Dr Elizabeth Norton & Dr Joanne Paul in conversation with Dr Owen Emmerson

Women Who Ruled the World: 5000 Years of Female Monarchy by Dr Elizabeth Norton 

Female kings have always been a rarity, an oddity, or an undesirable outcome. In almost all places on the globe a male ruler was preferred to a woman, with female inheritance vanishingly rare and frequently disputed. In spite of this, women have secured crowns – or fought for them – over several millennia.

Some are household names, such as Elizabeth I, who vied with her rival, Mary Queen of Scots or Cleopatra VII whose reign brought pharaonic Egypt to an end. Others, such as the eight reigning empresses of Japan or the queens of Navarre are almost forgotten. In this talk Elizabeth Norton will look at the female kings: women who risked everything, sometimes unwillingly, to find a place in a man’s world.

Thomas More: Man, Myth and Mystery: A Discussion with Dr Joanne Paul in conversation with Dr Owen Emmerson

Saintly scholar, zealous persecutor, ambitious statesman – who was the ‘real’ Thomas More? Drawing on new archival research from her biography of More, Dr Joanne Paul will separate the man from the myth to discover the real Thomas More. Join us as we delve into the fascinating world of the sixteenth century to separate fact from fiction and uncover the enduring legacy of one of history’s most enigmatic and divisive figures.