Lucy Hughes-Hallett in conversation with The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize

  • How does it feel to be shortlisted for the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize?

    Pleasing

  • What drew you to the subject of the Duke of Buckingham?

    There are at least a dozen possible answers to that question – here are some.

    Love and Sex – There is a web of love-stories in this book: complicated relationships involving sex, political advantage and money, but also tender loving-kindness and profound affection.
    The greatest love story here is between an extremely powerful man in his 50s and a beautiful man in his twenties. It raises challenging questions. Through it I was able to explore ways in which early modern people thought about love and sex and gender.

    War and Peace – King James I and VI called himself the King of Peace. After James’s death Buckingham and King Charles I began unnecessary wars, leading to tens of thousands of deaths. I write about pacifism and war-fever, and about the way their male contemporaries felt that their masculinity depended on their readiness to fight.

    Characters – Buckingham was surrounded by extraordinary people –among them his mentor Sir Francis Bacon, Peter Paul Rubens who was his associate both in art and in diplomacy, the great jurist Sir Edward Coke, the beautiful double-agent Lucy Carlisle.

    Politics and Lawfare – Buckingham became the focus of a great tussle between monarch and Parliament –the attempt by the House of Commons to use statutes dating back to Magna Carta to limit the King’s powers

    The period – a time of transition. The middle ages hadn’t yet ended, but the enlightenment had begun.

    The magnificence of the language employed by my sources.

    The richness of early 17th century English culture. The clothes, the masques and dancing, the art-collecting in which Buckingham led the way.

  • How did you plan, research and write The Scapegoat?

    Many hundreds of hours of reading, thinking, writing and revising.

  • What were the surprises you encountered along the way?

    I found myself increasingly fascinated by King James – a scholar, a visionary worker for pan-European peace, and a very odd fish.

  • Tell us how The Scapegoat can be seen as a continuation or a departure from your earlier books.

    Each of my books is different from the rest, in subject-matter and in form. But themes persist – the theatrical aspects of political life; the parts glamour and charisma play in government; the intersections of politics and desire.

  • What’s next for you as an author?

    I’m writing about the angry women in Dickens’s novels. And then maybe another biography of a 17th century figure.