He had been given a rare gift, a second wind. He had planned and plotted a short series of books for some time, envisaging a trilogy; but the writing caught him up in its own energy and momentum and he was swept along on a tide almost outside his own volition.

He wrote sometimes for fifteen hours every day, often for much of the night. Each novel was well over the normal length at almost two hundred thousand words, and all had at least one major rewrite; some of them several. From 1951-1969 a volume appeared nearly every year. It was a tremendous achievement.

George D. Painter said that ‘the whole cycle will ultimately be recognised as the great historical novel of our time, its subject is the total experience of twentieth-century man.’

Henry’s second marriage did not withstand the pressure brought about by this mammoth task, and he and Christine parted in the early 1960s after Christine suffered a nervous breakdown, although they did not actually get divorced until 1968. A series of assistants and secretaries always ended in disaster as they could not cope with HW’s temperament or eccentricity. He demanded total attention and yet he would not let them get on with the work he wanted done. But he was not quite as lonely as he liked to make out. He had many loyal friends who supported him. The children of his first marriage were grown-up, married and had children of their own. ‘Granpa Henry’ loved to visit and play with them and they loved the wildness of his field on summer camping trips.