Simon Thurley is a leading historian of royal palaces and the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English court. Rufus Bird is a furniture specialist and former Surveyor of The Queen's Works of Art, Royal Collection Trust. Michael Turner is an architectural historian and a former Inspector of Historic Buildings and Areas for Historic England.
Thurley and co chart this rollercoaster history with scholarship and flair, while Yale's collaboration with the Royal Collections Trust means the inclusion of some delightful and unfamiliar illustrations. St James's Palace, warns Thurley in his introduction, is a mysterious and confusing place . Not any more. With this book, the accidental palace takes its place with the best of them. -Adrian Tinniswood, The Sunday Telegraph