Karen Maitland

In 1255, Louis IX of France presented an elephant to Henry III of England to add to the menagerie of exotic animals he kept in the Tower of London.

The English king's power was curbed by Parliament, though that wasn't always a good thing, as politicians often behave no better than monarchs - there are just more of them.

I'd love to own Newstead, partly because it belonged to Lord Byron, but also to try to uncover what dark secrets really lie beneath.

After all, we are not French and never can be, and any attempt to be so is to deny our inheritance and to try to impose upon ourselves a character that can be nothing but a veneer upon the surface.

It appalls me that the people who decide what Americans will be watching on the tube have never been to the United States. Not the real United States.

Although I write to entertain, and try to keep my work free of didacticism, I do have a rather passionate belief in our need to be connected to - and to learn from - history.