In the course of writing this book, I have incurred debts as numerous and difficult to repay as Edmund Howard’s, though far more pleasurable to shoulder. My agent and friend, Brettne Bloom, made all of this possible; it is a privilege to work with her. The same is true of Dr James Davis, who supervised and encouraged my dissertation on Catherine’s household in 2011; Professor Catherine Clinton, who was the first to suggest that there might be a book in it, and Dr Steve Gunn, my undergraduate tutor on the sixteenth century, who again gave so generously of his time as I was returning to the subject of Thomas Cromwell, the Howards, and sixteenth-century graves.
My wonderful editor at Harper Collins, Arabella Pike, has my sincere gratitude, as does everyone who worked on Young and Damned and Fair in London and New York.
My thanks to the staff at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the British Library, London; the Garden Museum, London; Hawkwise Falconry, Nuneaton; Hever Castle, Kent; the McClay Library, Belfast; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Archives, Kew; Pontefract Castle, West Yorkshire; the Royal Collection Trust; the Scala Archives; Sotheby’s; the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; the Yale Center for British Art; and at the cathedrals of Lincoln and York.
Colleagues, professionals, and academics who graciously lent their time were Alan Brown, Dana Chernock, Dr James Corke-Webster, Dr T. Alexander Desmond, Michael Charles Foote, Rachel Franks at King’s Manor (York), Becky Friar, Dr Sarah George, Isabel Holowaty, Dr Georgy Kantor, Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, Lauren Mackay, Dr Lawrence W. Nichols, Philip Norman, Alison Palmer, Lauren Ritz, Professor Maggie Snowling, President of St John’s College, Oxford, Dr Eleanor Standley, Timothy Stead at York Minster, Dr Edward Town, Dr Christopher Warleigh-Lack, Kathryn Warner, Colin Weston, and Joseph Zigmond.
My family have been supportive and encouraging throughout this process, and long before, they cheerfully endured years of an ever-increasing mountain of books on the sixteenth century in my childhood home. My deepest thanks, as always, to them and also to the friends who helped in different ways along the road to this book’s completion – Laura Bradley, Lauren Browne, Cailum Carragher, Scott De Buitléir, Robbie Dagher, Nina Foster, Claire Handley, Aoife Herity, Dan Kelly, Rebecca Lenaghan, Stephanie Mann, Stephen McCombe, Dr Hannah McCormick, Ryan Nees, Jim De Piante, Alexa Stewart Reid, Tim and Claire Ridgway, Mary-Eileen Russell, Eric Spies, Alex Steer, Emma Elizabeth Taylor, my editor in the U.S. Trish Todd, Angharad Williams, and the Woodward family.
Gareth Russell
Belfast
Lent, 2016