Reviews for The Magnificent Monarch
Professor Ronald Hutton, History, vol. 95, issue 317, January 2010
'This is an excellent book, which deserves to be the definitive study of its theme.'
'Anna Keay has produced the very first full-length study of court ceremony during the reign of an early modern English monarch ... Dr Keay goes far beyond any of us, and indeed breaks new ground for the period in producing a full-length 'biography' of this sort.'
Matthew Jenkinson, The English Historical Review, vol. 124, issue 510, September 2009
'Keay has an acute and vivid historical imagination...crucial for a study which is evidently intended to cross the boundary between academic and popular audiences. It has the extensive primary research and diligent footnotes of an academic text... [but the] patient historical narrative
appropriate to attract those not already conversant with the complexities of seventeenth-century politics.... For both audiences Keay accessibly and carefully delineates the theoretical and practical parameters in which Charles's ceremonial kingship operated, and she meticulously illustrates how a significant element of his reign was constructed and performed.'
Professor Jules Lubbock in 'The Times Literary Supplement', 26th
September 2008
'Anna Keay is a pioneer in the neglected study of court ceremonial,
demonstrating how essential it is to government'. Her 'ground-breaking study
provides a subtle analysis of the language of power... written with enviable
style as well as charm.'
Dr Ted Vallance in 'BBC History Magazine', October 2008
'Keay's important book... adds weight to a number of biographies which have
helped reverse the picture of the 'the merry' monarch'. 'A very valuable book...
full of arresting details.
By Dr Kevin Sharpe, Professor and author of The Personal Rule of Charles I (Yale University Press) says of The Magnificent Monarch:
'Thoroughly researched, clearly presented and engagingly written, this important book offers the first major study of the household, court and rituals of the Restoration monarchy. Anna Keay demonstrates beyond doubt that traditional portraits of the 'Merry Monarch' have missed a vital dimension of Charles II's character and kingship. The Magnificent Monarch persuasively depicts a king who is a stickler for forms and who, in exile and on the throne, displayed an astute understanding of the rituals of majesty and the centrality of ceremony to the exercise of regal authority'
By Allan Massie, 'The Kingly Touch of Charles II', The Daily Telegraphy, 2nd August 2008:
'This thoroughly researched book modifies one's view of Charles II and deepens our understanding of this most enigmatic of British Kings...
It is to this [traditional] image that Anna Keay addresses herself. She doesn't deny its validity, but argues, cogently and with a wealth of evidence, that it is inadequate and therefore misleading. She is concerned with the ceremonial aspects of kingship, and with the manner in which "Charles II used this vocabulary of gesture and gesticulation, symbol a ceremony".'
Work in Progress
Worthy to be Called Paradise 
My main current project is preparing a book on the Elizabethan Garden at Kenilworth Castle made for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester in the 1570s and re-created by English Heritage in 2008. I am editing the volume with my colleague John Watkins, and have written several of the chapters. Look out for publication by English Heritage in Winter 2010/11.
I am also working on an introductory essay on the English monarchy in the 17th century, for the State Papers Online project. This will accompany the digitisation of all the 17th-century state papers, under the editorship of Professor John Miller, which will launch later in 2010.
web link The Crown Jewels (Thames and Hudson and the Royal Collection) is being prepared for publication. Watch out for it in Spring 2011. Bibliography: Books
The White Tower, Edward Impey, ed.. London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Author of all three post-medieval chapters (about 20,000 words) covering the history of the castle from 1485 to 2000.
buy online
The Crown Jewels, official guidebook, London: Historic Royal Palaces, 2002
buy online
The Elizabethan Tower of London: the Haiward and Gascoyne Plan of 1597. London: London Topographical Society, 2001
buy online
The Earl of Essex: the Life and Death of a Tudor Traitor (accompanying the exhibition of the same name). London: Historic Royal Palaces, 2001
buy online
Bibliography: Articles
'"Charles II: Buildings, Politics and Power' in
Marcello Fantoni, George Gorse and Malcolm Smuts, eds, The
Politics of Space: European Courts c1500-1750 (Bulzoni ,2009), pp. 339-61
'"The Shadow of a King?": Charles II in Exile', History Today, July 2008
buy online
'The Later Paintings in the Suffolk Collection': English Heritage Historical Review, I, 2006, pp.62-74.
buy online
'The Presentation of Guardianship Sites' Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, 48, April 2004, pp. 7-20.
'"Toyes and Trifles" the Destruction of the English Crown Jewels', History Today, 52, July 2002. pp. 31-37
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