The phrase ‘hidden from history’ which so precisely describes the unmentioned presence of women in the past is from Rowbotham, S. Hidden from History: 300 years of women’s oppression and the fight against it, London: Pluto Press, 1973. The Bible, Ecclesiasticus 44:1 says ‘Let us now praise famous men . . .’
The encouraging account of Mary Queen of Scots in present tense is from the back-jacket copy of my novel The Other Queen, London: Harper Collins, 2008, and the description of Elizabeth and Robert Dudley from Alison Weir’s Elizabeth the Queen, London: Pimlico, 1999. The instructional tone is from the booklet which came with my new cooker: Neff instructions for use B46W74.0GB; and the chilling voice of Nazi authority is drawn from Noakes, J. and Pridham, G. Documents on Nazism 1919–1945, NY: Viking Press, 1974, pp. 463–7.
The scene as narrated by Jane Boleyn comes from my novel The Boleyn Inheritance, London: HarperCollins, 2006, and the subsequent passage is from the viewpoint of Mary Boleyn: Gregory, P. The Other Boleyn Girl, London: HarperCollins, 2001. Michael Hicks’s exceptionally honest explanation of why women are missing from medieval history is helpfully clear: Hicks, M.A. Anne Neville, Queen to Richard III, Stroud: Tempus, 2006.
The views of women, Eve as a temptress, is quoted by Levin, C. and Watson, J. Ambiguous Realities: Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Wayne State University Press, 1987. The lack of interest in Katherine Howard was expressed by a woman historian, Mary Hays: Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of all ages and cultures, facsimile reprint 1803, but this unfortunate view of Katherine Howard comes from David Starkey: Starkey, D. Six Wives, the Queens of Henry VIII, London: Chatto & Windus, 2003. Joanna Denny provides an empathetic biography that also has new evidence as to Katherine’s date of birth. I quote Katherine’s letter from Denny’s book Katherine Howard, A Tudor Conspiracy, London: Portrait, 2005.
Henry VIII’s lack of pleasure in his wedding night with Anne of Cleves is quoted from Weir, A. The Six Wives of Henry VIII, London: The Bodley Head, 1991. The reluctance of scholars to criticise the Virgin Queen is cited: Walker, J.M. Dissing Elizabeth, Negative Representations of Gloriana, London: Duke University Press (1998); Queen Victoria’s widowhood was examined in Lamont-Brown, R. ‘Queen Victoria’s “secret marriage”’, Contemporary Review, December 2003. Lady Macbeth’s speech is from Shakespeare’s Macbeth: Act 1, Scene v, 38–43.
Polydore Vergil’s history has been edited and republished: Vergil, P. and Ellis, H. Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History Comprising the Reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV and Richard III, Kessinger Publishing Legacy Reprint, 1971. Shakespeare’s critical account of Margaret of Anjou comes from Henry VI: Part III, Act 1, Scene iv, 111 – 141/2. Later she-wolves include Hillary Clinton: Feldman, S. ‘Gender traitors’, New Humanist, Vol. 123, No. 4 (August 2008), accessed: http://newhumanist.org.uk/ 1816/gender-traitors, and Margaret Thatcher: Gale Group: Washington Monthly, Vol. 20 (May 1988) Is Margaret Thatcher a Woman? No woman is if she has to make it in a man’s world, accessed: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Is+Margaret+Thatcher+a+ woman%3F+No+woman+is+if+she+has+to+make+it+in+ a. . .-a06676349.
Laura Ulrich cites many exclusions of women in Ulrich, L.T. Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History, New York: Knopf, 2007; Levin and Watson defended the absence of women from the law: Levin, C. and Watson, J. Ambiguous Realities: Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987. The absence of women artists was noted by the Guardian, 27 March 2007. Abraham Mendelssohn predicted the importance of music for his son in preference to his daughter, cited by Diana Ambache in Women of Note, accessed: http://www.ambache.co.uk/; and the slow progress of the Vienna Philharmonic to gender-free hiring is demonstrated in Oxford University Press, Timelines in music history: Women in music, accessed: http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/public/page/ womentimeline. Virginia Woolf is a definitive author on these matters of creativity and the difficulties put in the path of women: Woolf, V. A Room of One’s Own, London: Hogarth Press, 1929. E.H. Carr considers the creation of history but not the gender of the historian in Carr, E.H. What Is History? London: Macmillan; New York: St Martin’s Press, 1961.