The authorised version

The first volume of Peter Ackroyd’s six-volume history of England took us from prehistory to the death of Henry VII. Now the great charabanc rattles on. Here is a fat book of old-fashioned, great-man history taking in the second of the Harries twain, Ned the Lad, Mary and Bessie.

Things don’t begin well; the speed at which Ackroyd is producing this material is perhaps starting to show. ‘The land was flowing with milk and honey,’ Ackroyd tells us. Whatever the condition of the land, its chronicler is flowing with campness and cliché: we get ‘the sun in its splendour’, ‘the power and the glory’, ‘a new golden age’, ‘a question of honour’, ‘stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood’, and ‘the sport of kings’ by the time we’ve reached the foot of page three.

That soon calms down, and Ackroyd hits cruising speed, churning out short, telegraphic sentences in the active voice.