This book covers English history from the late ninth century, when England was being unified into a single country, to the late seventeenth century, when it abolished absolute monarchy.
It is focused, not on monarchs or wars, but on powerful or creative men and women who were not monarchs (although including some consorts) – from Dunstan of Glastonbury to William Marshal, Robert Grosseteste to Robert Hooke, Eleanor of Aquitaine to Philippa of Hainault, Simon de Montfort to John Lilburne.
At the start of this period, there was an unwritten and variable justice system (including trial by ordeal), a peripatetic government without efficient administration, laws promulgated by royal charters, and a mindset which believed everything bad was caused by divine retribution for sinfulness.
By the end of this period, there was a codified evidence-based legal system, relatively effective administration, parliamentary control of legislation and a widespread acceptance that government should be representative rather than autocratic. There was rapidly rising literacy, a developing economy, and the start of a scientific approach to solving problems and gaining knowledge. These developments were invariably conceived, initiated and implemented by people ‘behind the throne’.
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Behind The Throne by Chris Sedgwick was published on 22 May 2026 by Eightsongs Books. As part of this #RandomThingsTours Virtual Book Tour, I am delighted to share an Interview with the author.
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Chris Sedgwick has a PhD in observational cosmology from The Open University, where he is currently a Visiting Research Fellow.
Interview with Chris Sedgwick - author of Behind The Thrones
1. What first inspired you to focus on the influential figures ‘behind the throne’ rather than the monarchs who usually dominate narratives of English history?
- Well, there are lots of excellent books about monarchs, both heavy academic tomes and popular histories. We have more information about them, of course, but there is much more to history than the lives of monarchs. The last few decades have seen an interest in ordinary people and their lives, but information which survives is usually pretty scant, especially early in this period, and ‘social history’ books are often less easy to read than narrative histories. But there is an area in between the two which is not often covered, and sometimes a fair bit of information survives about the people just below the monarch: they are usually the people actually running the country, and the brains behind changes and innovations. They often receive only brief mention, although many of these characters and their lives are really interesting. It’s nice to take the focus away from kings and their endless wars for once!
2. The book spans more than 800 years of history. How did you decide which individuals deserved inclusion, and were there any difficult omissions?
- I think all the people in the book were exceptional, and it would be interesting to hear suggestions of anyone else I should perhaps have included. Since completing the book I have already made a list of over a dozen more people I should perhaps have included. Perhaps I should have added some of the clerics like Stephen Langton (who helped draft the Magna Carta), and later Stephen Gardiner and Archbishop Laud, although mostly they were involved in religion. Maybe I should have included a few more business people from later in the period, like Thomas Gresham and Thomas Smythe.
3. Many readers will be familiar with figures such as Eleanor of Aquitaine or Simon de Montfort, but perhaps less so with Robert Grosseteste or John Lilburne. Which lesser-known individual surprised or fascinated you most during your research?
- I knew of Francis Bacon, but knew nothing about Robert Grosseteste before I started writing. He was a towering figure whose influence resonates down the centuries.
- I had no idea how reasonable and moderate the ideas of John Lilburne, Thomas Rainsborough and the other Levellers would seem today. Again, I think their influence, via later radicals like Tom Paine, have had a significant long-term effect on later developments.
- Phillippa of Hainault started the textile industry in England !! It was to become a key industry at the start of the Industrial Revolution hundreds of years later.
- I developed a soft spot for St Dunstan. So did my daughters who read the book, and we went looking for traces of him in London (there are quite a few). Multi-talented doesn’t begin to describe him. Quirky perhaps but I think a pretty decent bloke too.
- Licoricia of Winchester must have been an extraordinary woman. So was the redoubtable Nicola de la Haye.
- The surgeon John of Arderne doesn’t often get mentioned – but his work and writings about surgery set new standards.
- Not everyone was very nice – the achievements of Edmund Coke were extraordinary, and very important, but he must have been a nightmare to handle in his private life (I liked the comment by his wife when he died).
- Ben Jonson was more popular than Shakespeare in the seventeenth century! He must have been fun to know.
4. Your academic background is in observational cosmology rather than history. Did your scientific training influence the way you approached historical research and evidence?
- Historical research is like science in some ways: always looking for new evidence, keeping an open mind and not blindly accepting authority, recognising the importance of analysing primary sources where possible, being objective, etc.
- Astronomy, unlike most other scientific disciplines, is based on observation rather than experimentation, and history is like that too.
- Some things (in my opinion) are often better presented by popular science books than in popular history books:
o Charts are often lacking in popular history books. I show charts of population levels, the rise and fall of wool and textile production, how the law courts related to each other, etc. A figure can often make a point more clearly than a paragraph of words, and are often under-used in history books.
o a few illustrations interspersed with the text make reading a bit more enjoyable.
o Genealogies need to be near the text they relate to, not be over-complicated, and not hidden away with a tiny type font in an appendix.
o Timelines showing how lifetimes overlapped are interesting; little boxes with background information can help the reader who may not be knowledgeable about some topics.
5. As this is your first published history book, what were the biggest challenges in transforming years of historical interest and research into a narrative that would engage general readers?
- I just started writing, reading more as I covered each period, trying to dig out information about important but obscure figures, reorganising, adding, summarizing - I just started and kept going and was quite surprised with what I ended up with. I quite enjoy writing (some days more than others!) and I hope it’s fairly readable. Nowadays there are often web sites run by people enthusiastic about fringe subjects which can be helpful.
- A long string of mini-biographies could be boring, so I’ve tried to capture something of the uniqueness of each individual and not write to a standard formula like: parents/education/married/did stuff/died/buried.
- I’ve also tended to avoid graphic descriptions of the unending tortures and gruesome executions which seem to feature in pretty much all popular history books, often overshadowing the actual achievements in people’s lives.
- Also, I’ve tried to stick to a theme – lots of things improved over these 800 years and I would argue it was the people in this book who were mainly responsible for this, and I’ve tried to draw this together in the final chapter.
6. After spending so much time studying the people who shaped England from behind the scenes, has your view of leadership and power changed? Are there lessons modern politicians or public figures could learn from them?
- I was surprised at how much time is needed for ideas for reforms to become acceptable. The idea that we should look at evidence to learn about the world (rather than just accepting the Bible or Aristotle) took centuries after Grosseteste and Bacon to become generally accepted.
- But when ideas do finally become acceptable, they can be very powerful. The long-term impact of the Magna Carta and its use by figures as diverse as Edmund Coke and John Lilburne show its long-term effect. There was a failure to establish a republic after Oliver Cromwell, but the first steps towards a liberal democracy were taken in the next generation after the overthrow of James II, and ideas like a wider franchise filtered in slowly over the next 200+ years
- I’m not sure there are any lessons here for modern politicians, except that an open society which evolved from all these changes led to incredible developments in the following centuries (leading to extended life expectancy, lower infant mortality, reduced extreme poverty, increasing prosperity combined with increasing population) – but that’s a topic for my next book …
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He previously started and built a successful independent record label and music publishing business.
He has held a lifelong interest in history, particularly in long-term trends and developments.
'Behind the Throne' is his first published history book.
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