I live in a town center, in a market town myself, with a bit of will to say, “Let’s use the things we have. Let’s adapt them.” Apart from the interest and the beauty, in my view, these buildings are all embedded carbon. The environmental cost of building them has already been incurred, and then they bring people to live in towns near where other communities are. I don’t think there’s an easy solution. I don’t think there’s a kind of act that you could take in relation to that stone, which would involve Britain saying, “Well, that’s fine. We don’t need to have it anymore,” that would do anything other than cause infinitely more conflict and aggro because it would open up the whole question of all these other moments of conflict when the stone was taken. COWEN: But it’s discouraging the creation and maintenance of the asset you’re dedicated to popularizing and preserving, right? The crown has 444 jewels and gemstones – including expensive sapphires, rubies, amethysts and topaz, although most are light blue and or bluish green aquamarines. They are set in enamel and gold mounts.

KEAY: Well, there are all sorts of things. The Scottish Enlightenment is such a completely gripping, extraordinary phenomenon that this tiny little country — my birthplace but micro little place on any worldview — through the course of the early and into the later 18th century, had such incredible influence around the world. I think the buildings of that period, the political thought, the poetry — all these things we should all know more about, we should teach it more to our children, and we should celebrate it. A] vivid panorama … Keay conjures up with nuance and panache the single most fascinating decade in the history of Britain and Ireland, revealing it to be at once weirdly ancient and strangely modern’ Paul Lay, The Times. Book of the Week and a ‘Best Book’ of 2022.Obviously, also long past now, but the skeleton, if you like, of a monarchy which was once an empire that stretched around the world still has connections and associations that make the British monarchy of interest in places where the Swedish monarchy might not be, as it were. The White Tower, Edward Impey, ed.. London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. The castle from 1485 to 2000. George V also chose to wear the crown and had the stones set permanently, including dozens of aquamarines. In her book The Crown Jewels, historian and Director of the Landmark Trust Dr Anna Keay describes St Edward’s Crown as, “essentially a very simple structure. Gold elements – the headband, the crosses and fleurs-de-lys and arches – were bolted together to form the frame of the crown. The settings for the jewels were then fixed through this frame from behind. Each gem was held in place by a gold collar, with the stones set in clusters surrounded by white enamel mounts in the form of acanthus leaves.”

Keay’s study of Monmouth, the first for many years, is meticulous in its attention to scholarly detail and invaluably fills a gap in the historiography. But what distinguishes her as as biographer is her unflagging appetite for the drama and poignancy of the story, and her skill and fluency in portraying it. I can’t remember the last time I read a historical biography that so vividly evokes the atmosphere of another age, whether it be the Caroline palaces of the era or the flat, watery darkness of the battlefield at Sedgemoor’I’m just not at all convinced by those arguments myself. I think religion was a very, very strongly held factor in people’s lives. You read contemporary diaries and so on, and it really is clear that people felt very strongly that wherever they were on the spectrum between absolutely Calvinist Puritan or a Catholic, in terms of the range that was around at the time, that personal conviction about what was right was really, really a big factor. I don’t mean that it was the only factor, but to treat it as somehow a cover for other motives is to do a disservice, I think, to the people of the age. KEAY: I think it is The French Lieutenant’s Woman. I think it’s just an amazing novel. It really, really bears rereading. It’s less fashionable now than it was maybe 20, 30 years ago, but it is tremendous. He wrote some pretty creepy other novels, one called The Collector, which I wouldn’t particularly recommend, amazing though it is. I think The French Lieutenant’s Woman, as a love story and as a dialogue with Victorian literature, is peerless.