. There's about six of them, I think the most. recent ones, a star and sun, and they date back to 1686. Charles II was given them as a diplomatic present. Once upon the time St. James's Park was full of Charles II's exotic animals. There were crocodiles, camels. Apparently so. Yeah, so watch out. We're just by the pond now,

so maybe one better watch out. So he had these pelicans, and crocodiles have gone, but the only ones that still remain are the pelicans, and they're very famous. And it says when you look at the Royal Park's website, that the pelicans never really stray from where they are. And they're in the middle of the pond. But when I came here, this pelican, so he just started wandering out. So it's just at the exit at the top of St James's Park, just opposite Buckingham Palace. So we're on the, he's facing Buckingham Palace on the left side, and the pelican started ambling out of the road onto the main road outside Buckingham Palace. I thought, what am I going to do? This pelican is heading to Victoria Station,

and people were filming him and laughing at him. I just thought, but he's going to get run over. So I had this panic. I just thought, what am I going to do about this pelican? So I came down and I looked for the Royal Park's number, but it was after outs, it was closed. So I thought, I've got to phone the police. I've got to phone the police and tell them a pelican is on the loose. So I did. So I didn't phone the 999. I phoned the non-emergency number.

And I phoned them, and I said, there's a pelican on the loose heading towards Victoria Station. And I think he's going to die. And the police officer was so friendly. He was like, Madam, you're telling me that a pelican is wandering around the park. I said, yes. And I don't know what to do, and I can't get it in. Maybe he was a thirst trap too. Maybe he was getting so many photos.

I think he was just living his best life. He was loving it. I mean, you would have had a great time in Victoria Station, all those cafes. Was he safely? Did he get picked up then? He walked back. He walked back. So I phoned the police back and said, look, there's no need.

The pelican has gone back into the palace. You know, when I was younger, they used to have these articles in the newspaper at the end of the year about some of the most time wasting calls they used to get to directory inquiries. And I just thought if they have an article saying, who has wasted police time this year? A woman phoned up. say that a pelican had escaped from St James's Park and she was very worried about it in a city where there is crime. Oh, we're just walking past a sign about the pelicans of St James's Park. Oh, here we go, the pelicans.

Pelicans were, did I say 1686? I didn't mean 1664. You know what? Okay, I wouldn't hold that against you. I think I said 1686, I meant 1664 as a present for me, Ambassador. But yes. Luckily, there was not an article about people who wasted the most police time last year. But you would have been that woman. You definitely would have been. I never would have thought, who was that strange person? zoning up about a lost pelican.

Well, I am so thrilled to have you on this podcast and you have two beautiful cats. Buddy and Summer. Buddy and Summer who are siblings, am I right? They are siblings. They're very big hairy British long hairs. I've seen Hictus are beautiful.

They're very large. They're very large. They're very hairy and they're very cute. And I'm sure they'd love a little dog friend who came to play with them. As you say, you had sort of access to dogs when you you were growing up. And this was in the sort of Midlands?

So I'm from the Midlands. I'm from the West Midlands. So not far from Dudley, in the Birmingham environment. So definitely from the West Midlands, which is an area that's changed beyond measure since I was a child. They'd still blow glass. They'd still make carpets when I grew up. And there were so many factories. And when I, the train came back from school, I used to see them making chains in the factories in Cradley Heath. And all those factories have gone, the nail makers, the chain makers, the carpet makers. So the area has changed. Were you always quite studious from a young age?

Yes, I always love reading. I wrote my first book when I was seven, which I can't actually put my hands on, but it's around. Wait, wait, I'm not going to let that just pass like that. I wrote my first book when I was seven. The Adventures of Maria. So Maria was a girl who lived in her house a bit like mine, except she was blonde. And then she went on an albatross. And did you know actually in albatross is the only bird with a bigger wingspan than the pelican. So it's clearly destiny that we're here by the pelicans talking about albatrosses. So the albatross picked her up from the house and then she went to a desert island and almost drowned and then I had to realize that I'd lost my heroin and got her back again and then she was

almost then she almost fell down a rock and then she was almost eaten and all these things happened to her and then in the end she went back home. So honestly I think I peaked. I think I peaked there because everything about the hero's journey I teach my students about the hero's journey, you set your character off, then they encounter obstacles, and they have an all-as-lost moment, and I fear that no book out of mine

articulate the hero's journey as clearly as The Adventures of Maria when I was seven. The pictures weren't up to much, but the book was my peak. So I think I peaked at seven. I was also a leader in Brownness, and I think that was my strongest leadership role, so yeah, I think I picked at seven.

It's been downhill since. Were you quite a sort of quiet child, or were you noisy, extradite? Were you? Very quiet. Yes, very quiet. Very quiet. I always had my nose in a book.

I was always writing or reading. I was a very quiet, quiet, very shy. Very quiet, very shy. Yes, I couldn't ever think of anything to say to anyone in primary and senior school. It's taken me a long time to be able to talk. But, you know, I never was very, very, I always very quiet. I always find it much easy to express myself in words than in speech.

I always find it very hard to express myself in speech. It's been a long journey trying to talk as opposed to write. And this love of history and passion for history, did that start at an early age? And how did that start? Was there a particular period in history, or was there a particular books that you got involved in? Well, I always loved history. And we lived in quite a modern house, and I always loved the idea of the history that was under us. and I built a time machine

when again there's a lot of having around 7 about 7 and there was a box that the washing machine came in and I covered it in bits of foil and pipe cleaner and then I put my brother in it so he was a bit younger

I put my brother into it and then I shook it and I shook it and I said oh Jeff we're going flying now we're going and look we've landed in ancient Egypt and oh now we've landed in Victorian London and poor Jeff

about four or five and he just I said, oh, I want to get out, I want to get out. I said, no, you can't get out. Because if you get out, you'll stay, and you'll never get back to our home in the West Midlands. And how cruel was that? So poor Geoff, after a while, he rebelled, and he refused to get into the time machines. He said, he's not getting in. And now my brother is six foot and, but like I would play.

There's no way he's getting into any box for anyone. And I tried to get into the box when he'd stopped. Well, I was seven tried to get into the box, and I tried to rock it. But no chance. It didn't go anywhere. that I bought my own dream. But I have my own time machine now because I have the letters, I have the diaries,

I have the archives. And when you go there and you look at a letter that Mary Queen of Scots wrote to Elizabeth and she's pleading to meet her and you see these letters that Henry VIII is writing, Elizabeth I was writing, and it is like a time machine. You are there with them that they're, once they were part of this story.

So how lovely you did, in a sense, create a time machine. I did because I have my own time machine now. I get into my time machine every day. Can I say? And I think the way you do it now with the time machine, I think it's a bit less embarrassing than the pipe cleaner. I wish I kept it, but it wasn't, I think, the peak of my achievement, artistic achievement.

But yes, if there was a time machine now, I'd, of course, jump into it in a second. But I have my own. So talk me a bit through your family. So you grew up with your parents. and your brother. And do you know, neither of my parents are red-haired, and my brother and I are. So apparently it was sort of a genetic anomaly that there's two red hairs produced from neither parent being red-haired.

There was various redheads in the background, and my family are, well, one side is Welsh, and the other side came over from Ireland after the potato famine. So there's lots of Celtic blood there, but no particular redheads that popped out with us. But apparently I was born with dark hair, and it all fell out and was a place with red hair. Apparently, that was the case. And why you, Kate, you know, I'm imagining you at school, you were very, but were you quite well behaved and were you, were you the good girl in school? I mean, quite good, but I was never someone who would be a teacher's pet because I was terribly quiet and terribly shy and awkward.

So although I love to read and love to write, I wouldn't ever say, I was never someone who put their hand up all the time or volunteered for things because I was so awkward and so shy. Some people say to me, oh, you must have been head girl, Kate, you must have been head girl, you must, you know, the teacher, and I was just like, no. Actually not. I never said boot or goose, never said a word. So I was also painfully shy. But I did love reading. I don't know how you find Emily, but I found 80's education really suited me

because it was basically, because you were an open plan and you pretty much, I just wrote stories. When you finished your work, you could just do what you wanted as long as you sat quietly. So after I'd finish my maths or whatever, I just wrote stories. So I spent so much time at primary school just writing stories. I think the difference maybe between us is a bit

say after I'd finished my mat, which I don't think I ever finished my maths. I can't say it well, but I just, but yeah, I spent so much time in primary school writing stories and poems and then doing the same at home. I found this, that if you're a well-behaved, quiet child, they just let you alone to get on with it. So I just wrote stories and poems, but I wish I had more of them. When you were younger, what did you envisage yourself doing? You know, I mean, you're a professor, I should say.

I think you might be the first professor I've ever had on this. It's a big moment. And I wanted to be a professor when I was a kid, but I wanted specifically to be a professor of sweeties. That is cool. What did you want to be when you were growing up? And we didn't even have Harrow growing up, so we didn't really know. Well, you know, some of our sweets weren't that good.

I didn't even remember having any particularly nice sweets, but still, they were sweets. When I worked out, when I said I wanted to be a professor of sweets, that was essentially what Margaret Thatcher was. Yeah, soft scoop ice cream. I always wanted to write. I always wanted to write. Well, I basically wanted to fly. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to fly. That was my main ambition.

I don't think really getting into EasyJet really counts. I don't think I'm ever going to achieve that. Ada Loveless, who our first woman who was the first development of what a computer could do, I love her because when she was a child, she was very ill. And of course, she was banned from writing poetry and seeing Byron because her father, her mother banned her ever thinking about poetry or Byron because of a bad father. Bad, bad man. That's what her mother thought.

And she had these ideas about flying, but she was a scientist. She made all these plans about flying. And she worked out what kind of material she'd need for her wings and measured the wingspan of birds. So she really did get quite, and she wrote a book called Flyology. So she got very close to working out the science of flying. And I love that, because even though her mother banned her from ever thinking about poetry because her mother hated Byron so much,

even she had this poetic mind that brought her into science. And I think that what made us such a great scientist that poetry and science was combined. So I didn't ever do it in that scientific way because I never had Ada Lovelace's scientific brilliance. But I didn't want to. So I wanted to fly. But then I also wanted to write.

And I don't think I'm not sure I ever quite ever thought this is I will ever be a, you know when you're a child, you never think you're going to be grown up. You never think you could possibly be an adult because they all seem, adults seem so strange and so, and so odd. You never imagine you could ever be one. And it just seems so impossible.

you could ever be an adult in the same way that it seems quite hard for me to imagine that maybe one day if I'm lucky I'll be 90 I can't quite two together but so I never thought I'd be an adult but if I, I think I always hoped I'd be writing and I loved history

and that's why I built my time machine. I bet Kaye, if I was one of your friend's parents you would have been my favourite you know people say that and it's just not true I was so quiet I was often even so quiet and awkward and I could never even think of saying thank you terribly quiet and shy and awkward Totally, terribly quiet and shy and awkward, and I never felt I fitted in.

I mean, if you invited me to a birthday party, I wouldn't have gone wild or gone to eat in all the trifle, but I just would have sat there very quietly. So I think I probably was a sort of child that people didn't always notice. Really? That's interesting, though, because what I think that does to you is it turns you into an observer. And observers often go on to have really interesting lives. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, Emily. I think the way that you grew up as well around so many adults, you were an observer.

as well, I'm sure, because the adults were all having their conversations, and so you were listening and watching in the same way. So I would have looked at your childhood, Kay, and I would have thought I bet they have fish fingers at 6.30 p.m. Fish fingers at 6.30. Absolutely right. Watch a bit of Blue Peter. Yes. I met, I had a friend at university whose TV was banned, but they weren't allowed to have the TV, and she just said to me, and we used to watch Duke's of Hazard on a Saturday night, and I was so bored of watching Duke's a Saturday night, and she was like, I just can't, if only I could have watched Duke's of Hazard on a Saturday night. That was what she dreamt of.

And did you get on really well with your brother? Yes, yes. I did. But perhaps that was because I was mean to him. As we know, I put him into the time machine. I forced him to sit there. I definitely had many imaginative games that I forced him to be a part of. I think the worst one was when we played aeroplanes

and he had to just sit at the front driving the plane for two hours. Well, I looked after the bears in case of an emergency. where it bears with the passengers. Or younger siblings dragged into their elder siblings, terrible imaginative games. Yes. I had that with my sister actually. We used to play games and looking back some weird, weird games.

We often played a thing called, which is horrible. I think about it. Again, you're sort of a product of your environment with that even realizing that. Because my parents were sort of actors and performers and whatever. We played agents. No, really? My sister. Put it on a wig.

Sorry, there's no work for you, bye. That was literally what it was. Oh, really? I've got to tend to smoke a cigarette and pick the phone up and go, hello darling. And then she goes, no, she won't do it for that prize, goodbye. Oh, that's amazing. You'd pick the phone up to the actors, the clients and you go, no, there's nothing, I'm afraid, darling. They said you were terrible in that last thing.

Goodbye. You played agents. I love it. It's so awful. I love that. And I played schools. so we're very stripped to the bears about paying attention. Did you always know Kate that you were going to be?

Because you ended up going to Oxford, didn't you? It's quite a big achievement, isn't it? I mean, your parents must have been thrilled, and that must have been, everyone must have been, wow. I really loved sixth form. I really loved. I didn't, I don't think, I loved being at primary school

because I just sat home wrote stories every day. And then senior school I found much more difficult. And then sixth form I loved because I just was reading books all the time and I loved it so much so it's the thought that I could go to after 18 somewhere who just sit in the library and read books was to me seemed like the paradise and I know Oxford's not far from the Midlands I mean it's just down the road but it just seemed it seems very different did it feel quite amazing though to be going there on your first day and thinking wow you know it's a real achievement I did feel that but I think also you think it's not hard it's

hard I can't really not to feel I'm the you know I'm the imposter here what mistake does they make? You know, it's being normal, is it to feel imposter, but I was. You know, felt so thrilled and grateful, and, you know, it's a beautiful place. And the thought of a library being open 24 hours just blew my mind.

But that's interesting, that imposter thing, that even you, who's obviously, you know, you didn't really struggle academically, even you had that slight sense of, I don't know if I'd have the right to be here. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Why does that come from, I wonder? Yes, interesting question.

Do you think maybe women have it a bit more than men sometimes? I think that's probably... It's difficult, isn't it? Because it's like adrenaline. Some adrenaline is good and some imposter syndrome is good because otherwise we would turn into egocentric monsters. So some feeling that maybe I shouldn't be here and I should hang on to it and I should feel gratitude is good, but you don't want to go too far.

Where do we stop with what's healthy in terms of adrenaline and stress and imposter syndrome where it's not? So you're at university? At university, you go to Oxford and then was that where your interest started in specifically, well there was a specific area of history that your interest started in, kind of when you were doing your PhD, wasn't there? Yes, it did a lot on women's reading and women's letters and women's histories. And what I really loved is looking at, and it's still my favourite thing of all.

I love, I love archives, I love going to the buildings, I love, but what I really love is seeing the letters. It just, I just can't believe that you can see people's real letters. And even Henry VIII writes these letters to Amber and that are in the Vatican, and that's how we know so much about the relationship. He says, you know, I want you so much. I mean, he's really, really, he really, really wants her to be his mistress. And of course, we don't have any of Anne's replies.

And even one saying, maybe she ghosted him. Yeah, dear Henry, leaving you on red. Yeah, dear Henry, got the message. I'll reply soon. That, even that, it would just blow. historian's mind and we just found one little letter saying everything I think dear Henry we see the letter we'll write back soon that would be amazing so but my PhD just reading historical letters just it just to be there with someone's writing with a

letter that they wrote it's just incredible and I know that we write fewer and fewer letters now you know we we we don't I used to be a great letter writer to pen friends and but I don't I do it much less now but but just that act of writing a letter is so an intimate and there's something so incredible about it. I mean, you know, I just, obviously, love letters are just things we don't really write anymore, but there's, you know, a love letter is something so different to a love text or a love email. And do you think as well, I'm interested that you got particularly interested in, as you say, that idea of letter writing culture, specifically from women, it fascinates me that I suppose because women, their stories weren't told

really. So in a way the letters are such a useful insight, in many ways our only insight, into their role in history and how they help shape history. Well, and that's, I think, I've been living through this seismic historical period as

as I started as a historian in which at the beginning, women's history was really very seen as well, very niche. And you think of Antonio Fraser, who's great book, The Weeker Vessel. And someone actually said to her, a historian actually said to a So you're writing a book about women in 17th century England?

And she said, yes. And they said, but were there any women in 17th century England? And that was actually a legitimate query. People thought that way. And so women's history was so excluded from the conversation. And now we see that history has been written by the victors. It has been written by the people who got power. And that was a certain group of men.

It was white men. It was straight men. It was elite men. And those are the groupings that wrote. the stories and the stories of so many others of women of the working class LGBTQ and people of colour and these have all been excluded and so now our job as historians I think is you know to read in the gaps in the archives because no matter how much we want now to find the diary of an 18th century servant of a

16th century servant we're not going to find it these they aren't don't exist these people weren't they weren't told that their stories mattered and they were obviously very far too busy to write so you have many other people that who wrote their perceptions and those are excluded. So we have to read in between the gaps and there's such amazing work being done, reading in the gaps of the archives about the enslaved and how the lives of the enslaved,

finding them within the gaps of the archive that so many great scholars are doing in archives in the Caribbean. I mean, that to me I think is just where history moves forward to first what voices haven't we heard and why haven't we heard them. And there were a lot of voices in the historical way, in the world of history in which I've grew up in the 80s and 90s which weren't heard and to hear them being heard I think

is our job as historians. There was a big moment for you when you appeared on Richard and Judy. That was my first TV outing. Yeah, my first TV outing was on Richard and Judy talking about Emma Hamilton and Nelson, the research I was doing at the time. And it was to go straight into your first live TV, someone said to me, oh, And of course, Richard and Judy had that was so important for book sales at the time. And someone said, well, that's like kicking a ball and ending up at the cup final.

And they heard that you were historian and that you were, at the time, were you preparing your book on the subject? So it was my first bit of television and then I did more and more television from there. And what was it like the first time you did TV? Because that's quite a crossover. And as you say, I'm interested in this idea of you being quiet. shy, bit of socially anxious. That must have been you sort of feeling the fear and doing it anyway, or did you think this is a good thing for me to do

because it doesn't feel... You know, I think the thing is, I think I was terribly quiet and shy and socially anxious, and that did continue. But then when I was talking about history, it was totally different. And I still find it now, I find it much more difficult to talk about myself. I'm asking a question about history.

I'll have been set off for four hours chatting. but ask me a question about myself and find it much. I don't think I'm ever going to write a memoir. I was a very keen Brownie and I did do a badge which was the entertainer and I did a magic show and that I just loved it because you could just hide behind

magic and perform magic on the stage didn't have to talk about myself, just didn't really have to save very much, just perform magic tricks and I was so thrilled with doing that so I think that's what, in a sense I'm that's my first memory of performance and in a sense I think I'm still doing that now

I'm out there with my historical, I've got my magic wand and my magic box. I did this trick where you made and put some beads in a top of a jar and then brought out a necklace. Of course, it was a fake top of the jar. That was the whole thing. I made it out of a washing up liquid bottle. But that's what I feel I'm doing over and over again. I get the beads and I put them in and get the necklace out. And I'm doing the magic show.

But asking me to talk about myself is I find much more difficult. And I struggle to articulate that. absolutely I think but so talking about history was fine and I do love adrenaline so I love the

adrenaline of live TV I mean there's nothing like it is that you know because you and of course they say to you before you do live TV

you can't can't use brand names of course that's meaning oh you want to say something like well Emma Hamilton was the Coca-Cola of history

so and then I did more TV after that and I love it but I still love the adrenaline of live TV I just love it you do it

you say it I know it says live by the sword, die by the sword. You know, there's nothing like live TV has can trip so many of us up. And you started, I mean, you've written so many books. I can barely keep up with them. I'm thinking it's around, it's at least six historical and maybe four. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right.

So I've written, I've written four novels and six history books and the rote of wife of America, Queen of Scots. My most recent book is about royal palaces. And the Mary Queen of Scots one, I really reckon. It's about the rivalry and that deeply complicated relationship between Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots, which is fascinating. I mean, I'm fascinated by Mary Queen of Scots. And it's interesting. I mean, I do love women's history, and people say they were the queens,

but queens, I think, provide an insight, particularly Mary Queen of Scots, into women's lives at the time, that they might seem, and they are the most privileged and wealthy and powerful people in society. but still they can have everything taken from them and they can lose everything and they can be ruined by the power of men so Mary Queen of Scots

what fascinated me was she was seen as a failed queen as a bad queen whereas there's no way that anyone could have succeeded in the same position that she was in because men were constantly trying to kidnap her to seize her it wasn't like Elizabeth I first she couldn't be a virgin queen on the throne surrounded by advisors who adored her

that just wasn't how it worked in Scotland do you find Kate? I'm interested in how it must be an interesting experience for your other half, for example, watching historical dramas with you because I would sort of love it. It's kind of my fantasy.

It's a bit of a weird fantasy, but bear with, is watching something, and I won't name things in case you've been a consultant on them or... But it's kind of a fantasy sitting there and watching one of those sweeping historical dramas with you and just thinking, God, I wonder what Kate makes of this Because I suspect, do you find yourself watching it thinking, oh, hang on, that wouldn't have happened,

or, well, they've played a bit fast and loose with the truth there or what we know to be the truth? What I'm saying is, are you a bit of a nightmare watching historical dramas with you? I'm not like a doctor watching casualty. Well, you know too much. Do you know what I mean? I love historical drama, and I love the spirit of it. And I think the spirit of it is true,

because you cannot so much of people's lives go on in their head. I mean, you have to articulate that something. somehow. So I love watching historical drama and I love watching what they do. What I find as interesting is when you have lots of directors and they say, oh, you know, we don't have any interest in the history, we've got no interest in the history. And you know that they've emailed me or phoned me asking for advice beforehand and you know they have and the team has. And they say, oh yeah, we have no interest in the history. We really don't. And you're just like, who was it who emailed me saying, could I just brief the, brief the cast about, about the context?

And could I just do this? And it's, people ask you, do you get, do you often do consultancy work on dramas and things? I do, you more often get asked to help out for, no pay. Could you just do this? Could you just, you know, our star needs to know this? Could you help them with this question? How do you deal with that, Kay? Are you quite good at boundaries?

Have you got better at that and saying, lovely, go through my agent, you know, because we've all got to earn a living and that's not free that knowledge and information, it's work? So are you quite good now at saying, boundaries over that. I hope you are. Well, you know, but I mean, I think that there's two questions, isn't it? That if we say yes to unpaid work, we are increasing the sensation that only the elites can work in the arts and that's what's happening. And so that's what shouldn't be the case. And it's one thing working for a film that hasn't got any money. When you're

being asked by a huge, big budget Hollywood film to do this, it's increasing the popularity that we have in the arts of this country, which is that it is, it's very difficult to work in them if you are from the, from the working classes, and then how do we hear all the different voices that we need to hear about it? So there's that. And also I think that even if you are working for free, which I obviously, sometimes I do, if I really love it or it's my own project and if it's a charity, it still has to, I think, be discussed in a proper way with the roles and responsibilities laid out. It can't be casual. And so I often find that the people who ask work for free, you say, well, look, I don't mind doing it, but we need to lay out a contract of what I am and up.

But then they run away. So they don't want the contract or the credit or anything. It's supposed to be completely, you know, it's not just the money. It's that everything's supposed to be. You know, we're not even going to admit that we consulted with you. And I think that often happens. We're not even going to admit that we asked you to help us because we like to imagine that everything's out in the public domain and we don't need any historical help.

Well, it is this idea as well that then you're not sort of held to any sort of account because it's like, well, this was always. going to be a sort of fantasy thing. It was never, you know, we were never adhering to any sort of, you know, historical. We never asked, we never asked, we never asked me his choice to give us all the history. But I mean, I, you know, I love historical drama and I love watching historical drama for what it tells us about the modern day. I mean, we watch Shakespeare and he, Shakespeare tells us so much about, about the period he was writing in much more about Roman and Juliet themselves. I found, from studying English, I found, and never studying history, but, or never getting

involved in history or frankly knowing that much about it. I found I've assimilated so much weird knowledge over the years that I didn't even realise on you just through Shakespeare and stuff like that. Look at that little cute one. So cute. Looks a bit like a corby, isn't he? I'm interested as well. So you've written about Mary Queen of Scots, who seems to be one of your, she's in your

top five, I'm fascinated on Mary Queen of Scots by how she's seen as a failure. And there is, Mary Queen of Scots, her third husband. She was travelling back. He seized her, took her back to his castle. Everyone admitted that he'd sexually assaulted her. Everyone. He did, the lords did, but she had no choice but to marry him. And then it's been reinvented over, no one would do that to a queen.

No one would do that to a queen. But of course he just didn't. He wanted to have a power. He wanted to be king. That's why he seized her. So she had no choice. She thought she was pregnant. So all the questions we're having about me too and the questions about, you know, that we can't get sexual assault prosecuted in our courts unless, I mean, to stereotype it, unless you're hit over the head by a stranger and then never speak to again.

The whole situation which majority of people are assaulted by someone they know and they will often speak to them afterwards, text them afterwards and we're in a relationship with them, that this is the same problem that we have when we look at history in the sense that because Mary Queen of Scots knew this person and then married this, this person because she thought she was pregnant and it would be a sin to have children outside of wedlock. And that was how life was. If you wanted to marry an airess and the father didn't want it, you try and kid that peru. And then the father had to come to terms. That's how what, that, and Mary Queen of Scots was no different. And so all these questions that we have, and all these questions are around Mary Queen of Scots. And they accepted that she was powerless. He had assaulted her. And so you often, it's interesting that we often think that attitude's improved. But even then they accepted that, because it was such a deeply patriarchal system,

that she had been assaulted, but the only choice was her was to get married. And now we have, obviously, much greater equality, but we still can't seem to get out of that mindset, which is why we have so many sexual assaults go unprosecuted, and we have Me Too, and some people are saying, look, we had me too, where's it got anyone? Where's it got any of us? What changes there really been made?

So I'm fascinated by America Queen of Scots, and what she, as a character, as a queen, and the light she puts on queenship and how she excavates all the lives of Tudor women at the same time. I really hope you love part one of this week's Walking the Dog. If you want to hear the second part of our chat, it'll be out on Thursday, so whatever you do, don't miss it. And remember to subscribe so you can join us on our walks every week.