Chillier view

A publisher has just reprinted, in time for its centenary, H.E. Marshall’s Our Island Story (Galore Park, £19.99), which in its day was the immensely successful ‘History of Britain for Boys and Girls, from the Romans to Queen Victoria’. I’m old enough to remember this from first time round — it went through many editions —and it’s rather touching to see it again. It uses fables and legends, some possibly true, to illuminate the succession of monarchs, culminating in the glory of our Empire. Good people are rewarded and bad people, such as King John and Richard III, meet unhappy and well-deserved ends.

This amiable view of our history is not one embraced by David Starkey, whose latest series on the British royal line, Monarchy By David Starkey (Channel 4, Monday), has just resumed. Starkey’s royals are vicious beyond measure, almost subhuman, engaging in fratricide, infanticide, polygamy, child sex, treachery and mass slaughter whenever it suited them.