Alison Margaret Chichele Plowden (18 December 1931 – 17 August 2007) was an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
historian and biographer well known for her popular non-fiction about the
Tudor period.
Biography
She was born at
Quetta
Quetta (; ur, ; ; ps, کوټه) is the tenth List of cities in Pakistan by population, most populous city in Pakistan with a population of over 1.1 million. It is situated in Geography of Pakistan, south-west of the country close to the ...
in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, a descendant of
Edmund Plowden
Sir Edmund Plowden (1519/20 – 6 February 1585) was a distinguished English lawyer, legal scholar and theorist during the late Tudor period.
Early life
Plowden was born at Plowden Hall, Lydbury North, Shropshire. He was the son of Humphrey ...
and, collaterally, of
Henry Chichele
Henry Chichele ( , also Checheley; – 12 April 1443) was Archbishop of Canterbury (1414–1443) and founded All Souls College, Oxford.
Early life
Chichele was born at Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, in 1363 or 1364; Chicheley told Pope Euge ...
. Privately educated, she worked for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
as a script editor. She wrote the script for the
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
series ''Mistress of Hardwick'' (about
Bess of Hardwick
Elizabeth Cavendish, later Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury ( Hardwick; c. 1527 13 February 1608), known as Bess of Hardwick, of Hardwick Hall, Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, was a notable figure of Elizabethan English society. By a series ...
), which won her a Writers' Guild Award for the best educational television series, and several television plays, including ''Sweet England's Pride'' and ''The Case of Eliza Armstrong''.
She later recalled: "A secretary writing scripts was a little like a performing monkey at the BBC - there was a sort of 'Fancy, what a clever little girl' attitude."
In 1970 she decided to leave the BBC to go freelance. Her first book, ''The Young Elizabeth''(1972), was followed by ''Danger to Elizabeth'' (1973), ''Marriage With My Kingdom'' (1977), about Elizabeth's courtships, and ''Elizabeth Regina'' (1980), which presented the Queen at the height of her powers. Collectively these books became known as Alison Plowden's "Elizabethan Quartet". While working on this series she also published ''Tudor Women'' (1979). After the quartet she wrote ''Elizabethan England: Life in an Age of Adventure'' (1982). In addition she wrote many drama and other scripts for BBC radio between 1963 and 1988.
Later she turned her attention to the 19th century with ''The Young Victoria'' (1983) and ''Caroline and Charlotte'' (1989), then the Civil War period with ''The Stuart Princesses'' (1996), about the six princesses of the House of Stuart who lived through the violent upheavals of the 17th century. This was followed by ''Women All on Fire'' (1998), about the activities of women on both sides of the Civil War. One of these women was
Queen Henrietta Maria
Henrietta Maria (french: link=no, Henriette Marie; 25 November 1609 – 10 September 1669) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from her marriage to King Charles I on 13 June 1625 until Charles was executed on 30 January 1649. She was ...
, of whom she published a biography in 2001. She continued with ''In a Free Republic: Life in Cromwell's England'' (2006) and the last of her 25 books, ''The Winter Queen'' (about
Elizabeth Stuart, wife of
Frederick V, Elector Palatine
Frederick V (german: link=no, Friedrich; 26 August 1596 – 29 November 1632) was the Elector Palatine of the Rhine in the Holy Roman Empire from 1610 to 1623, and reigned as King of Bohemia from 1619 to 1620. He was forced to abdicate both r ...
who accepted the crown of Bohemia), published posthumously in 2008.
Plowden was devoted to animal welfare, and shared her home with two cats. She was unmarried.
Works
*''Young Elizabeth'' (1971)
*''Mistress of Hardwick'' (1972: television series and tie-in book)
*''Danger to Elizabeth'' (1973)
*''The Case of Eliza Armstrong'' (1974)
*''The House of Tudor'' (1976)
*''Marriage with My Kingdom: The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth I'' (1977)
*''Tudor Women - Queens and Commoners'' (1979)
*''Elizabeth Regina'' (1980)
*''Young Victoria'' (1983)
*''Two Queens in One Isle: The Deadly Relationship of Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots'' (1984)
*''Lady Jane Grey: Nine Days Queen'' (1985)
*''Caroline and Charlotte'' (1989)
*''The Elizabethan Secret Service'' (1991)
*''The Stuart Princesses'' (1996)
*''Women All on Fire: Women of the English Civil War'' (1998)
*''Henrietta Maria: Charles I's Indomitable Queen'' (2001)
*''In a Free Republic'' (2006)
Sources
Obituary in ''The Times''Obituary in the ''Daily Telegraph''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Plowden, Alison
1931 births
2007 deaths
English biographers
English historians
British women television writers
People from Quetta
20th-century British biographers
20th-century British women writers
20th-century British screenwriters