Bella d'Abrera

Bella d’Abrera is the Director, Foundations of Western Civilisation Program, at the IPA. She is a professional historian with a BA in History and Spanish from Monash University, an MA in Spanish from the University of St Andrews and a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge.

Bella has a wealth of experience in historical research, having spent countless hours buried in archives of the United Kingdom, Spain, Gibraltar and France.

She is the author of a number of books, the first of which was based on her doctoral thesis. The Tribunal of Zaragoza and Crypto-Judaism, 1484-1515 (2009) was based on an examination of 120 court trials from the Inquisition and the charges levelled against Spain’s conversos or Christians of Jewish descent.

Bella has also written a series of books on the Reformation in England. In A King with a Pope in His Belly (2009) she treats the violent reign of Henry VIII, his break with Rome and destruction of monastic life in England. Continuing in the second volume, Papists, Spaniards & Other Strangers, (2011) the author presents meticulously researched and documented accounts of the short reign of Edward VI, the struggles between the contending rivals to the throne, culminating in Queen Mary Tudor’s bloodless victory over her enemies. This Sainted Queen (2013), the third and final book in the series covers the brief restoration of Catholicism during Mary Tudor’s reign.

She contributes regularly to The Spectator Australia. She is passionate about educating young Australians about the values of our free society, in particular the origins and development of our core Western values, such as individual liberty, natural rights and the modern secular state which are interwoven with the Judeo-Christian tradition.