Love and loss gave me deeper view of history, says Starkey
PROF David Starkey has said older historians are the best because one needs to have loved and lost to understand the past.
Speaking candidly about the death of his long-term partner for the first time, Prof Starkey told The Sunday Telegraph that his loss has informed his understanding of historical figures.
His new project is an exhibition on King Henry VIII as part of the renovations at Hever Castle in Kent, the former home of Anne Boleyn.
“I think this exhibition shows what I have learned personally and professionally,” said Prof Starkey, 73.
Three years ago, his long-term partner James Brown died at the couple’s 18th-century manor house in Kent. He met Brown, a publisher and book designer, when he was lecturing at London School of Economics in the Nineties and the couple lived together for 21 years until Brown’s sudden death.
“What I have done is used my own experience of mourning and of joy,” he said. “You take the dry facts of history and with memories in your own life, you realise how you should understand them.
“When you have loved a bit, lived a bit and lost a bit, you think deeper.”
Prof Starkey also acknowledged the importance of studying and adaptability. He said: “Historians live in two times, now and then. You have to inhabit what age you are working on.
“When you begin as a historian you haven’t got an experience of life at all. You are just writing about past theories.”
The exhibition is housed in Hever Castle’s original Long Gallery, which has been underdone a £30,000 refurbishment for the purpose, excluding the acquisition of the 18 portraits, which are hung in chronological order to depict the dynastic saga from the Wars of the Roses to the Reformation.
Prof Starkey has recorded an audio guide to reflect how the gallery was intended to teach young Prince Edward, who went on to be King Edward VI.
Ending with a grand image of the Henry VIII, the gallery also holds portraits of the first two of Henry’s six wives, Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn.
Prof Starkey hopes the exhibition will help shine a new light on Henry VIII’s treatment of his wives.
“Henry displays unusual sensitivity towards women,” he added. “He is tender, caring and he was the first person
‘Henry VIII really is quite monstrous, but he did give women power like this for the first time’
to familiarise female succession. He takes women seriously. He gave them agency, as they say.”
He added: “Henry has a very unusual upbringing. His older brother Arthur was sent to English public school and hardly ever saw his own mother. Henry is brought up with his mother and sisters until he is 13.
“He was worshipped, his whole life he has a need for women. Even when he didn’t have a queen, he kept women around.
“We can see him as a murdering monster with many wives, but he was different. This forces us to think about the complications of his character. On the one hand he really is quite monstrous – but he did give women power like this for the first time.
“In his poetry, there is a line that says ‘I loved when I did marry’.”