It’s always such a pleasure when the festival programme goes live after all the months planning. Now that the cat’s well and truly out of the bag, we hope that you’re looking forward to June as much as we are, and more importantly, have started blocking out some dates in your diary.
After all, with our Radical Islands Launch featuring Ken Worpole and Jules Pretty on Mersea on 1st June already sold out, and tickets selling fast for other events – especially Maggi Hambling and James Cahill at The Minories on 22nd June, Robin Ince at Colchester Samaritans Community Hall on 7th June, and Shami Chakrabarti’s talk with Pam Cox Labour MP for Colchester at Anglia Ruskin University on 5th June – now really is the time to get booking those must have tickets.
One special date that we are marking with two events this June is the 400th anniversary of the death of King James VI of Scotland and King James 1st of England and Ireland. We all know all about the many twists and turns of the Tudors, but much less it seems about our first Stuart monarch, beyond, that is, the King James Bible, the foiled Gunpowder Plot that threatened to bring James’ reign to an early end, and his tempestuous and challenging relationship with Mary Queen of Scots, his mother.
As a consequence, we’re thrilled to be welcoming historian Gareth Russell to Layer Marney Tower on 29th June to talk about his latest book Queen James: an unputdownable account of James’ early life, the excesses of his Court, and intimate friendships and great loves.
This includes favourite courtier George Villiers, the 1st Duke of Buckingham, who James referred to as his “sweet child and wife”, and who forms the subject of cultural historian and biographer Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s new book The Scapegoat, which she will be discussing at Anglia Ruskin University on 12th June.
Why not make a date with both James and George this June!