The Graces
The Extraordinary Untold Lives of Women at the Restoration Court
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The Graces
Narrated by:
Breeze Barrington - prologue, Phyllida Nash
Buy Now for ₹607.00
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Narrated by:
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Breeze Barrington - prologue
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Phyllida Nash
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Written by:
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Breeze Barrington
About this listen
'Sparkling ... Britain’s only Italian queen is brought vividly to life' LINDA PORTER
A spellbinding work of history that uncovers the inner lives and work of Maria of Modena and her ‘graces’, the extraordinary women who practiced art, poetry and politics within the misogyny of the Restoration court.
In 1673, fifteen-year-old Maria d’Este travelled from Italy to marry James, Duke of York, the future King of England and a man twenty-five years her senior. Thrust from a pious life on the path to become a nun, at the debauched court of Charles II she set about recreating the world she’d left behind – a world where women were highly educated, exercised power and celebrated art and artists with concentrated patronage.
The Graces resurrects the life of Maria, later Mary of Modena, and those of the extraordinary young women she surrounded herself with at the Restoration court. From Sarah Jennings, later Sarah Churchill, keen politician and ‘favourite’ of Queen Anne, to revered poet Anne Finch and founder of legendary literary salon Hortense Mancini, these were women who defied the conventions of their time and the forces of misogyny working against them. The era they lived through would be one of the most tumultuous England had seen: one where parliament would invite a foreign power in the form of William of Orange to invade England, depose its king, and risk thrusting the country back into civil war. What is much less well-known is that within this world existed another: a world of female friendship, learning and artistic endeavour. The Graces is that story.©2025 Breeze Barrington (P)2025 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Critic Reviews
'At last, some of the most fascinating, important, yet overlooked characters from the later Stuart court have found their champion in Breeze Barrington. This superb book weaves history, politics, literature and art together with real originality' (BENDOR GROVESNOR, author of The Invention of British Art)
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