The Graces
The Extraordinary Untold Lives of Women at the Restoration Court
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The Graces
Narrated by:
Breeze Barrington, Phyllida Nash
Buy Now for £15.28
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Narrated by:
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Breeze Barrington
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Phyllida Nash
'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
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Critic reviews
Illuminating . . . Barrington, who is a specialist on art, writes beautifully about rooms, clothes, tapestries and paintings . . . The women’s lives are reconstructed through the little that has survived – fragments of manuscripts, a panel from a series of paintings, a music score . . . As books about the seventeenth century enjoy a deserved boom, The Graces’ focus on women and court culture is timely (Alice Hunt)
Deftly researched . . . A much-needed retelling (Annalisa Nicholson)
The Graces is impressively original and ingenious, not just in Barrington’s use of overlooked continental sources and her fresh readings of better-known British ones, but also in the whole form of the book: an inventive blend of biography (Mary of Modena’s) with group biography, which brings the talented women of the Restoration Court gracefully to life (OPHELIA FIELD, author of The Favourite)
In The Graces, Barrington showcases the rich constellation of female artistic, literary and cultural creativity spearheaded by one of Stuart Britain's most overlooked queens: Maria of Modena. A refreshing, immersive and compelling corrective to conventional accounts of the Restoration court (CLARE JACKSON, author of Devil-Land)
Thoroughly researched and gripping to read, this book brings us into the decadent Stuart court on the eve of a second revolution, told through the stories of its brilliant, overlooked women (GARETH RUSSELL, author of Queen James)
Vivid and moving, The Graces puts women at the centre. Resurrecting the brave yet forgotten queen, Maria of Modena, Breeze Barrington also brings to life the women around her – women who, in surprisingly creative ways, navigated their dangerous political times with intelligence, artistic flair and, above all, with grace. Elegant and eye-opening (LEAH REDMOND CHANG, Women's Prize-longlisted author of Young Queens)
In this sparkling study of Mary of Modena and her circle, Britain’s only Italian queen is brought vividly to life. Breeze Barrington has rescued her from centuries of condescension and shown us a brave, intelligent and cultured woman who forged her own identity amid the capricious and vulgar world of the Restoration Court (LINDA PORTER, author of Katherine the Queen)
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 GROSVENOR, author of The Invention of British Art)
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