Benjamin Woolley is an author and broadcaster whose work covers subjects ranging from the origins of virtual reality, to the Elizabethan philosopher, scientist and conjuror John Dee, and from the mathematician and computing pioneer (and daughter of Lord Byron) Ada Lovelace to the history of colonial America. His books have been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese, and his documentaries broadcast across the world. He lives in London.
A fascinating portrait of a flawed and complex man, demonstrating how Buckingham achieved greatness but lacked the substance to retain it. It is an utterly gripping read, vivid with incidental detail and dark Jacobean politics, that offers a ringside seat for the spectacle of a powerful man, very publicly, sowing the seeds of his own demise. Moreover it raises the intriguing question, audacious though it may seem, of whether the Duke was also his benefactor's assassin. I devoured it. -- Elizabeth Fremantle, author of Queen's Gambit and The Girl in the Glass Tower