Philippa Gregory: Create the Best Thing You Can
In this interview, author Philippa Gregory discusses Jane Boelyn, historical fiction book research, book jacket design, and more.
Dr. Philippa Gregory is one of the world’s foremost historical novelists. She studied history at the University of Sussex and was awarded a PhD by the University of Edinburgh where she is a Regent and was made Alumna of the Year in 2009. She holds an honorary degree from Teesside University and is a fellow of the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff. Philippa is a member of the Society of Authors and in 2016, was presented with the Outstanding Contribution to Historical Fiction Award by the Historical Writers’ Association. In 2018, she was awarded an Honorary Platinum Award by Neilsen for achieving significant lifetime sales across her entire book output. In 2021, she was awarded a CBE for services to literature and to her charity Gardens for the Gambia and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
In this interview, Gregory discusses the evolving history of Jane Boelyn, the joy of the book jacket design, a fortunate find during the book research, and more.
Name: Philippa Gregory
Book title: Boleyn Traitor
Publisher: William Morrow
Release date: October 14, 2025
Genre/category: Historical Fiction
Elevator pitch for the book: The heroine of the novel is sister-in-law to Queen Anne. She comes to court as a little girl and is a witness to Henry’s decline into madness and tyranny. Against all odds, she survives the murder of her husband and her sister but goes down in history as England’s most hated lady-in-waiting, Jane Boleyn.
What prompted you to write this book?
The heroine of the novel has been on my mind for more than a decade and recent biographies of her only added to the mystery. Jane’s reputation has changed during that time—and changed several times over the centuries earlier: She was accused of treason, been condemned as a nymphomaniac, diagnosed as a sociopath and—more recently—defended as a victim of circumstances.
Jane was not condemned by historians till long after her death. She was blamed for a murderous plot against her husband and sister-in-law, for spying on Anne of Cleves and for seducing her young kinswoman, Katheryn Howard, into an affair. Gentlemen historians in Victorian England chose the only explanation they could think of—Jane was profoundly wicked, unwomanly, a monster.
In the 1960s Jane was revised—but the sexual liberation of women did Jane no favors either. More permissive historians imagined Jane as a voyeur, sex-mad, driven by perverse desires. Thankfully more recent publications began to assert the common-sense view that Jane Boleyn could not have been a successful courtier, holding down a highly desirable post through five reigns, whilst in the grip of an uncontrollable sex addiction or murderous spite. In my book I wanted to see Jane as a survivor, acting in her own interests, living her own life, without reading her history backwards from her conviction and death.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
Jane has been on my mind for some time, but I’ve had a couple of years away from fiction whilst I’ve been working on my nonfiction women’s history, Normal Women, which has adult, teen, and children’s editions as well as a podcast—so it kept me pretty busy!
I didn’t seriously start thinking about returning to novels or this book, until early last year and I pitched a Jane book to my publishers. Things moved quite quickly after that, and I delivered the first draft around Christmas and here we are at publication.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
I have been writing and publishing for so long there are hardly ever any surprises. For me, the researching and the writing is the easy part. The long process of editing, publishing, and promoting is the hard work!
For this book, one of the great moments has been designing the jacket with HarperCollins designer Claire Ward. Through the many (many!) meetings it takes to publish a book we kept retuning to the ‘beast dress’ image. It wasn’t everyone’s initial first choice but there was something about the woman gazing out over a skirt full of secrets which illustrated life at the Tudor court perfectly. Jane is woman forced to keep up appearances whilst surrounded by danger and death.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
During the research for I was very happy to stumble upon a list of translations Jane’s father, Henry Parker, Lord Morley, made for King Henry and for Princess Mary as New Year gifts. Lord Morley was a minor courtier but a famous scholar specializing in translations from Greek and Latin to English, and his scholarship inspired me to imagine Jane as his student—one of the highly-educated Tudor girls.
We know that Lord Morley gave Thomas Cromwell a gift of the works of Niccolò Machiavelli—the famously cynical description of power and tyranny. Whether Jane was trained as a Machiavellian courtier, we do not know—but the connection between her father and Thomas Cromwell is deeply intriguing.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
One of the best things about being a writer is that you simply don’t know what readers will take from your book—it’s very personal to them.
For me, this book is about tyranny. There is a growing understanding that Henry VIII was not a jolly eccentric, but a dangerous man, an abuser of women, a false friend, and a tyrant. Like modern tyrants, Henry used the institutions and traditions against his society, he used the law to unlawfully persecute his victims. I live in a world which feels more extreme and more dangerous when so-called ‘strong men’ (or those who posture as strong), are in power.
And we all struggle like Jane, to find a path through changing times. History tells us that we must find the courage to defend others, institutions, and traditions before the danger is immediate and personal. By the time the tyrant comes for us—it is too late.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Read. Read as much as you can and read the very best books you can find. I re-read the classics constantly. Austen, EM Forster, Henry James—it’s a long list—but they are all masterclasses in storytelling and language, and they’ve all shaped my writing career.
And then write, write for pleasure. It’s a skill that takes a lot of practice and the more you write the better you’ll get. Don’t worry about who will like it or read it, and don’t chase the popular market, which will probably have shifted by the time your book is complete anyway. Create the best thing you can, in your own style, and whatever the outcome commercially, you will have that to keep.
