Tom Shippey

Marc Morris writes about my piece on Queen Matilda: ‘Tom Shippey … alleges (following Borman) that Matilda was 4'2". This is a modern myth’ (Letters, 1 December). I didn’t allege anything of the sort. I reported Borman’s claim, adding ‘forensics, however, can’t be trusted’ and ‘it isn’t unlikely they got Matilda wrong.’ It seems my suspicions were correct. Thank you, Mr Morris,...

SIR: I am sorry to have miscalled Philip Gosse. G.G. Harper does right to correct me (Letters, 2 April). On dates, however, his letter is misleading. Gosse could and did know in 1857 something of what Darwin would publish in 1859, because he had been told about it. According to Gosse’s son Edmund, Sir Charles Lyell had conceived the ideal of recruiting a ‘body-guard’ of scientists for Darwin,...