Historical Belles and Beaus

To Gain What's Lost out now.

2012-01-08T15:31:00.005+11:00

Just before Christmas and while I was away on holidays visiting family, my Victorian historical novel, To Gain What's Lost, was released. I'm a bit behind telling everyone about it, so here's the blurb and cover for you all to have a look at!

To Gain What's Lost blurb.

She thinks her life has changed for the better, her dark secrets hidden, but little does she know…

The daughter of a wealthy landowner in Yorkshire, England in 1864, Anna Thornton leads a privileged life. But she is not content. She wants her life to mean something and longs to be accepted for the free-thinking, independent woman she is. When the dashing, adventurer Matt Cowan sweeps her off her feet, she thinks she has finally met her soul mate. However, he’s not the man he seems to be. After he sails for South America, leaving her behind in England, Anna discovers she’s pregnant. Heartbroken she flees her family home, determined to keep her child’s illegitimacy a secret.

He has a few dark secrets of his own…
Brenton O’Mara is a strong, independent man who wants to make his own way without relying on his father’s wealth. He comes to Anna’s new home looking for work and convinces the reluctant woman to hire him. But Anna's wary of men, of love, and treats him as nothing more than the penniless laborer she believes him to be. Then, just when Anna seems to feel she is getting on with her new life, and Brenton believes he has a chance with her, the past rears up to confront them. Can Brenton and Anna learn to trust each other, or will they let yesterday destroy tomorrow?

To Gain What's Lost is available in Kindle format:

http://www.amazon.com/To-Gain-Whats-Lost-ebook/dp/B006LG23CU/ref=sr_1_9?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1325997440&sr=1-9

and paperback:

http://www.amazon.com/Gain-Whats-Lost-Anne-Whitfield/dp/1937329194/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1325997440&sr=1-9

Rites of Winter - Medieval Christmas Revels

2011-12-29T00:04:00.000+11:00

By Lindsay Townsend

Make we mery, both more and lasse,
For now ys the tyme of Chrystymas
(From a 15th century carol)

When Christianity developed in the ancient Roman world, the winter solstice was already marked at 25th December. Followers of Mithras believed in the ‘unconquered sun’ and also held a feast-day for the sun on December 25th.

The gospels did not give a date for the birth of Jesus, but ancient beliefs in the Roman Saturnalia, the solstice and sun-worship led to the church choosing December 25th as the time of his nativity.

‘Christmas’ means ‘Christ’s Mass.’ In England in the Middle Ages three masses were celebrated on December 25th - the Angel’s Mass at Midnight, the Shepherds’ Mass at dawn and the Mass of the Divine Word during the day.

Before the three masses of Christmas there was the forty days of Advent. Advent was similar to lent, a time of spiritual reflection and preparation for the coming of Christ. Feasting and certain foods such as meat and wine were meant for be abstained from during advent (something the evil Denzils ignore in my historical romance The Snow Bride, set at this time).

The feasting and revelling time of medieval Christmas began on Christmas Eve and lasted 12 days, ending on Twelfth Night. There was no work done during this time and everyone celebrated. Holly, ivy, mistletoe and other midwinter greens were cut and brought into cottages and castles, to decorate and to add cheer.

The most important element of the revels was the feast. Christmas feasts could be massive – Edward IV hosted one at Christmas in 1482 when he fed and entertained over two thousand people. For rich medieval people there was venison or the Yule boar, a real one, and for poorer folk a pie shaped like a boar, or a pie made from the kidney, liver, and other portions of the deer (the umbles) that the nobles did not want – to make a portion of ‘umble pie'. Carefully hoarded items were also brought out and eaten and other special Christmas foods made and devoured. Mince pies were made with shredded meat and many spices. ‘Frumenty,’ a kind of porridge with added eggs, spices and dried fruit, was served. A special strong Christmas beer was usually brewed to wash all this down, traditionally accompanied with a greeting of 'wes heil' ('be healthy'), to which the proper reply was 'drinc heil'.

There were also other entertainments apart from eating and drinking – singing, playing the lute or harp, playing chess, cards or backgammon and carol dancing.

Presents and gift giving was originally not part of Christmas but of New Year. Romans gave gifts to each other at Kalends (New Year) as well as a week earlier at Saturnalia, and by the twelfth century it seems that children were already receiving gifts to celebrate the day of their protecting saint, St. Nicholas, and the practice soon began to extend to adults as well, initially as charity for the poor. As the Middle Ages wore on, the custom grew of workers on medieval estates giving gifts of produce to the estate owner during the twelve days of Christmas - and in return their lord would put on all those festivities.

Wes heil!

Lindsay Townsend
http://www.lindsaytownsend.net/

Mistletoe--A Plant For All Seasons

2011-12-24T10:01:00.005+11:00

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without mistletoe. In the dark, cold days of a northern winter, the evergreen mistletoe, with its glossy green leaves and white berries, promises spring will return.

But mistletoe has other faces. In ancient Britain, the Druids considered mistletoe a sexual symbol. The white berries' juice resembles semen and the Druids deemed the plant itself an aphrodisiac. By extension, mistletoe became associated with love and marriage.

The tradition of kissing may come from the Nordic legend of the death of the sun god, Balder. Loki, the god of mischief, killed Balder with a sprig of mistletoe. The tears of Balder's mother, Frigga, returned Balder to life. In gratitude, Frigga kissed everyone under the mistletoe, transforming the plant's reputation from death to life. Or new life, as in fertility.

A lesser known aspect of mistletoe labels it the plant of peace. Enemies meeting under the mistletoe laid down their arms and declared a day of truce. This time provided them an opportunity to talk out their differences instead of resorting to violence. In Mistletoe Everywhere, my Regency Christmas comedy, I use mistletoe's role as the plant of peace to bring my two estranged lovers back together.

Promise of spring, fertility symbol and plant of peace--truly a plant for all seasons. Which face of mistletoe do you prefer?

Mistletoe Everywhere Available at The Wild Rose Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other places ebooks are sold. See my website (http://www.lindabanche.com) for complete list of vendors.

Thank you all,
Linda
Linda Banche
Welcome to My World of Historical Hilarity!
http://www.lindabanche.com

"Thrashing" with holly branches - a seasonal cure

2011-12-23T06:56:00.000+11:00

The holly berry that shines so red,
Once was white as wheaten bread.

The holly and the ivy are common Christmas evergreens, still used in England for decorating houses at this time of year, and featured on many Christmas cards.

But until the 20th century holly was used medicinally in the winter to "thrash" chilblains - in other words the treatment was to give the feet a whipping with this spiny bush, an uncomfortable remedy that was supposed to work better if it drew beads of blood, like the berries the tree itself produces.
Margaret Poulter, the herbalist in The Lady's Slipper may well have tried this cure on one of her patients should they have been out in the snow too long. Whilst researching the novel I had to read many herbals and books on plant medicine. In my research I often read of this same strange treatment being used for what was probably arthritis too, and an ointment was made from the berries crushed into a salve to cure 'agues'. It is interesting that most of the conditions it was supposed to cure were 'winter ailments.'

In 1653 Culpeper suggested eating fresh holly berries as a purge, and instructions from a 1694 herbal say to boil the leaf-prickles in a posset which will "wonderfully ease the Cholick" (Pechey)

Many medicines in the 17th century were based on giving the patient a remedy with similar qualities to the complaint - so prickling pains in the stomach were likely to be treated with Holly, however uncomfortable that sounds! Nowadays however, modern medical herbalists use holly very little. And I think I will definitely leave my berries for the birds!
As well as its use in medicine, holly is a wonderful wood for crafts and in the past was used for knife handles
and fan-making, it being strong and light.The wood is very fine-grained, hard, and smooth, and almost ivory in color if it is not stained.

A book I would really recommend to anyone interested in English plant medicine would be Hatfield's Herbal by Gabrielle Hatfield.

The name Holly derives from the Anglo-Saxon holegn and Old High German Hulis both of which mean "holy".

Thus throughout Europe holly was believed to have sacred or magical properties and bringing holly branches into one's house in winter was supposed to ward off evil and bring good luck.Holly wreaths were also given as gifts during the Roman festival of Saturnalia, which is believed by many to be the festival from which Christmas was originally adapted. It was long regarded as unlucky to leave holly wreaths up beyond Twelfth Night so they are disposed of on New Year's Eve.Although Holly is associated with winter fire it is considered unlucky to burn sprigs of holly. I guess the one on top of the Christmas pudding must be the exception!

You can find out more about Margaret Poulter the herbalist, known also as a 'cunning woman', and her search for a successor to her craft in The Lady's Slipper.
'Her characters are so real that they linger in the mind long after the book is back on the shelf. Highly recommended.'The Historical Novels Review
'Top Pick!' RT Book Reviews
'Women's Fiction at its best' History and Women
'Brilliant saga' Romance Reviews today
'Rich and haunting' Reading the Past
'Utterly captivating' Karen Maitland, author of The Owl Killers
'Riveting narrative' For the Love of Books

Thank you for reading and A Very Merry Christmas Everyone.
Don't forget to come back tomorrow for Linda Banche's post about Mistletoe and the Regency Period.

Peter Alan Orchard - 'The Painter of Lemnos'

2011-12-22T03:53:00.001+11:00

The new story follows Kindulos, a painter from Bronze Age Lemnos in the Aegean. When he is forced to flee the island for fear of his life, he finds himself amongst the soldiers of Agamemnon who are embroiled in the Trojan War. But he is sent back to the island, with a mission...

The Painter of Lemnos (c.12,000 words) is $1.99.

Buy from:

Smashwords Diesel Apple iBooks Kobo Barnes and Noble

EXCERPT:

The dog was barking. The yelping filled the roof space and bounced off the walls of the houses on the street below. It brought Kindulos tottering to his feet, clawing at his ears with both hands and desperate for peace.

It was morning and a thin, grey light washed over the harbour. One of the ships, a broad-hulled merchantman, its square sail lowered, had been launched off the beach and rocked gently in the shallows.

The dog fell silent, its job done, its eyes bright with unfocused satisfaction. In the courtyard below Kindulos and the dog, a thin elderly man stood with the stub of a torch.

'Have you seen him, Senefu?'

'Seen who?'

'The runaway. Had his brother killed, that's all I know. The word's gone round since yesterday.'

'Word from where?'

'From his village, up the coast. The king's making a gift to the Akhaians again, so there's wine coming from all over. One of them probably passed it on, the wine people.'

Senefu began to laugh, a sound like jackals fighting. 'And they told you, Kratas? A miserable, cheating piece of rubbish like you?'

'I live up the road, my friend,' said Kratas evenly. 'I was sent round here. That's all. Other folk went other ways. No-one likes a man who cheats the gods or fratricide, and this one's both.'

'No.'

There was silence for a moment or two, then Kratas mumbled, 'He's a painter, the man. Walls. Flowers and stuff.'

Kindulos lay down flat on the roof and froze to the stone. Not a word, Senefu, he begged in his mind. Not a word.

'No-one here, Kratas,' Senefu said.

'If you -'

'Don't wag your finger at me. I've seen no-one. Off you go, Kratas. No fun for you here.'

The dog set up a low, determined growling and Kindulos heard Kratas leave. The dull red of his torch brushed against the grey of the street and was gone.

A few moments later Kindulos heard footsteps on the stairs and Senefu's head appeared over the parapet.

'Leave,' he said. 'Now.' Apologetically he turned his palms upwards. 'If you're the one he's looking for, which I think you are, you have to leave the city. Every damn fool with a weapon will know who you are. No painter will be safe, no outsider will be safe and I won't be safe. That old rat wanted to get me out of this house years ago - don't ask, it's not your business - and finding you here would have the mob at my door.'

'So why protect me?'

'I'm not protecting you, I'm getting rid of you. If you're not here, you never came here.'

There was a ripple of sound up the street. From somewhere in the distance came shouting, wheezing and the rattle of hooves on the stones. Kindulos shrank down behind the parapet.

'Calm down, ' Senefu said. 'It's donkeys with cargo. There are ships leaving with supplies for the Akhaians, so the king's sending wine over to the leaders. Keep them drunk, keep them friendly, keep them on the plain outside Ilion.'

Kindulos stood up again, his decision made. 'Then the wine will come from all over the island and no-one will notice a stranger. Back up down the steps, Senefu. I'm going with them.'

Peter
http://www.peteralanorchard.net/
http://twitter.com/peteraorchard

Northumberland for Christmas!

2011-12-17T06:36:00.001+11:00

Why not visit the Northumberland Border country this Christmas? FAIR BORDER BRIDE is up for sale on Amazon Kindle at $3. Here's a link to the book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyui1kfCd_8

5.0 out of 5 stars Acompelling, page-turning historical romance, 22 Nov 2011

By N. Steven-fountain "LornaMack"
Jen Black has crafted a compelling love story set in atime and place of which little is known but about which I was left bothinformed and wanting more. The historical detail takes you back to 1543 fromthe very first page. Vivid characters spring to life and you are there withthem among the market stalls. You can smell the aromas, feel the fabrics, hearthe voices and sense the undercurrents and attractions emerging between theprotagonists. A tender, believable love story develops and on the final pageyou are left feeling slightly bereft as when any terrific story ends.

5.0out of 5 stars A beautiful bride in a turbulentcountry..., 31 Oct 2011

By Lindsay Townsend(Yorkshire, UK)
From its fast-paced, compelling opening, 'Fair BorderBride' is an exciting historical romance set in the border lands of northernEngland in 1543. The romance of Alina and Harry is full of incident andtenderness and is a well-told story, with moments of humour, sensitivity andpassion. They are sympathetic, rounded people and believable in their dilemmasand conflicts. The other characters in the novel are also very well-drawn, andthe whole is filled with fascinating historical detail about a part of Englandthat is rarely explored in Tudor historical fiction. If you want to loseyourself in vivid adventure and romance, I have no hesitation in recommendingthis novel by Jen Black.

Blurb: Harry is working for his father, theDeputy Lord Warden of the West March, and adopts the alias Harry Scott. Unhappily,Alina’s father is at feud with the entire family Scott,and flings Harry intothe dungeon at Aydon Castle and threatens him with the Leap next day. Alinacreeps out of her bed to visit Harry at midnight when the castle is quiet.

Short Excerpt:

“Tellme,” he said, before he forgot all practical things in the delight of herpresence. “Your father threatens me with something called the Leap. What isit?”

“Shedipped her head, and he heard her sharp intake of breath. “It’s the ravine, Harry.”She pointed towards the dark bulk of the hall. “On the other side is a ravine.It is deep, with the Ay burn at the bottom. Father…he makes prisoners jump fromthe precipice outside the hall.”

“Ah.” He raised her knuckles to his mouth, and kissed them todispel the shadowy presence of Death looming in the darkness behind him. Heremembered looking into the ravine the night he rode up here. His tongue probedthe cleft between her fingers. She gasped. Harry’s blood sang through his body,and he kissed her knuckles again. “How deep, do you think?”

“Twenty times the height of a man, they say.” She shivered andfrowned as she watched him nuzzle her fingers. “There are rocks and trees…”

“And no one survives?”

Her face crumpled. “Oh, Harry, sometimes they do, but they arebroken, twisted creatures—”

A deep voice sounded from above, and Alina flung up her head.“Matho, please!”

Matho must have agreed, for she turned back to Harry. Her hand hadwarmed in his and when he kissed it once more, her other hand snaked throughthe bars and stroked his face, crept to the back of his neck.

“Ah, Alina,” he murmured. “Would that we had no iron bars betweenus.”

His flesh hardened. If this was his last night on earth, he wantedsome pleasure to beguile his thoughts. He reached both hands through the grilland drew her close against the iron bars and in truth she was not reluctant,even when his hand roamed beneath her cloak, caught a ribbon and her nightgowngaped from neck to waist. His palm found the firm weight and curve of herbreast and nestled around it.”

Jen Black

http://jenblackauthor.blogspot.com

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fair-Border-Bride-ebook/dp/B005VPXA42#_

Christmas in Andalucia

2011-12-12T21:11:00.004+11:00

One of the joys of living in Spain is that there's
less commercial fuss made about Christmas, or Navidad as the Spanish call it. There will be twinkling lights, and pontsettias everywhere, and some shops may play Jingle Bells and have a tree. But Christmas itself is fairly low key.

The Nativity scene ‘Nacimiento’ can be seen in plazas in most small towns as well as many Spanish homes and shop windows, often rather splendid. December 24, Nochebuena, is when the main Christmas meal is taken, often roast lamb or suckling pig, a feast that takes place quite late, as in all Spanish fiestas, starting around 10 p.m. and going on until the small hours. Some families will sing carols around the nativity scene which remains without the baby until the stroke of midnight. Others go to midnight Mass ‘La misa del Gallo’, or ‘Rooster Mass’, so named after the bird who announced the birth of Christ. Sometimes, there will be a live Nativity scene, with actors and actresses playing the parts of Mary and Joseph.

Many people, of course, like the rest of us, just watch the Christmas programme’s on TV while enjoying the traditional Turrón (nougat) marzipan, or mantecas (a range of butter-based biscuits) with Cava.

January 6th, Three Kings Day
Traditionally Spanish children do not get their presents on Christmas Day from Santa Claus, or Papa Noel, as he is called. They have to wait until the Fiesta de Los Reyes. What we would call Epiphany. By now we’re packing our Christmas decorations away, but the Spanish are still partying.

In the run up to the 6th of January, children can meet the wise men at some department stores and tell them what they would like for Christmas, just as our children tell Santa Claus.

On the 5th, the excitement starts in the late afternoon or early evening when there is often a parade through the streets of camels, yes, real ones, carrying the three kings, Melchor, Gazpar and Baltasar, who throw sweets into the watching crowds. A custom that no doubt started in Moorish times. A whole procession of dancers and musicians, trailers and even floats, will follow.

Children run around with their little bags catching their gifts. Everyone is having fun, and there are jesters and
medieval market stalls, even ducks and geese for sale.

The little girls dress up in their flamenco dresses, little boys as kings or drummer boys. And the shops remain open until after midnight.

A lovely family day. Truly a sight to see.

Before going to bed the children leave their shoes on the door step so that the Kings will know who to leave presents for. Some Spanish families are starting to put presents under a Christmas tree, perhaps because there are too many to put in a shoe. And just as British children leave a mince pie and a drink for Santa and his reindeer, Spanish children also put out something to eat and drink for Melchor, Gaspar, and Baltazar, and water and grass for their camels.

The children wake in great excitement the next morning to find their presents. For breakfast or after lunch, families eat the typical dessert of the day, the ‘Roscón de los Reyes’.

This is a large ring shaped cake or sweet bread that is decorated with candied fruits, symbolic of the emeralds and rubies that adorned the robes of the three kings, sometimes a gold paper crown is often provided to decorate the cake. Hidden inside it are surprises ‘sorpresas’. The one who finds the lucky prize is King or Queen for the day while he who ends up with the unlucky bean is expected to pay for next years Kings’ Cake – and they are not cheap!

And so another day of feasting commences. January 7 is a very quiet day in Spain. No businesses open, everyone at home in recovery.

Feliz Navidad to you all.
Freda
http://www.fredalightfoot.co.uk

Facts and Helpful Hints from the Regency Era

2011-11-27T12:05:00.004+11:00

Regency intrigue novella, LOVE AND WAR is now priced at 0.99c on Amazon.com.

The Fashions

Regency gowns were influenced by the Napoleonic era, and were Classical in style. By 1816 waists were at their highest under the bust, gradually dropping until the 1830s, when they took on the style of the Victorian era, as sleeves and skirts became fuller.

The Architecture

Neo-Classical Houses were influenced by Classical Greek and Roman architecture

Stourhead, Wiltshire

Italian Renaissance

Deepdene, Surrey rebuilt in 1769-75 for Charles Howard 10th Duke of Norfolk. drew inspiration from the Palladian style of Classical architecture in the Renaissance era.

During the 16^th Century, Venetian architect, Andrea Palladio was most influenced by the Ancient Greek and Roman’s classical temple architecture. In 17th Century Europe, Palladio's interpretation of this classical architecture was adapted as the style known as Palladianism. It continued to develop until the end of the 18th century. The style influenced many of the great houses of Britain. Its Doric columns, pediments, symmetry and proportions are clearly evident in the design of many modern buildings today.

Inigo Jones was the designer of the Queen’s House, Greenwich, begun in 1616, the first English Palladian house.
The Interiors and the gardens

Stourhead library.

View of The Turf bridge from the Grotto at Stourhead

Helpful hints:

The Mirror of Graces (1811) By A Lady of Distinction

A Wash to give Lustre to the Face

Infuse wheat-bran well-sifted, for three or four hours in white wine vinegar; add to it five yolks of eggs and a grain or two of ambergris, and distil the whole. When the bottle is carefully corked, keep it for 12 or 15 days before you make use of it.

Carriage and Demeanour

'Many of the naturally most pleasing parts of the female shape have I seen assume an appearance absolutely disgusting; and all from an outre air, vulgar manners, or hoydenish postures. The bosom, which should be prominent, by a lounging attitude sinks into slovenly flatness, rounding the back and projection the shoulders!'

The Waltz.

'But with regard to the lately-introduced German waltz, I cannot speak so favourably. I must agree with Goethe, when writing of the national dance of his country, "that none but husbands and wives can with any propriety be partners in the waltz.'

LOVE AND WAR

Selena couldn't accuse him of paying her Spanish coin! Gyles Devereux made it clear he had no wish to marry at all but was constrained by his circumstances. She could not be expected to keep refusing Lord Devereux, she thought crossly. She was only flesh and blood after all. What woman on earth could resist the pleas of a man such as Devereux?

http://www.amazon.com/Love-and-War-ebook/dp/B003XYETZM/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321822317&sr=1-3

Excerpt:

At her sister, Anne's, insistence Selena found herself at the Upper Assembly rooms in Bath again the first Monday of the following month. It was crowded and she danced every
dance, but when she settled among the potted palms with a glass of detestable Madeira that a young man had brought her, she admitted to herself she was bored to distraction.

Her friend and companion on these occasions, Elsbeth, was away nursing a sick relative and Selena had never been very good at small talk with bare acquaintances. She loved to
plunge into a brisk, political debate with someone of an opposite view, or discuss the latest news of the Duke of Wellington's exploits in Spain, when news finally reached them. She liked to be busy, washing the dogs or riding in the park, and was also quite content to spend an afternoon reading a book that pushed the boundaries of her knowledge. But to sit here and simper and curtsy and dance one interminable dance after another was a bore.

She was pondering the possibilities of declaring a headache and retiring early, when a voice above her said, "Well, if it isn't Miss Selena Wakefield."

She knew that deep, amused voice before she looked up. She could scarcely raise her head as her heart began to beat unnaturally fast.

"Lord Devereux," he said unnecessarily, as he bowed over her hand.

"I may not be in the first flush of youth, Lord Devereux, but there's nothing wrong with my eyes or my memory."
"Indeed. You are remarkably well preserved. Not a gray hair to be seen, for what, three

and twenty?"
"Last Tuesday."
"Then please accept belated birthday wishes. May I join you?"
"Certainly."
He sat next to her on the small settee, his proximity making her heart beat faster. "I didn't

know you liked Madeira."

"I don't."
"Allow me to get you a glass of wine." He gestured to a waiter.
"I would be grateful, thank you."
He fixed her with a blue-eyed stare. "You are looking well."
"Thank you. And so do you." She wished her heart would slow a little from its relentless

pounding. He wore his golden hair long, tied with a black, velvet ribbon, while other men
wore theirs short and carefully windswept. It was like him to defy the popular mode of dress. His black coat of superfine needed no padding at the shoulder, fitting tightly around his
slim waist. His waistcoat was also black, as were his satin breeches. His cravat pin was his only adornment. He stood out in a crowd of glittering jaybirds, a blond devil, no doubt
secure in the knowledge that women would fall under his spell. Realizing she was also on dangerous ground, Selena steeled herself to remain indifferent to his charms, but her
heart didn't seem to be listening.

"I don't like that pasty color on you, though," he said. "It's quite the wrong green for you."

She drew a sharp breath as she smoothed the skirt of her white muslin gown, woven and trimmed with pale green.

"Oh?"

"I'm sorry, but you know I'm inclined to blunt speaking," he confessed, not looking the slightest bit sorry. "You should wear a green that matches your eyes." He touched the emerald pin glowing among the folds of his white cravat.

"This green would be perfect."

"I am as yet unmarried, Lord Devereux," she managed to splutter.

"Oh right. Insipid colors for the virginal," he said. A wicked gleam came into his eyes. "I have an excellent plan that will take care of both these problems."

She gasped and looked around. "I refuse to listen to it, Lord Devereux. You are not to be encouraged. You shall ruin my reputation. It doesn't matter about yours. It is already lost."

"Come out onto the terrace where no one will hear us."

"I will most certainly do nothing of the kind!"

He put his hand on her arm. "Curse it, Selena. I will behave myself. I give you my word. I need to talk to you."

Selena looked around. It wouldn't do to be seen shrugging him off. "I shall give you five minutes, but I can't imagine there's anything you want to say to me. We've said it all
before."

They took a turn about the terrace, passing other couples enjoying the mild evening air. Braziers burned in their sconces along the wall. Strains of the Sussex Waltz with flute
and violin floated through the open doorway. Lord Devereux's features, lit by moonlight, were classically handsome, a noble forehead, high cheekbones, a straight nose, and a mouth and
dimpled chin that made a woman weak in the knees. He settled against the balustrade beside her with a casual grace that never seemed to desert him. His heavy-lidded eyes
gazed down into hers. It should have been breathtakingly romantic and for a brief moment, it was.

"Selena, I must marry for money," he said bluntly.

She turned away, feeling he'd grasped her heart and squeezed it.

He reached out and gripped her arm, his fingers burning into the flesh between her glove and capped sleeve. "Don't go yet, Selena. I know I'm too direct. I can't be dishonest with
you. Don't know why."
"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me," she said dryly.
He gave a brief laugh. Taking her by the shoulders, he searched her face. "I have no

desire to marry. Don't doubt I should make a very poor husband. In my defense, I'll never
consciously be cruel to you, and can offer you a title that goes back to the Norman Conquest. And by way of consolation, I like you."

"And desire my fortune."

He shrugged. "Halcrow Hall is falling into disrepair and its lands lie fallow. My great, great grandfather lost a considerable amount of money when his ships were sunk during England's war against Spain. The family fortunes have been dashed on the rocks ever since. I can't bear to see it happen, Selena."

She drew breath at the fire and passion glowing in his blue eyes. It wasn't for her, but she still found herself helplessly caught up in it. All her resolve and her commonsense failing
her like a fortress falling in battle. "You now intend to devote your life to restoring the mansion and its lands?"

"Yes. I must pay off my father's creditors," he said simply.

"I've sold out of the army, and am now living on borrowed time."

"Why now?"

He shook his head and grinned. "I turned twenty-nine and wanted to live beyond thirty."
"I must say I'm surprised they let you while the war is still raging," she said.

His blue eyes searched hers, for a sign, no doubt, that she wavered.

"Why me? There are other heiresses. Pretty ones."

"I'll be damned if I'll get leg-shackled to a shallow bore or a long-nosed, humorless wench." He opened his eyes wide.

"Or a blue stocking!"

She laughed. "Not all of them, surely."

He shook his head. "I've looked them all over, believe me.

You're the only one I could consider spending any time with."

"Well at least you don't pay me Spanish coin."

He grinned. "And many men do?"

"I have had my fill of suitors. My sister Anne is determined to have me married off before the year is out."

"Then marry me, Selena. Say you will."

She could not be expected to keep refusing him, she thought crossly. She was only flesh and blood after all. What woman on earth could resist the pleas of a man such as
Devereux? The last of the fortifications around her heart gave way.

"We might arrange a marriage of convenience, of sorts, I suppose," she said cautiously. It would certainly get the pesky matchmakers and fortune hunters off her back and
provide her with a home of her own. She refused to consider what her real reason might be, to see his face at breakfast every morning. A thought struck her. Would she be leaving
her tidy, organized life for one of hellish proportions?

"Don't think I'll live with you without the pleasures of the marriage bed," he warned, breaking into her thoughts.

"Oh! Do hush, my lord." Her face grew hot and she glanced around. Another couple stood at the end of the terrace engrossed in their own conversation.

"I wanted to make that plain."

She suppressed a shiver of anticipation as his strong, agile body leaned towards her. She found herself wondering what he looked like naked, the feel of his skin, the muscles and
bones beneath. The tautness of a male body against the softness of hers.

She swallowed. "Then ask me properly." Had she gone mad? This was a recipe for a broken heart if ever there was one.

As Lord Devereux sank down on one knee before her, an exclamation of delight came from the woman at the other end of the terrace.

If only you knew, Selena thought.

"Miss Wakefield, will you do the honor of becoming my wife?" he said in a throbbing accent, making her want to giggle. "I shall cherish you for all the rest of your life. Should
dissipation not carry me off before you," he added wickedly.

"I will. Now please get up," she said, "before we become a spectacle, and have the gossips chattering for months."

He rose and took her by the waist pulling her to him, his musky scent enveloping her. "They will anyway. Let's seal it with a kiss." He brought his mouth down on hers before she
could protest, probing with his tongue and rendering her shocked and breathless.

"Oh! That's so romantic," the lady said to her companion.

Devereux drew away. When she could find her voice, Selena said weakly. "You promised to behave."

http://www.maggiandersenauthor.com

Costume in Detail 1730-1930 Nancy Bradfield 
England's Lost Houses, Giles Worsley, Aurum

Georgian House Style Ingrid Cranfield David & Charles Ltd. 1997

Louis Hellman Architecture for Beginners 1986.

The Mirror of Graces (1811) By A Lady of Distinction

Images from Wikipedia

Old, but not out!

2011-11-13T18:30:00.000+11:00

A lovely write up about two of my earlier books, Kitty McKenzie and it's sequel. It's so lovely to see when someone enjoys my stories!
http://aussiebookreviews.aussieblogs.com.au/2011/11/08/anne-whitfield-kitty-mckenzie-and-kitty-mckenzies-land-review-by-kelly-mclean/

Suddenly left as the head of the family, Kitty McKenzie must find her inner strength to keep her family together against the odds. Evicted from their resplendent home in the fashionable part of York after her parents’ deaths, Kitty must fight the legacy of bankruptcy and homelessness to secure a home for her and her siblings.

Through sheer willpower and determination she grabs opportunities with both hands from working on a clothes and rag stall in the market to creating a teashop for the wealthy. Her road to happiness is fraught with obstacles of hardship and despair, but she refuses to let her dream of a better life for her family die. She soon learns that love and loyalty brings its own reward.

Kitty McKenzie path has taken her from the slums of York to the inhospitable bush of colonial Australia. Yet, when she believes her dreams will never be attained, she is shown that sometimes life can be even better than what you wish for.

1866.

Kitty McKenzie is gifted land in the far north of New South Wales. Life at the northern property is full of hardships as she learns how to become a successful landowner.

However, Kitty’s strength of will and belief in herself gives her the courage most women of her time never realize they have. A decided thorn in her side is the arrogant and patronizing Miles Grayson, owner of the adjourning run. He wants her gone so he can have her land, but he wants her even more.

Available in paperback and Kindle from Amazon sites.

http://www.amazon.com/Kitty-McKenzie-ebook/dp/B000R93D44/ref=pd_sim_kinc_1?ie=UTF8&m=A24IB90LPZJ0BS

Guy Fawkes Night

2011-11-05T10:01:00.002+11:00

Remember, remember the 5th of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason that gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

The British celebrate Guy Fawkes Night, also called Bonfire Night or Firecracker Night, on the evening on November 5. Compulsory until 1859, Bonfire Night was one of the holidays observed in the Regency.

Guy Fawkes Night marks the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of November 5, 1605. On that night, King James I was present in Parliament when a group of Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, were caught with barrels of gunpowder in the basement of the building.

This foiled attempt to blow up Parliament and assassinate the king was a reaction to the persecution of Catholics under James I.

Anti-Catholic sentiment ran high at the time, and the Gunpowder Plot served to increase a hatred of Catholics that lasted over two hundred years. Parliament passed punitive laws that remained on the books well into Victorian times, although restrictions had eased somewhat by the Regency. For example, in the Regency, Catholics could serve as officers in the Army and Navy, where a hundred years earlier, they could not. They were allowed to attend classes in the universities, but were denied degrees. A Catholic peer could not sit in the House of Lords until 1870.

Festivities include shooting off firecrackers and burning a "guy", an effigy of Guy Fawkes, on a bonfire. Since November 5 coincides with the end of the harvest, Guy Fawkes Day contains some elements of harvest festivals. The firecrackers are probably a reference to gunpowder, but bonfires are a feature of Samhain, the ancient festival celebrated on October 31 and which is the precursor to modern Halloween. As the Samhain bonfires scare away specters and goblins, the burning of the guy symbolizes the defeat of the treachery of the Gunpowder Plot.

Some superstitions remain. One states that Parliament will not open on November 5, although the 1957 session did. And superstitious or not, the Yeoman of the Guard does a traditional search of the Parliament basements in one of the ceremonies before each session begins.

Thank you all,
Linda
Linda Banche
Welcome to My World of Historical Hilarity!
http://www.lindabanche.com
Pictures from wikipedia. Top image is an etching of Guy Fawkes Night on Windsor Commons, 1776

Cross-Quarter Days

2011-10-24T10:01:00.002+11:00

Just as the Quarter Days mark the beginning of the seasons in England (see previous post), the Cross-Quarter Days mark the midpoints of the seasons.

The four cross-quarter days are:

Candlemas (Imbolc) February 1
May Day (Beltane)1 May
Lammas (Lughnasaid )August 1
All Hallows (1 November) or Samhain (October 31)

Notice the two names. The first names are the Christian names, which in time were layered over the older Celtic names.

The Church gave Candlemas its name for the candles lit in the churches to commemorate the presentation of the Christ Child at the temple in Jerusalem. The Celtic name of Imbolc (lamb's milk) arose because the date was the beginning of the lambing season. Another name was Brigantia, for the Celtic goddess of light, as daylight increased at this midpoint between the winter solstice and spring.

May Day, half way between spring and summer, was a day of feasting and joy as the crops sown soon after Lady Day began to sprout. In this season of new life advancing, May Day became the traditional date for young men and women to pair up. They would marry at the next cross-quarter day, after three months of seeing if they would suit. June weddings came about as impatient couples pushed up the wedding day.

Next, on August 1 is Lammas, the first festival of the harvest. The Celtic name is Lughnasaid, the day of the wedding of the Celtic sun god, Lugh, and the earth goddess, whose marriage caused the grain to ripen. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which dates from the ninth century, calls it "the feast of first fruits". The name "Lammas" may derive from the shortening of Lughnasaid or the term "Loaf-Mass", for on this day, the first loaves from the year's crop were brought to the church for blessings. Also, on or before this day, English landlords required their tenants to present them with the freshly harvested wheat.

And last is All Hallows Day and the evening before, Samhain. By All Hallows Day, the harvest is in and the year turns to the depths of winter. Samhain, the day before, was the death night of the old Celtic year. Its associattion with death and dying led to its transformation into our modern Halloween.

As so the year turns, from Quarter Day to Cross-Quarter Day and back again, in the never ending cycle of time.

Thank you all,
Linda

HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE

2011-10-15T12:02:00.001+11:00

The Scarlet Pimpernelinspired me to write a Georgian adventure romance with my own mystery man,Christian Hartley.
Maggi

"They seekhim here,
they seek him there,
those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven or is he in hell?
That damned elusive Pimpernel."

After Baroness Emmuska Orczy wrote TheScarlet Pimpernel, it was a successful play having over 2,000 performancesin London. It then became a highly successful novel throughout the world. Thepopularity of the novel encouraged the baroness to write a number of sequelsfor her "reckless daredevil" over the next 35 years. The play wasperformed to great acclaim in France, Italy, Germany and Spain, while the novelwas translated into 16 languages. Subsequently, the story has been adapted fortelevision, film, a musical and other media.
The Scarlet Pimpernelis an adventure novel set during the Reign of Terror following the start of theFrench Revolution.
The international success of The Scarlet Pimpernel allowed Orczy andher husband to live out their lives in luxury. Orczy wrote in herautobiography, Links in the Chain of Life: “I have so often been askedthe question: ‘But how did you come to think of The Scarlet Pimpernel?’And my answer has always been: It was God's will that I should. And to you moderns, who perhaps do notbelieve as I do, I will say, in the chain of my life, there were so many links,all of which tended towards bringing me to the fulfillment of my destiny."
Perhaps many writers can relate to that.

HOSTAGE TOFORTUNE

“He that hath wife and children hath givenhostages to fortune.”

Francis Bacon.

Released today in e-book form with NEW CONCEPTS PUBLISHING. Coming to Amazonsoon.

Leave acomment and win a copy of the e-book.

Viscount Beaumont hasburied himself in the country since his wife died. As the French Revolutionrages, French actress Verity Garnier is ordered to England to seduce him backto France. She despises men, but she must not fail.

Here is a taste:

Dancers gathered for the Roger de Coverley, andHenrietta had time to study Mr. Hartley at closer quarters as they advanced andretreated, performing the intricate steps. When they held hands for a briefmoment, his gaze found hers. “Why, your eyes are green, Miss Buckleigh.”

Henrietta flushed, forgetting she’d been covertlynoting the blue-grey color of his. “As you see, Mr. Hartley.”

“I am delighted,” he continued, when they next cametogether, “for I thought them blue.”

Henrietta twirled away.

When they met again, he said, “And blue is a mostcommon found in England, don’t you think?”

“Yours are blue, Mr. Hartley.” Henrietta didn’t feelinclined to admit they were more grey than blue, not like the sky, but shadowsover a deep lake. For some reason, she wanted to get the upper hand with thisman.

He grinned. “So you noticed.”

“One could hardly fail to. This dance is solong-winded.” Unable to sustain a fiery gaze when his was so pleasantly warm,she fixed on his satin waistcoat, admiring the silver buttons.

“Your hair is as fair as a Greek goddess,” hesaid when the next opportunity arose. “I like the way you wear it, with theribbon.”

“Yours is as black as a devil’s,” she responded.

A man dancing next to them coughed.

Mr. Hartley chuckled. “I prefer yours flowing free.As you wore it when I first spied you on your balcony. Like Juliet inShakespeare’s play, I felt tempted to play Romeo and climb up to you.”

“A good thing you didn’t, Mr. Hartley, for I wouldhave thrown a pitcher of water over you.”

The neighboring man’s cough turned into a guffawwhich made his partner frown and inquire what ailed him.

The dance ended, and they left the floor. “Whysomeone has trod on your shoe, Miss Buckleigh. I do hope it wasn’t I.” He bentat her feet to dust her shoe with his handkerchief. Her cheeks grew hot as shestared down at his dark head. Her fingers itched to touch his unpowdered blacklocks, and she hurriedly looked away.

“Oh, I don’t doubt that it was you, Mr. Hartley,”she said to control her disturbing urges. “But please don’t concern yourself.”

“Then I apologize profusely.” Mr. Hartley returnedhis handkerchief to his pocket, his eyes brimming with laughter. “It’s been apleasure, Miss Buckleigh.”

Henrietta swept him a deep curtsy. “And mine, Mr.Hartley.”

“I trust we will meet again.” He offered her his armand escorted her back to where her aunt sat among the dowagers.

“London is a big town. I doubt that’s likely.”Henrietta’s heart fluttered with the hope of meeting him again, but she dismissedthe thought as quickly as it arose.

“Oh, we will, for the ton tends to flocktogether, in ballrooms or on horseback.”

Henrietta watched him walk away. She didn’t know hisfirst name. What would it be? His handkerchief bore the monogram ‘C. H.’. Cornelius?Christopher? Charles? Cuthbert? She giggled. She dared not ask her aunt, forthat lady was far too observant.

Hours later, everyone prepared to leave, retrievingcoats, cloaks, reticules and shawls.

Her father placed her cape around her shoulders. “Didyou enjoy your first dance, Hetta?”

“It was lovely, especially the play.” Sheturned to look at him. “Did you enjoy the evening?” Ordinarily his thoughtswould be on his cattle, and he would have suffered through this for her, butnow she doubted it. He looked far too delighted to be here.

“I found it most entertaining,” he said, as asmile lit his eyes.

“You looked as though you really did enjoy it,Anthony.” Aunt Gabrielle had come to join them.

“Father has planned to stay a little longer inLondon, Aunt.”

“I must say I’m gratified,” she said, with atwinkle in her eye. “I wonder what attraction has made you so enamored ofLondon society, when it never tempted you before.”

“Yes, Father, do tell.”

He laughed and guided them towards the door. “Onemight ask you, Hetta, how much you enjoyed that last dance with ChristianHartley.”

Henrietta’s cheeks grew warm. So his name wasChristian. She repeated it under her breath.

Author Website:

Magic and magic-makers in medieval courts

2011-10-10T18:00:00.001+11:00

Magic played a strange and ambivalent role in medieval society. Wise-women and wizards were sometimes tolerated or revered or sometimes persecuted as witches, particularly if their 'magic' went wrong. Yet at the same time, priests could perform magic and utter charms as well as prayers to combat evil or demons.

All levels of medieval society believed in magic, including the courts. Magicians might be employed at European courts as entertainers, as alchemists, as healers or as diviners. In the later Tudor period we have John Dee, who served Elizabeth I as her astronomer and occultist, and the alchemist and astronomer Paracelsus. In myth we have Merlin, one of the most famous magicians of them all, who was on the edge first of Uther Pendragon's court and then of King Arthur's, and feared and respected in equal measure. In France in the 14th century, the astrologer Thomas of Pisano made figures out of wax to destroy the invading English by magic.

Astrologers, alchemists and magicians, promising gold, health and power, were often welcomed at court and given high status. Yet their places were always vulnerable. Jealous rivals could accuse them of using magic in an evil way, as happed to Mummolus, a shrewd military tactician of the sixth century AD, a time when Frankish Gaul was split into several kingdoms. Accused of witchcraft by Fredegund, queen to Chilperic I of Soissons, Mummolus was tortured and died of his wounds.

In 1441 Eleanor, duchess of Gloucester, was accused of using ‘treasonable necromancy’ against King Henry VI in order to advance her husband. She was imprisoned for life, while the astrologers Thomas Southwell and Roger Bolingbroke, together with Margery Jourdemayne, ‘the Witch of Eye‘, were condemned to death. In the mid-1480s Richard III of England accused Elizabeth Woodville (previously married to a Lancastrian) of having bewitched his late brother Edward IV into marrying her.

Even the court of the medieval papacy was a place where members could be accused of magic - because magic-making was seen as a part of life and a way of gaining or keeping favours. In 1317 the bishop of Cahors was tried for using magic against Pope John XXII and trying to smuggle magical images into the papal palace in loaves of bread.

Lindsay Townsend

The history of washing and ironing

2011-10-07T03:33:00.001+11:00

Dollies and possers

I can well remember watching my grandmother using a posser, and even helping on occasion. It comprised a long stick with a heavy copper disc on the end. Those with three wooden legs were called Dollies: a feminine name perhaps emphasising the woman’s place in the kitchen, just as we often call a drying rack a clothes maiden.Their purpose was to agitate the cloth in a wash-tub or dolly-tub as it was often called, although there were regional variations on styles and names. They were particularly suitable for cotton sheets or towels which needed to steep in boiling hot water then be pumped up and down with the stick to circulate them and presumably dislodge the dirt. The cotton fabric needed to be fairly robust to take the beating. I should think the woman concerned would develop strong arm muscles as a result. But then washerwomen were expected to be tough and strong, and were considered very much at the bottom of the ladder when it came to class.

The finer clothes in a large household were the responsibility of the lady’s maid.

Mangles
Strong muscles were also a necessity to push and pull the earliest box mangle back and forth with the leather straps or wooden handles. I would surmise that two laundry maids would be required for this task, one at each side. The weight of the box filled with stones, or sand, pressed household linens that were spread flat beneath the rollers, or else were wound about them.

The early 19th century saw a variety of newly invented mangles with a system of gears, wheels, and handles which were meant to lighten the laundry maid’s task by helping her to move this box. You could almost view it as an early rotary iron.An advertisement stated it was “An important improvement in the construction of the common mangle ... by Mr. Baker, of Fore Street, London, by which the otherwise unwieldy heavy box was moved with great facility backwards and forwards, by a continuous motion of the handle in one direction; and by the addition of a fly wheel to equalize the motion, a great amount muscular exertion is saved to the individual working the machine.”

By 1823 we saw the invention of the upright mangle, which took up much less space and was therefore available for use in more humble homes. Mangles also became known as wringers, as rather than smoothing the cloth, they were now mainly expected to simply rid the clothes of water. Irons:Clothes then needed to be ironed.

Ironing
No-one can say exactly when people started to press cloth smooth, but we know that the Chinese were using pans filled with hot coals for the purpose more than a thousand years ago. Blacksmiths started making simple flat irons in the late Middle Ages, which continued to be in use for hundreds of years. I remember my grandma heating her flat irons on the hearth plate of her Lancashire range, warming one while she used the other. She had several, in fact, of various weights but all of them extremely heavy.

This is a picture of an ironing stove used to heat irons in the laundry of a large country house. Having tested one myself, I’d say the laundry maids would indeed need to have strong arms to even lift one, let alone swish it back and forth over a sheet.

Flat irons were often called sad iron (or sadiron) an old word meaning solid. In Scotland people used gusing (or goosing) irons, the name coming from the goose-neck curve in the handle.The charcoal or box iron had a hinged lid which you lifted so that you could fill the container with hot coals. The air holes kept the charcoal smouldering. They generally came with their own stand.

Then there were goffering, crimping and fluting irons which were meant for frilled cuffs and collars, and for the many ribbons, trimmings and intricate ruffles on a Victorian gown, which were, of course, a sign of status. No well-dressed infant could be seen out without her bonnet trimmed with Italian-ironed double frills. Irons had to be kept immaculately clean and polished, and regularly greased to avoid rusting. The temperature had to be constantly checked otherwise the fabric could be scorched. My Gran used to spit on hers, not being a lady of quality. Some would hold it close to their cheek, a somewhat risky procedure described in The Old Curiosity Shop.

I, for one, am extremely grateful for the washing machine, tumble dryer, steam iron and all the other modern devices we so take for granted.

Quarter Days

2011-09-16T20:40:00.002+10:00

For societies located in the temperate latitudes, the turning of the seasons provides a natural division of the year into quarters. In Britain, the Quarter Days, used at least since the Middle Ages, mark these four major parts of the year.

The four Quarter Days in southern England, and in Wales and Ireland are:
Lady Day - March 25, Feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, the traditional day for hiring farm workers for the coming year
Midsummer - June 24, Feast of St John the Baptist, the midpoint of the growing season
Michaelmas - September 29, Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, start of the harvest
Christmas - December 25, Feast of the Birth of Jesus, high point of the year, when farm workers were paid for the year's labor

The Quarter Days originally referred to the agricultural cycle. But because they're easy to remember, they became the markers for other events and obligations. Servants were traditionally hired and paid on these dates. Rents were due then, giving rise to their other name of Gale (or Rent) Days. In England, leasehold payments and business premises rents are still often due on the Quarter Days. Since the dates were already associated with debts, other debts were usually also paid then, too.

The Quarter Days were also used for legal matters. At those times, justices of the peace discharged their responsibilities for dealing with taxes and the care of roads, and could order the constables to pay the amount of money owed the poor.

School terms remain loosely linked with the Quarter Days. For example, Michaelmas term at Cambridge runs from October through December, the Lent term from January to March, and the Easter term from April to June.

In the northern part of England and in Scotland, the four Quarter Days (also called Old Scottish Term Days in Scotland) are:
Candlemas - February 2, Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary
Whitsunday - May 15, Feast of the Holy Spirit
Lammas - August 1, Feast of St Peter’s Deliverance from Prison
Martinmas - November 11, Feast of St Martin the Bishop

Note that the days are different for England and Scotland. Both mark the start of the seasons, but according to different calendars. The English Quarter Days roughly align with the astronomical seasons, while the Scottish Quarter Days mark (more or less) the start of the seasons according to the Celtic calendar. These Scottish days correspond more closely, but not exactly, to the cross-quarter days, or mid-season days, of the English calendar.

More on the cross-quarter days next time.

Thank you all,
Linda

Books, history, memories

2011-09-06T00:50:00.002+10:00

I haven't blogged for a while and I feel nostalgic. Not for blogging, but for the kind of experience that got me fired up with history in the first place.

I grew up in Exeter, a city that, in spite of the devastation wreaked on it by 1960s rebuilding, is still up to its ears in history: medieval sandstone churches, a cathedral worth travelling miles to see (and with the priceless Anglo-Saxon manuscript known as the 'Exeter Book' in its library), a Roman legionary fortress (now excavated and reburied), underground passages, bits of city wall, a Tudor merchant's house moved bodily and intact in 1961 to allow for development. Amongst the school history lessons and the family visits to historic buildings, I did a lot of solo pottering and hanging around in bookshops.

There used to be a lot of rambling secondhand bookshops in Exeter then, and the books were cheap. For an obsessive lad with a taste for history and reading, there was plenty to go at. One - Cummings', I think -was in the Cathedral Close and had a Roman well in the basement, another near the nineteenth-century Iron Bridge. At yet another, at the bottom of Fore Street, towards the river, I picked up a battered 18th-century school Virgil with long-nosed caricatures on the cover. The shop was a sort of Dickensian labyrinth of dust and shelves, now long gone. The buildings there were demolished forty-plus years ago, to reveal several arches from the first stone bridge over the River Exe, begun in around 1190 AD. It's that kind of place.

The history and the book-buying go together for me. I still have some of those books, some local history, some travel books about the Mediterranean, though a lot of other stuff has been traded in, given to charity or flogged on the internet. For some reason I still have a publication containing some of the city records, bought without a cover and rebound inexpertly with the cardboard from the box a new shirt came in. And here is a message for Henry Blight of Shebbear: If you're out there in the ether, still looking for your copy of Ovid's Epistles with facing-page translation, published in 1753 and given to you by a Miss Mary Rundle some time in the next century, you can't have it. It may have your name in it, but I paid a pound for it out of my pocket-money and it's mine.

Peter
http://www.peteralanorchard.net/
http://www.twitter.com/peteraorchard

The Dandies of the Regency Era and the shop keepers who dressed and fed them

2011-08-25T13:37:00.001+10:00

As I'm working on another Regency romance, I decided to do a series of blogs about this fascinating era.
.

The Dandies
During the Regency, ape leader, Beau Brummel created a new simple and expensive style of dress. Absorbed with appearance, Brummel took five hours every morning at his toilet, bathing in eau-de-Cologne and water, then an hour at his hairdresser and two hours 'creasing down' his starched cravat until satisfied with the folds. He might discard a dozen or more cravats which he described as 'our failures' in the process. His obsession with fashion made the reputations of tailors, hatters, glovers and shirtmakers who gave him extensive credit in return form his custom.

The Storekeepers in and around St James's Street
Weston, Brummel's tailor in Old Bond Street and the shopkeepers in the area of St James's Street benefited from him and the dandies that aped him. As did Hoby, the most famous of all the bootmakers, on the corner of Piccadilly and St James's Street who died worth 120,000 pounds. He made military long boots, fashionable Hessian boots with a tassel dangling from the V-shaped front, Hussar boots to be worn with pantaloons, top boots worn with buckskins or breeches. Wellington boots and 'highlows' or ankle boots, worn with trousers.

Lock's the hatters at No. 6 made hats to measure of the finest quality from beaver hats worn by the nobility and the gentry in the country to the glossy black top hats worn by the dandies in town and the chapeau bras which a gentleman carried folded up under his arm in the evening. Hussars and the Dragoons had to pay more for their beplumed and gold-laced shakos; but the dandies often got away without paying their bills from one year to the next.
The Berry Brothers at No. 3 St James's Street, the world-famous wine merchants were founded by the Widow Bourne in 1699. During the Regency they were grocers renown for the varieties of tea, they stocked, Congue, Pekoe, Souchong, Bohea and many others, coffee and tobacco from the New World and spices from the Far East. Their weighing machine used for huge bags of coffee began to be used to weigh customers. Brummell weighed himself regularly with and without boots, and before he got too obese, the Prince Regent used it to.
Friboug & Treyer's were famous snuff merchants with a thriving business at No. 34 the Haymarket, just off Piccadilly. Lord Petersham, famous for his Cossack trousers and double-breasted coat named after him, was an expert in the art of moistening, mixing and blending snuff. When he died, his 'snuff-cellar' was valued at 3,000 pounds. He left 365 snuff boxes, one for every day in the year.
Gunther's, the pastry-cook in Berkeley Square was the most celebrated confectioner in London could charge what he liked. He made all sorts of Biskets and Cakes, Fine and Common Sugar Plums and all sorts of Ices. Ice from the Greenland Sea was buried in the ground under the cellars of Berkeley Square to supply their cream and fruit Ices. Lord Alvanley once ordered a hamper from Gunther's which cost him 200 pounds.
John Hatchard began Hatchard's Bookshop in Piccadilly with 5 pounds and a few second-hand books in 1797. Fortnum & Mason was founded by George III's ex-footman Charles Fortnum and the grocer, John Mason in 1817. Both Hatchard's and Fortnum & Mason have been rebuilt on their original sites.
Society was dominated by the Dandies selfish pursuit of leisure and pleasure (The Pleasure Principal )

Burlington Arcade, Piccadilly, 1828

Gambling
Gambling at the Clubs in St James's Street - White's, Boodles and Brooks's, made many seek King in Clarges Street to mortgage their estates or pledge their inherited gold and silver plate or their wives' diamonds at Hamlet, the jeweler in Cranbourn Alley or Rundell and Bridge at Ludgate Hillge who not only sold jewelry but trinkets of all kinds from seals to snuff boxes.
While gambling at their clubs, a curious kind of self-discipline was adopted, for it was considered ill-bred for anyone to show his feelings when losing heavily, or to rejoice if fortune turned in his favor.

A Man's World
The clubs, the shops and the smart hotels were all dedicated to serving the fashion-conscious dandies and the wealthy aristocracy. No lady valuing her reputation would walk down Bond Street or St James's in the afternoon. In the morning, she would be accompanied by her maid, a footman or a page to protect her from being ogled by any dandies that found her attractive, although most would still be abed.
In Georgette Heyer's The Grand Sophy, Sophy Stanton Lacy outraged Miss Wraxton by driving her down the exclusive male precinct of St. James's Street.

Next blog: The Women and their Stores
Regency London Stella Margetson Cassell & Company Ltd 1971.
Georgette Heyer's Regency World Jennifer Kloester

ODE TO THE JACOBITES

2011-08-21T15:12:00.000+10:00

As many authors claim, I am frequently plagued by a very mischievous muse who chooses the most inconvenient of times to summon me - most frequently waking me from sweet slumber or interrupting my shower!

A few months ago she pulled precisely such a prank by waking me at 2Am with the first stanza of a poem.

"A poem?" I asked. "What kind of joke is this? I don't write poetry! I don't even like poetry!" I insisted.

"You do now," she replied with a smirk.

In hindsight, I now realize that this narrative poem, half composed in my sleep, has served as the inspiration for an entire new series that I have named GEORGIANS AND JACOBITES.

Even if you are not a connoisseur of poetry, I hope you will enjoy the historical perspective it provides for the Jacobite rebellions.

ODE TO THE JACOBITES

While Queen Anne lay stiff in bed,
With no successor,
declared as dead,
Parliament sought up and down
A protestant to wear the crown.

But James the third, called pretender
Refused to be to be the faith’s defender,
Three crowns he’d forfeit for a mass,
Ere to Hanover would they pass.

Georg Ludwig in no hurry,
in his duchy long would tarry,
Ere to Britain deign to go.
Knowing not his kingdom’s tongue,
In his greed he would come,
His queer retinue in tow.

With Mustapha and Mahomet,
the Maypole and the Elephant,
George did claim his throne.
His faithless wife locked tight away,
(for twenty years, if a day),
This king would reign alone.

High Tory and the Jacobite
Would n’er accept the country’s plight
Contending yet for Divine right,
The Stuarts to restore.
For others with more Popish leanings,
in their closeted convenings,
Treason was the true meaning,
One could scarce ignore.
And many white cockaded hosts
Raised their glass in furtive toasts,
To James- forevermore.

No longer strife disguising,
Began the ’15 rising,
Though t’would prove a damned devising,
Headed by Lord Mar.
With Stuart standard he proclaimed
Scotland in his sovereign’s name.
South to England now his aim,
Intent on civil war.

With less sense than bluster,
The English north did muster,
Under Thomas Forster,
Wearing the general’s plume.
To Newcastle and Preston,
In a grand procession,
the army marched predestined
With a battle plan sure doomed.

'Pon news to Jemmie of the tidings
Of his Scottish clans uprising,
The unexpected, so surprising
Struck the king with disbelief.
But jubilation took its place
On this exiled sovereign’s face,
And for his Scotland he did race
To his troops’ relief.

Now at last had come his chance
Funded by the King of France,
Akin to some great romance,
Like the Holy Grail.
A most devout mission,
Coronation his ambition,
Ever closer to fruition,
The Chevalier set sail.

But arriving yet again too late,
His rebels conquered by the State,
According to the Stuart fate,
Once more doomed to fail.

Sheriffmuir lost, the rebels thwarted,
The guilty hung, beheaded, transported.
For nigh thirty years - the Cause aborted,
E’er springing back to life.
With Bonnie Charlie, the Young Pretender,
Brave and strong, a worthy contender,
Jacobite passions again engendered,
In the ’45.
- Emery Lee

http://authoremerylee.com

For further reference: http://en.wikipedpi.org/wiki/Jacobitism

A PEER'S PRIVILEGE post by Emery Lee

2011-08-14T06:00:00.005+10:00

Coronets and Nobel Hierarchy:

From Admirals to Generals, politicians to Royal bastards, a peerage has been the highest honour bestowed by a grateful Crown for almost 750 years. Over 2,560 hereditary peerages have been created by the Crown since the mid-13th century, of which 828 still survive. Additionally, 1,130 life peerages have been created in the last one hundred and thirty years, of which 595 are currently sitting in the House of Lords.

But what, precisely, does ennoblement entail?

I. FREEDOM FROM ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT:

“That they are free from all arrest for debts, as being the king’s hereditary counsellors. Therefore a peer cannot be outlawed in any civil action, and no attachment lies against his person. This privilege extended also to their domestic servants, as well as to those of members of the lower house, till the year 1770.”

The privilege of freedom from arrest applies to members of both Houses of Parliament, as they must be available to give advice to the Sovereign. This privilege was also adopted by the Constitution of the United States:”The Senators and Representatives … shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses.”

From 1547 if a peer or peeress was convicted of a crime, except treason or murder, he or she could claim “privilege of peerage” to escape punishment if it was their first offence. The privilege was exercised five times, and abolished in 1841 when James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, claimed he would invoke the privilege if he was convicted of duelling, but was acquitted of the charge.

In most cases, this privilege was invoked to avoid imprisonment for debt, but a peer’s immunity only went so far. A peer could, theoretically, be impeached if the House of Commons brought forth charges to the House of Lords, and while the House of Lords could try peers only for felonies or treason, in impeachments, charges could also include misdemeanors.
The last impeachment was that of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, in 1806 for misappropriating public money. Impeachment is now obsolete in the United Kingdom.

II. TRIAL BY PEERS:

In criminal causes, they are only tried by their peers, who give their verdict, not upon oath, as other juries, but only upon their honour; and then a court is erected on purpose in the middle of Westminster Hall, at the king’s charge, which is pulled down when their trials are over. The right of peers to trial by their own order was formalized during the 14th century. A statute passed in 1341 provided:

Whereas before this time the peers of the land have been arrested and imprisoned, and their temporalities, lands, and tenements, goods and cattels, asseized in the King’s hands, and some put to death without judgment of their peers: It is accorded and assented, that no peer of the land … shall be brought in judgment to lose his temporalities, lands, tenements, goods and cattels, nor to be arrested, imprisoned, outlawed, exiled, nor forejudged, nor put to answer, nor be judged, but by award of the said peers in Parliament.

III. SCANDALUM MAGNATUM:

To secure the honour of, and prevent the spreading of any scandal upon peers, or any great officer of the realm, by reports, there is an express law, called scandalum magnatum, by which any man convicted of making a scandalous report against a peer of the realm (though true) is condemned to an arbitrary fine, and to remain in custody till the same be paid.
Under English law defamation was originally considered a matter for the ecclesiastical courts, whose remedy would be to order the offender to apologize. Deemed unsatisfactory by most of those whose good name, or personal honor was offended, many duels arised as a means of redress for a real or imagined injury.

The Statute of Westminster 1275introduced the offence of Scandalum Magnatum, stating; It is commanded, That from henceforth none be so hardy to tell or publish any false News or Tales, whereby discord, or occasion of discord or slander may grow between the King and his People, or the Great Men of the Realm.

The purpose was less intended to guard the reputation of the offended, but to safeguard the peace of the kingdom. By providing a lawful remedy, it was hoped that the “Great Men of the Realm” would forbear from violent means of settling disputes. The prohibition against spreading such “false News or Tales” was amplified in several subsequent acts of parliament, which forbade; Any false news, horrible and false tales concerning the Prelates, Dukes, Earls, and other Peers and great Men of the Realm …by which danger, mischief and destruction may happen to the whole Realm. Legislation of 1554 and 1559 expanded the act to include “seditious words.”
Notable examples of scandalum magnatum:

 In 1606 Andrew Melville, the Scottish religious Reformer, composed an epigram critical of the king’s religious sympathies and found himself summoned before the privy council, found guilty of scandalum magnatum and ended up spending four years in the Tower of London.

 On the 10 May 1680 the now infamous Titus Oates who committed to prison for calling the Duke of York a traitor and later fined £100,000 for scandalum magnatum. (Titus Oates was also convicted of perjury, and sentenced to be whipped, degraded, and pilloried, and then imprisoned for life. His judge, the equally infamous Judge Jeffreys commented that “He has deserved more punishment than the laws of the land can inflict.”

 In 1680 that the notorious Colonel Blood who was charged with scandalum magnatum for “fixing an imputation of a most scandalous nature upon the Duke of Buckingham” and found himself imprisoned and charged with damages of ten thousand pounds. (Colonel Blood was released on bail but died soon after.)

Even in March 1771, the printer of the Morning Chronicle found himself hauled up before the House of Lords, and fined £100 and imprisoned in Newgate for one month, for allowing his newspaper to print an “obnoxious paragraph” referring to one of their members in an unflattering light.

IV. ACCESS TO THE SOVREIGN:

Because each peer is commonly considered a counsellor of the Sovereign, and, according to Sir William Blackstone in 1765, “it is usually looked upon to be the right of each particular peer of the realm, to demand an audience of the King, and to lay before him, with decency and respect, such matters as he shall judge of importance to the public weal.”Although the privilege of access is no longer exercised, it is yet retained by peers whether members of the House of Lords or not.

V. PRIVILEGES YET PREVAILING :

 The right to be tried by other peers of the realm instead of juries of commoners (abolished in 1948)
 Freedom from arrest in civil (but not criminal) cases
 Access to the Sovereign to advise him or her on matters of state.
 Peers also have several other rights not formally part of the privilege of peerage e.g. entitlement to use coronets and supporters on their achievements of arms.

REFERENCES:
http://everything2.com/title/Scandalum+magnatum
http://www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk/pages/introduction.html

ABOUT EMERY LEE http://authoremerylee.wordpress.com

The 'romance' of Vikings?

2011-08-13T18:00:00.002+10:00

Why are Vikings romantic?

When Vikings were raiding Celtic monasteries they were not romantic. When Vikings - unkempt, insanitary, prone to arthritis after years on the sea - ravaged coastal settlements and came upriver to pillage and steal, they were not romantic. When they desecrated Christian sites, they were not romantic.

When an Anglo-Saxon village caught a Viking raider they pinned his skin to the church-door, which took the romance right out of it.

Do real Viking nicknames like 'Geirmund the Shifty', 'Ragnar Hairy-Breeches' or 'Eysteinn the Fart' induce swooning?

So why are we drawn to them?

Perhaps because they were pirates, the free-wheeling buccaneers of their age, who refused to be overwhelmed by anything, including the glories of Byzantine Constantinople - their runes and messages have been found carved into the church of Haghia Sophia in Istanbul.

Perhaps because through their sagas and art they reveal a fierce spirit of independence, a laconic, 'give-it-your best-shot ' attitude that is appealing.

Perhaps because women in Scandinavian society had many freedoms and rights, and at home Viking men were hard-working and respectful to their wives and mothers.

Perhaps because the image of the tall, blond, blue-eyed hulking warrior is a delicious fantasy that - with the benefit of historical hindsight - we can indulge in.

Here, as a partial homage to the romance of Vikings, is my short story, Seal of Odin. This is a different version from my more paranormal story, The Beach and is the earlier of the two:

Seal of Odin (PDF)

Vikings also appear, in passing, in my A Knight's Captive, which takes place in 1066 and features the battle of Stamford Bridge where the Viking king Harold Hardrada was killed.

Best wishes, Lindsay
http://www.lindsaytownsend.net/
http://www.twitter.com/lindsaytownsend

Number One London

2011-08-10T17:01:00.000+10:00

Addresses don’t come much grander than ‘Number One London’, the popular name for Apsley House.

On a recent visit to London and finding ourselves close to Hyde Park Corner where I was enjoying watching the Household Cavalry, we came upon it quite by chance.

It was the home of the Duke of Wellington following his victory over Napoleon at Waterloo, and it seems to have changed very little since the days of the Iron Duke.
You can also see a statue of Napoleon, and one of the finest art collections in London, with paintings by Velazquez and Rubens as well as an amazing collection of silver and porcelain.

Best of all I loved the Waterloo Gallery where splendid balls used to be held. I could imagine the room packed with the very echelons of society, ladies in their pretty pastel gowns, the gallants in their smart uniform, footmen moving between them offering champagne.

Harriet Arbuthnot (1793 –1834) a close friend of the Duke, often acted as hostess for these splendid events. She was rumoured to be the mistress of the Duke of the Wellington, although this is disputed. It was said that he enjoyed his relationship with Mrs Arbuthnot because he found in her "the comfort and happiness his wife could not give him." They were certainly close and she frequently hosted his dinner parties as his marriage was a cold one, his wife residing mainly in the country. Earlier, Harriet was very friendly with Lord Castlereagh, calling him her "dearest and best friend" until his death in 1822.

Married to a Charles Arbuthnot, a politician and also a great friend of Wellington, was the friendship innocent or a ménage à trois? We shall never know. She was certainly a noted society lady in a perfect position to comment upon events, and became a noted diarist. Her observations and memories of life within the British establishment were full of gossip and detail, finally published in 1950 as The Journal of Mrs Arbuthnot. She sounds such a fascinating woman that I’d like to know more about her. But do call at Number One, London. Apsley House is most definitely worth a visit.

Change is in the Air - Anne of Great Britain by Stephanie Burkhart

2011-08-09T06:00:00.001+10:00

Anne Stuart, 1705

As an American, I've always been intrigued by European monarchs. My favorite nations include: Britain, France, and Russia. I find it fascinating how that monarch shaped their times and how the times shaped the ruler.

Change was in the air when Anne Stuart was born. The Stuarts were probably the most controversial monarchs in history, torn between two religions, Catholism and the Anglican Faith, yet each of them tackled their struggles with a very human face.

Anne was the last Stuart monarch. What I find fascinating was how she faced the challenges of her time despite great personal hardship.

Anne was born to James, Duke of York and his first wife, Lady Anne Hyde in 1665. James had 8 children with his first wife, but only Mary and her sister, Anne, lived to adulthood.

Charles II, James' brother was the monarch at the time of Anne's birth. He was well liked and popular. Charles II had a slew of illegitimate children, but not one legitimate heir. Realizing Mary and Anne might succeed to the throne, Charles ensured they were baptized into the Anglican Faith.

Anne's mother died in 1670. 3 years later, her father converted to Catholism when he married Mary of Modena.

Charles II took matters into his own hands. He separated Mary and Anne from their father and they were given their own households. They were raised Anglican. James and his new wife had between 7-10 children, but only a boy, James, born in 1988 survived to adulthood. And there were plenty rumors swirling around his birth, too. (i.e. baby substitute)

Anne was 18 when she married George of Denmark in 1683. Two years later, her uncle, Charles II, died and her father took the throne. James II didn't last long. 4 years later in November 1988 (James II's son, James was born in June 1688.) William of Orange invaded with the intention of ousting James. He fled. The English people asserted James II abdicated his throne and welcomed Mary & William.

Anne came to the throne in March 1702. By all accounts her marriage to George was a happy one, but she had been pregnant 18 times. Only one son, William, survived infancy, but died in 1700 before she came to the throne. Imagine knowing how important it was to give the crown an heir and failing to complete the task?

Change was in the air, and Anne approved of the Act of Settlement dated 1701 in which the crown would be offered to the Electress Sophia of Hanover, a great-granddaughter of James I. The Electress Sophia was Protestant.

Anne's father, Catholic to the bone, died in 1701 after she agreed to the Act of Settlement. The British people had spoken – they wanted the Anglican Faith and they ensured its survival. After Anne, there were closer claimants to the throne, her younger brother born in 1688, but they were purposely excluded because they were Catholic.

The last openly Catholic Monarch (before James II) was Mary I, who succeeded her father, Henry VIII. Mary's cruelty earned her the nickname "Bloody Mary" and that cruelty resonated through the decades, guiding Anne and her people to take the nation down a different path to ensure the county's peace and prosperity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephanie Burkhart's latest release is a steampunk romance: "Victorian Scoundrel." Set in England, when Alice, Princess of York, follows her cousin, Edmund of Wales, into the past, will she cause more mischief than him by falling in love?

BLURB:
It's 2011 and compressed natural gas has taken over form the coal producing steam machines of the Victorian Age. Alice Windsor, Princess of York, follows her mischief-making cousin, Prince Edmund of Wales back to the past and 1851 where Prince Albert is hosting Britain's Great Exhibition.

Alice soon discovers Edmund has struck up a friendship with their great-grandfather, Prince Albert, and his mischief making entails leaving a dinosaur-sized footprint in history. She also meets Grayson Kentfield, Earl Swinton, and the Prime Minister, Sir John Russell. The Prime Minster finds her odd, to say the least.

It's only when Alice falls for the handsome Earl Swinton does she realize the dangers of time travel. How can she give her heart to a man from the past while striving to stop Edmund from changing time with his forward thinking ideas?

BOOK TEASER ON YOU TUBE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IUYj2d7ZeY

AMAZON KINDLE BUY LINK: http://www.amazon.com/Windsor-Diaries-Book-One-ebook/dp/B0058UG9Q6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310085532&sr=8-1

ALL ROMANCE EBOOKS: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-thewindsordiariesbookonevictorianscoundrel-571272-141.html

BARNES & NOBLE NOOK BOOK BUY LINK: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-windsor-diaries-book-one-stephanie-burkhart/1104099940?ean=2940012813824&itm=1&usri=the%2bwindsor%2bdiaries

REVIEWS: 5 Stars, Readers Favorites, Molly E: I have never read a Steam Punk novel before, but because of her fantastic writing, her engaging plot line, and fun loving characters, it will NOT be the last. I highly recommend this with highest of 5 stars, and I can't wait until the second Windsor Diaries installment releases!

5 Stars, Tami Dee, Author of the Mists of Time Series: Stephanie Burkhart has a fresh, quick, quirky, inventive imagination and she gives the readers of Victorian Scoundrel a delightful mixture of all of the above!

Enjoy this excerpt:

Grayson escorted her to a door on the right, threw it open, and put his hand on her waist, guiding her inside. A gas lamp burned on a nearby table, throwing stark, deep shadows into the room.

Her determined man shut the door and pinned her against it. He plucked her glasses from her face and threw them onto the table with the gas lamp. Then he pinned her against the door, placing his hands on the door next to her arms. His breathing was erratic. The light from the lamp cast dark shadows over his chiseled features.

"Gray--"

He stepped closer and lowered his hands, placing one on her waist. Heat spiked within her and settled low in her abdomen. His hazel eyes burned with desire. He drew in a deep breath and raised his forefinger, tracing her lips. Alice closed her eyes, but only briefly, savoring the gentle touch of his finger.

"You do wild things to my heart, sweet Alice," he finally whispered. His finger traced her cheeks, then her jaw.

She grew hot, yearning for more. Her senses spun from his sensual touch. She could hardly breathe. "Me?"

"Yes, you."
"What do I do to your heart?"

"You make it beat hard -- fast." He ran his finger down the side of her neck and traced the 'v' in her throat.

Alice met the raging inferno in his eyes and nipped at her lower lip with her teeth. "Is that all I do?"

He issued a low, deep groan from his throat and leaned forward. Their lips searched for each other, teasing, until finally they meshed into a heat-searing kiss.

Alice completely lost her head. His lips were hard, firm, staking his claim. His hands went to her waist as his long, lean body pressed against her. She placed her hands on his shoulders and glided her fingertips around the nape of his neck. She wanted this man. Etiquette and propriety be damned. Victorian values wafted to the floor. She wanted to feel every inch of him that she could. His lips trailed over her jaw, kissing the side of her neck.

"Oh, Gray..." she moaned, her flesh now highly sensitized to his touch.

She had never been kissed like this.

Find me at:

WEBSITE:
http://www.stephanieburkhart.com
TWITTER
http://twitter.com/StephBurkhart
FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephanie-Burkhart-Author/149938795021166

Seventeenth Century Aromatherapy

2011-08-08T00:36:00.001+10:00

In the seventeenth century
many grander houses in England had a "still-room". This was originally a brewing chamber, but was soon taken over by women for alternative uses - drying herbs or spices, making sweet vinegars for cosmetic or medicinal use, particularly perfumed waters to ward off disease and scent the air.

Most perfumes were imported from the Netherlands and France where they had been made popular by Catherine de Medici in Tudor times. These ingredients were on sale at the apothecaries, the spicers, and the florists, so home-made perfumes were popular too.

Common ingredients were flowers such as lavender or pinks, called gillyflowers in those days, and imported spices such as cloves and nutmeg. If the lady was able to afford it, she would have small quantities of musk or civet oil to bind the perfume into a paste.

For makinge a sweet parfume.

Take jasmine, lavender and orange flowres and mixe well in a quart of aqua vitae and rosewater.

Put into it crushed root of labdanum, sweet flag, cloves, cinnamon, amber and storax. Add a few graines of oil of musk and civet mixed with honey for its sweetnesse.

Set to soake for three days in the sun until the flowers have lost their scent. Straine well. Use to sweeten a smellinge box.

A 'smellinge box' is what we might call a pomander. In England there was another word for it, a Pouncet box. The word 'pouncet' is from the french 'pounce' or pierce, because of the pierced metalwork, usually silver, which held a small rag or sponge soaked in perfume. These were usually strung from the waist by a silk cord or a silver chain. Later they became known as vinaigrettes and were used to contain "smelling salts" a powerful mixture of wormwood, sage, mint and rue in vinegar, which supposedly revived fainting ladies, and disinfected the room.

We are used to seeing pomanders at christmas where we can make a simple one, (similar to one carried by Henry v111 to ward off disease), by sticking cloves into an orange. Below is an example of a 17th century pouncet boxes.

I remember making perfume at home as a child by gathering rose petals and squashing them into a jam jar to make rose-water. The results were more often than not - floating brown mush at the bottom of the jar and a pale liquid that smelt only vaguely of roses. Has anyone else made perfume at home?

My next novel "The Gilded Lily" features an emporium devoted to women's cosmetics in the fashionable Restoration London, and a rogue up to no good.

My current novel, "The Lady's Slipper" is an adventure and romance and features a flower used medicinally. It's out now and you can read an extract here RT Book reviews Top Pick.

www.deborahswift.blogspot.com
www.royaltyfreefictionary.blogspot.com

Short-lived medieval fashions

2011-08-06T00:22:00.000+10:00

For many centuries in the Middle Ages the basics of fashion for men and women remained the same - a gown for women and a long or short robe or tunic for men. Fashions for sleeves, hats and shoes could be more fleeting or even extreme and it's those I'm looking at today, particularly in Britain.

The sleeveless tunic, based on a knight's surcoat, was a popular clothing choice for medieval men. Then in the middle of the 13th century there was a brief fashion which added wide sleeves to the tunic and sometimes a hood, turning it into a garment called a gardecorps. This was intended to replace the surcoat and cloak, combining both into a single item, however it never really caught on. Still with sleeves and male fashion, the bag-sleeve for men, a wide, baggy sleeve snug at the wrist and shoulder, was popular for about twenty years around 1400, but again never really caught on.

For medieval women, hair and headdresses tended to be 'the thing'. Between 1130-50 there was a fashion for noble women to wear their hair long in plaits and for them to sheath these plaits in silk, usually white with red circular stripes. These sheaths were called fouriaux. However it was with headdresses that medieval noble-women especially indulged and which set the medieval clerics scolding about excess and vanity. A brief fashion, lasting roughly thirty years, was the heart-shaped head-dress, a headgear designed with two 'horns' on either side of the woman's head. Sometimes these headdresses became even wider, which caused a cleric of the time to remark: "She is hornyd like a kowe... for syn." At Ludlow, within the church of St Laurence, there is a misericord carved with a woman portrayed as a scold - and wearing a horned headdress. Women in later years wore the steeple headdress or hennin, a tall cone arrayed with long, flowing veils, although this tended to be a European than British fashion. This was also railed against by clerics, particularly in France.

All classes craved fashion, as can be seen by the various sumptuary laws passed in 1363 and 1463 which tried to stop 'lower' classes dressing in furs and certain fabrics and aping their 'betters'. Such acts made no difference as people loved to dress up.

Men's vanity was often shown in shoes. Piked shoes - shoes with points - were popular with men in the Middle Ages, although the length of the points varied through the years. The truly exaggerated points were a short fashion. The idea that men wore the long points with chains attached to their knees to stop them tripping up may simply have been a mistake or a later urban myth. However, such cramped shoes did cause medieval people to have real problems with their feet, similar to those found in women of the 1950s who wore pinching, pointed-toed stilettos. An archaeologist working in Ipswich found evidence in a medieval cemetery of people with painful feet as a result of their shoes.

Everyone, it seems, suffers for fashion, no matter how short-lived that fashion may be.

Lindsay Townsend
http://www.lindsaytownsend.net/
http://www.twitter.com/lindsayromantic

Primary Sources

2011-08-02T08:16:00.000+10:00

Article – Primary Sources

Primary sources, I feel, are a writer's best friend, especially a historical writer.
I collect Victorian diaries and journals, written mainly by women who have arrived in Australia after leaving England, but also by women born in colonial Australia. These diaries give me an insight to how they lived and what was happening in the world around them at that time. From their personal entries, we can learn what was important to them, their daily routine, their views and opinions. They can also lift some of those myths we in the modern world tend to think as true.
Diaries aren't the only primary source available to us. We have so many museums and art galleries. I love studying paintings of the different eras and visiting museums that have wonderful displays of every era.
We should be visiting our local or state libraries for books, letters, newspapers and articles written in the eras we write. Naturally this is difficult for those writing in the ancient periods, but those of us who write about the last few hundred years have sources available and we need to use them.
If you are writing about the area where you live, join your local historical society, where as a member, you can study maps, paintings and photos are that district. Also the local councils will have documents and maps going back years.
It is not always possible to visit your chosen setting, but if you can visit, make sure you don't simply go to the main attractions, like a castle, etc, but find the time to visit the graveyard of the local church, sit in a pew and study the stain glass windows, lay by the river and absorb the surroundings, listen to the birds sing, the insect buzz and imagine what it would be like in your period. Walk the back streets of the village or town, find the oldest parts and touch the walls of the buildings and think of nothing but how your characters would have lived. Would their footsteps have walked where yours have?

The photo is taken from a sketch done of Lower George St, Sydney, Australia 1828. Sketches and paintings like these give us the artist's view of those times and from studying it we can see a little of what life was like then.

I found this photo in a book, but the internet has many websites with great antique photos and paintings, some even for sale. We have to remember that what we see now isn’t always how it looked back then. So to get original drawings to study is an excellent way to recreate the correct setting as best we can.

If you write in the Victorian or Edwardian era, you may even have photos of your own family and this is another source you have to look at their clothes, etc.

I find it fascinating that we have so many choices to help us become better writers. I guess that is why research is never a chore for me. :o)

Blog visit today with an offer of a free e-book Regency Rules of Conduct

2011-07-29T16:20:00.001+10:00

I'm appearing on the Romance Writers of Australia blog today with a free e-book on offer for my Regency novel, Rules of Conduct.
https://romanceaustralia.wordpress.com
Maggi Andersen

Blowing my own trumpet!

2011-07-21T04:15:00.004+10:00

If this is blowing my own trumpet a trifle, then so be it. Today the Romantic Novelists' Association (UK) published an interview with me, so I am delighted to pass on to you the link:

http://tinyurl.com/3vypvff

I'm in France on holiday at the moment, but I'm putting photographs on my blog at http://jenblackauthor.blogspot.com/ and let me tell you, it is raining. We've been here some eighteen days and had barely three days sunshine. What is the world coming to? But here is a photgraph of the Cathedral St Front in Perigueux to whet your appetite!

Remembering the raiders

2011-07-06T22:52:00.001+10:00

I recently took my nine-year-old nephew to the national Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. The museum, which is adjacent to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, covers the history of aviation from hot-air balloons to the space station; however, we spent most of our time looking at the planes and listening to the stories from World War II because my nephew is a big fan of the Spitfire V.

Our tour guide said an English veteran of the war had visited the museum and likened flying a Spitfire to dancing with the prettiest girl in the room.

Although the nephew was the fascinated by the tales of the Battle of Britain and the cleverly named bombers, the Doolittle Raid was the story that stuck with me. For those that don’t know:

On April 18, 1942, 16 twin-engine bombers took off from the aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Hornet with the intent of bombing Tokyo. According to our tour guide, the mission was more about boosting the morale of the American people and armed forces than inflicting significant damage on Japan. Naturally, the plan didn’t go according to plan. The ship was spotted by a Japanese fishing boat about 600 miles offshore.

When radio chatter started, it was either go or dump the plans into the sea and head back to Hawaii because the United States couldn’t afford to lose another aircraft carrier so soon after Pearl Harbor.

Rather than abandoned the mission, Commander James Doolittle ordered his men to go. Eighty men, a crew of five men to each plane, took off. Because of the early launch, the plans had just enough full to make it to safe zones in China—as long as they didn’t go off course, have to take evasive action or get lost.

All 16 planes took off successfully and hit their targets in Japan, all 16 encountered anti-aircraft fire and/or intercepts, and all 16 crash-landed or the crew had to bail out. One man died bailing out, and two others drowned. Eight men were captured. The Japanese shot three of them and one died from disease brought on my malnutrition and abuse. One crew landed in Russia and later escaped. The others either landed in the safe zone or were smuggled into safe zones by Chinese civilians and soldiers.

The exhibit turns bittersweet with a glass case, which holds 80 silver goblets and one bottle of cognac. Each man has a personalized silver goblet (the raider’s name is engraved on the cup twice—right side up and upside down) and the goblets of those who have died are inverted. The Raiders have held an annual reunion since the late 1940s, and at each reunion the surviving raiders perform a roll call and toast their fallen comrades. All but five cups are inverted.

When only two Raiders remain alive, they will meet and drink a final toast using the 1896 Hennessy cognac. As I stood there, I realized that within the next few years, the cognac will be opened, the last cup inverted, and the raid—and the rest of World War II—will pass beyond living memory.

The story of the raid has stayed with me for weeks now. Perhaps there's a story in there or perhaps it's just the realization of what we're about to lose when this generation passes.

Keena Kincaid writes historical romances in which passion, magic and treachery collide to create unforgettable stories. Her books are available from The Wild Rose Press, Amazon, and wherever ebooks are sold. You also can find her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.

He Called It Macaroni

2011-07-04T08:01:00.001+10:00

Yankee Doodle went to town,
A-Riding on a pony;
Stuck a feather in his cap,
And called it macaroni.

Macaroni? He named his feather after pasta?

I'm American, and I've sung this song all my life. But I never understood what Yankee Doodle's feather had to do with spaghetti.

The verse sounds odd to our ears, but made perfect sense to English people in the mid 1700's, when the song was written.

At that time, a "Yankee", from the Dutch Jan Kees, or John Cheese (see dictionary.com definition here), was an inhabitant of New England, a pejorative name bestowed by the urbane New York Dutch on their rustic Puritan Connecticut neighbors, and by extension, to all Americans.

The word "doodle" first appeared in the seventeenth century, from the German word for "simpleton" or "fool".

From my last post, Macaroni! And I Don't Mean Pasta, "macaroni" was an extreme of English male dress, circa 1760. The style's salient characteristic, a large, ungainly wig, caused "macaroni" to become a synonym for foppishness. Put the two words together, and "Yankee Doodle" was a derisive term for a backwoods American fool so unsophisticated he thought decorating his cap with a feather was the height of fashion.

Historians generally credit Doctor Richard Shuckburgh, a British Army surgeon, with creating the song sometime during the French and Indian War (1754-1763). The date is in dispute, given in various places as 1755, 1756 or 1758.

The New York State archeologist, Paul Huey, believes he has narrowed the date to June, 1758. At that time, a large British force had mustered at Fort Crailo near Albany, New York, to prepare for the attack on Fort Ticonderoga. The ragged, ill-equipped and ill-trained New England militiamen who joined the expedition provided a stark contrast to the well-dressed, well-drilled British soldiers. Dr. Shuckburgh wrote the first set of lyrics mocking these ragtag troops. The tune apparently comes from the nursery rhyme Lucy Locket.

Something about the song resonated in colonial America, and Yankee Doodle took on a life of its own. Many sets of lyrics exist. If you’re curious about all the verses (and there are a lot of them), you'll find a list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_Doodle

Everyone sang Yankee Doodle. British soldiers often sang it as a marching song. The American colonists sang it, too, but with different lyrics.

As the tension between England and America escalated, the Americans took up the ditty, complete with feather and macaroni, as a badge of honor. By the time of the Battle of Concord and Lexington (1775), the Americans had claimed the song as their own.

Yankee Doodle lives on to this day.

Archibald MacNeal Willard's most famous painting, The Spirit of '76 (c. 1875), (picture above) is popularly called Yankee Doodle.

Yankee Doodle Dandy, a version of Yankee Doodle, is the tune to a famous song-and-dance sequence in the 1942 James Cagney film of the same name.

And last, but not least, Yankee Doodle is the state song of Connecticut. I'm from Connecticut (yup, a real Connecticut Yankee), and I didn't know that.

The Fourth of July is Independence Day in the United States. On this Yankee Doodle-est of days, here's one Yankee Doodle saying "Happy Fourth of July" to all my fellow Yankee Doodles.

Thank you all,
Linda
Linda Banche
Welcome to My World of Historical Hilarity!
http://www.lindabanche.com

'To Touch the Knight' now out!

2011-07-01T18:23:00.000+10:00

My latest Kensington medieval romance is now out and available for sale in shops and at ebook stores (UK paperback due in August). To Touch the Knight is set during the time of the Black Death, when almost a third of the people in Britain died due to the plague. It was a period of massive change and terror, but also, for the survivors, a chance for a better life. You can find more, including an excerpt and buy links, here.

Lindsay

Release Day! GIFTS GONE ASTRAY, Regency comedy

2011-06-29T08:01:00.001+10:00

Today is the release day for my latest Regency comedy novella, Gifts Gone Astray.

BLURB:
A gift is a wonderful surprise. Or maybe not.

At the Earl of Langley's family gathering, everyone receives a gift, including the servants. Tutor Stephen Fairfax expects a small token, but the present from family member Mrs. Anne Copely, the widow who's caught his eye, is a dream come true.

Until he opens it. What a gift! How did that demure lady acquire such a book? And she wants to "study" it with him? If he accepts her offer, tempting as it is, he could lose his job.

Anne has no idea why Mr. Fairfax is in such a flutter. Her present is a simple book of illustrations. The subject interests them both, and she would like nothing better than to examine the book--and Mr. Fairfax--more closely.

EXCERPT:
She glanced at the mantel clock. "Oh, look at the time! I must return to the drawing room. So much to do before the family party tonight. But, before I leave..." She swallowed. "We had some trouble with the gifts today. Yours went missing. I apologize—"

"But I received a gift. Someone left it outside my door."

"Thank the stars." She pressed her hand to her bosom.

Stephen's gaze followed her hand down and his throat dried.

"I worried your present was lost."

She worried about me. Capital! He tore his eager gaze from her breasts and lifted his head. "I have not yet unwrapped it. A book, I take it?"

"Yes. The volume belonged to my husband. He was a scholar, and that book was one of his favorites. Mine, too. We spent many happy hours enjoying it." Another dazzling smile curved her lips. "I selected it with you in mind."

His pulse thumped. I have a chance. "You flatter me with your consideration."

"My pleasure." She flashed another of her heart-stopping smiles. "As much as I long to, I will not ruin the surprise by telling you what the book is." She smoothed her face into a blank stare, but her glorious chocolate eyes twinkled.

So, she wanted to play games. He gave an inward smirk. He would love to play games of a different sort. But he would settle for a guessing game. For now.

Available at:

The Wild Rose Press

Note, depending where you are, the links might not yet be active.

Thank you all,
Linda
Linda Banche
Welcome to My World of Historical Hilarity!
http://www.lindabanche.com

Prostitution during the Victorian era. ~ New Release SURRENDER TO DESTINY

2011-06-19T10:56:00.000+10:00

The Great Social Evil, as prostitution became known in the mid-19th Century, was brought about by the shift from a moral/religious cause to a socio-economic one. The 1851 consensus revealed the population was approximately 18 million, which amounted to 750,000 women who would remain unmarried because there were too few men. These women were labelled 'redundant and superfluous' and many ended up in prostitution.
While the Magdalene Asylums had been "reforming" prostitutes since the mid-18th century, the years between 1848 and 1870 saw a veritable explosion in the number of institutions working to "reclaim" these "fallen women" from the streets and retrain them for entry into respectable society — usually for work as domestic servants. Many girls were orphans and many came from the country, often tricked into "the life" and unable to return home. Some were as young as eight years old!

Prostitutes were often presented as victims in literature such as Thomas Hood's poem The Bridge of Sighs, Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Mary Barton, and Dicken's novel Oliver Twist. The emphasis on the purity of women found in such works as Coventry Patmore's The Angel in the House led to the portrayal of the prostitute and fallen woman as soiled, corrupted, and in need of cleansing.
This emphasis on female purity was allied to the stress on the homemaking role of women.

While making a movie about Giovanna Russo’s life in Victorian London, Astrid Leclair and Dylan Shaw steam up the screen with their passionate scenes.
Two men desire the beautiful artist’s model, Giovanna Russo. One intends to make her his mistress and the other wants her dead.
Buy Link: http://www.newconceptspublishing.com/books/SurrenderToDestiny.html

LONDON 1890
Gina Russo looked up at the attic window where driving rain had caused a leak to form. It dripped down onto the floorboards, forming a pool at her stepfather's feet. He seemed completely unaware of it, but then, when he was painting, the building could burn down around him.
"You must move your easel, Milo," she ordered him, placing her hands on her hips. "Your trousers will get wet and in this miserable, moldy climate, you'll catch your death."
He looked up blankly, paintbrush poised above the canvas where he painted a still life. "But, the light, Gina!"
"I do not intend to be orphaned in this cold-hearted city. What would I do without you?"
He laughed and wiped his brush on a cloth, then threw it down onto a table piled with brushes and half-squeezed tubes of paint. "You have made a good point. You're not just pretty, my girl, you've got something up here," he tapped his forehead.
She helped him move his things away then ran to place a bowl under the drip.
"When will you pose for me again, Gina? I have great hopes for the last painting I did."
"When you have sold another painting and we can afford some coal," she said firmly. "I am not stripping off in this cold. And we need decent food."
"Aah. I can taste a tender turkey breast stuffed with sweet Italian sausage and chestnuts. That would be most welcome."
"We shall be eating your Still Life with Apples, Milo, long before that." Gina watched as he settled at his easel once more, and pick up his brush. There would be no more conversation for the afternoon.
She grabbed the broom and began to sweep the floor at the far end of the room. She worked to warm herself. She'd swept the floor that morning, but no matter how many times she cleaned it, it always looked dirty. Work also helped to clear her head. She was constantly thinking up schemes to leave horrid, foggy London. She had been thirteen years old when her mother brought her to England, old enough to remember the sunny days and green hills of Tuscany.
She turned to study the bowl of wizened fruit and vase of wilting flowers she had purchased from the market that morning for Milo to paint. Surely, the sun-ripened fruit of her homeland was sweeter. Her mother had been like a delicate flower, she had not thrived in an English winter. She hated the cold and fog. She was fond of saying that Italians knew how to live and the men knew how to love.
It was certainly true that the Englishmen who pursued Gina had money where their hearts should be. They knew nothing of a love that took hold of you, mind, body, and soul. To them she would be an acquisition, someone they could flaunt in front of their friends and boast about in their clubs. She would have none of it. She had promised her mother.
When her mother had married Milo and came to England, she had become a much sought after artist's model. Even after her death, Gina and Milo remained loyal to their friends of the demi-world, the shadow world of fellow artists, models, writers, thespians, courtesans and musicians, through which the upper classes wandered, paying for anything they desired. It could be an exciting world, but had a dark side of despair, poverty, ruin and untimely death.
Her mother had died of inflammation of the lungs at thirty-six. She was already ailing when she married Milo, fifteen years her elder. She knew he would take care of Gina after she was gone. Even when her health was failing, she would drag Gina to church every Sunday. Her final words still echoed in Gina's ears. "We have a saying in Italy, sweet child. You never forget your first love. I loved your father and if only he'd lived.... No matter how hard life gets, don't ever be tempted to sell your body, for that will destroy your soul. Remember you are a good Christian girl. Promise me!"
Gina touched the hair-bracelet on her wrist, made with her mother's lovely golden hair. When she had asked her mother about her father, she would always turn away. "Better that you don't know." Her standard reply left Gina wondering what made her so sad and reluctant to reveal the past. Had her mother and father been married?
"Bah," Gina said, swatting at some imaginary speck of dirt. She was sick of being grindingly poor. The struggle to live tore the heart out of you and dragged you down. She hated London, its miles of rat infested, filthy cobblestone alleys and shabby brick and stucco houses, the noise and the smells and the dirt. She hated feeling desperately sad for the tatty, barefoot children. She hated her cheap dresses, and longed to have something store-bought and pretty. She hated their ugly, leaky attic rooms that no amount of cleaning could turn into a home, most of all.
A block away, the street prostitutes trolled between the gin shop and the pawnshop, younger than she, some of them. Green from the country, they quickly become addicted to the drink and their gentle eyes turned hard. Lying in bed at night, she'd listen to them out there under the gaslights. Dancing, drinking, and singing into the small hours. The sounds of their hollow laughter made her want to weep and pull a pillow over her head.
As she put away the broom, Gina's thoughts turned to Milo. How did he produce such beauty in his paintings, in a place like this? She put her hand to her mouth. How could she be so ungrateful?
"Did you say something, mio caro?" Milo asked, adding a highlight to a painted apple. The apple had become his signature and appeared in most of his paintings. His painted apple was so much fresher and redder than the one in the bowl. Perhaps that was his secret, he saw life through rose-colored glasses.
"No, Milo," she said, going to stir the minestrone soup that with bread and cheese, would have to do them until the end of the week.
"You're a good daughter, Gina," he said absently.

http://www.maggiandersenauthor.com

Wikipedia
A Dictionary of Victorian London Lee Jackson

Now released! The House of Women

2011-06-15T13:30:00.001+10:00

I'm so excited that my historical novel, The House of Women, is now released.

Blurb
Leeds. 1870. Lonely and brokenhearted, Grace Woodruff fights for her sisters’ rights to happiness while sacrificing any chance for her own.
    The eldest of seven daughters, Grace is the core of strength around which the unhappy members of the Woodruff family revolve. As her disenchanted mother withdraws to her rooms, Grace must act as a buffer between her violent, ambitious father and the sisters who depend upon her. Rejected by her first love and facing a spinster’s future, she struggles to hold the broken family together through her father’s infidelity, one sister’s alcoholism, and another’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy by an unsuitable match.
    Caring for an illegitimate half-brother affords Grace an escape, though short-lived. Forced home by illness and burdened with dwindling finances, Grace faces fresh anguish –and murder– when her first love returns to wreck havoc in her life. All is not lost, however. In the midst of tragedy, the fires of her heart are rekindled by another. Will the possibility of true love lead Grace to relinquish her responsibilities in the house of women and embrace her own right to happiness?

Excerpt

   Grace blinked to clear her frozen mind as her mother and Verity climbed the staircase. If Verity was here then was William here too? Movement at the door caused Grace to close her eyes. She couldn’t bring herself to open them and see the one man she’d longed for since she was sixteen.
    ‘Miss Woodruff?’ Doyle inquired at her shoulder.
    Startled, she spun to face him, but she was blind to him, blind to everything but the sensation of having William here. Crazily, she wondered if she would swoon like a maiden aunt.
    Doyle’s hand reached out, but he quickly tucked it behind his back. ‘What is it, Miss Woodruff?’
    Grace swallowed, feeling the fine hairs on her arms and nape prickle. He is here.
    'Good evening, Grace.’
    At the sound of William’s deep velvety voice, her heart stopped beating, only to start again at a rapid pace. Her stomach clenched and her legs felt unable to support her anymore. Slowly, she swivelled to gaze into William’s blue-green eyes and knew she was lost again. William smiled his captivating smile. He had aged, no, matured since their last meeting. He looked leaner, but broader in the shoulders. There was an aura about him, something that females of any age wanted. He made all other men around him seem insignificant. A magnetism, a mystical air surrounded him, catching Grace in its clutches once more.

Order The House of Women from Amazon.com, or The Book Depository, which has free postage.
http://www.bookdepository.com/House-Women-Anne-Whitfield/9780956790187

For more information about me or my books, please visit my website.
http://www.annewhitfield.com

Trencarrow Secret Released Today

2011-06-10T07:58:00.001+10:00

I am pleased to announce my Victorian Gothic Romance, Trencarrow Secret is released today by MuseItUp Publishing.

Isabel Hart is afraid of two things, the maze at Trencarrow where she got lost as a young child, and the lake where her brother David saved her from drowning in a boating accident.

With her twenty-first birthday and the announcement of her engagement imminent, Isabel decides it is time for her to face her demons and ventures into the maze. There she sees something which will alter her perceptions of herself and her family forever.

Isabel’s widowed aunt joins the house party, where her cousin confides she is in love with an enigmatic young man who surely cannot be what he pretends, for he is surely too dashing for homely Laura?

When Henry, Viscount Strachan and his mother arrives, ostensibly to use her ball as an arena for finding a wife, Isabel is determined not to like him.

As more secrets are revealed, Isabel doubts she has chosen the right man, although her future fiancé has more vested in this marriage than Isabel realizes and has no intention of letting her go easily.

Will Isabel be able to put her preconceptions of marriage behind her and take charge of her own life, or is her life destined to be controlled by others?

Available from MuseItUp Publishing Bookstore. Click Here

Book Blog: http://trencarrowsecret.blogspot.com

Author Blog: http://thedisorganisedauthor.blogspot.com

Suffragettes

2011-06-03T09:00:00.003+10:00

My latest title, Angels at War, out this month in paperback, is the sequel to House of Angels, although the story will stand alone. Again this book is set in the Lake District, partly in the beautiful Kentmere Valley around the time of the First World War It’s a beautiful quiet corner of England which hasn’t changed much since. The nearest village is Staveley, situated between Kendal and Windermere, and the hills can offer some of the best walking the Lakes. Here is picture to tempt you to visit.

But this book is also about suffragettes. The suffragette movement in Great Britain was focused around Manchester as that is where Emeline Pankhurst and her family lived. The general election of 1905 brought it to the attention of the wider nation when Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenny interrupted Sir Edward’s speech with the cry: ‘Will the Liberal Government give votes to women?’

They were charged with assault and arrested. The women further shocked the world by refusing to pay the shilling fine, and were consequently thrown in jail. Never before had English suffragists resorted to violence, but it was the start of a long campaign. Their headquarters were transferred from Manchester to London and by 1908, and now dubbed the suffragettes, they were marching through London, interrupting MP’s speeches, assaulting policemen who attempted to arrest them, chaining themselves to fences, even sending letter bombs and breaking the windows of department stores and shops in Bond Street. They went on hunger-strikes while incarcerated, brutalised in what became known as the ‘Cat and Mouse Act.’ This ‘war’ did not end until 1928 when women were finally granted the vote in equal terms with men. They showed enormous courage and tenacity, were prepared to make any sacrifice to achieve their ends.

Livia is one such woman. She is fiercely independent – a ‘modern’ woman in her eyes, and having suffered at the hands of a brutal father, she is reluctant to give up her independence and subject herself to the control of any male. She dreams of bringing back to life the neglected drapery business, but standing in her way is the wealthy and determined Matthew Grayson who has been appointed to oversee the restoration of the business. His infuriating stubbornness clashes with Livia’s tenacity and the pair get off to a bad start. She then joins the Suffragette Movement which puts further strain on her relationship with Jack, the other man in her life, who she has promised to marry one day.

I’ve written about suffragettes before, as the subject fascinates me. How passionate these women must have felt to put their lives at risk in the way they did. Here is a description from the book of the force feeding ritual.

Excerpt:
This morning when the cell door banged open, instead of the tempting tray of food brought to plague them, came a small, stocky man with side whiskers and a mole on his chin. The wardress shook Livia awake.

‘Get up girl, the doctor needs to examine you. We can’t have you die on us for lack of food.’
There followed a humiliating examination in which she was again poked and prodded, a stethoscope held to her chest, her pulse taken. When he was done he turned to the wardress and gave a nod. The wardress smiled, as if he’d said something to please her. ‘If you will not eat of your own accord, then we must find a way to make you.

There were four of them now crowding into the cell, huge Amazonian women with muscles on them like all-in wrestlers, and they brought with them such a bewildering assortment of equipment that even Mercy paled.

‘Dear lord, they’re going to force feed us.’

They dealt with Mercy first. She fought like a tiger while Livia cried and begged them to stop, and finally sobbed her heart out as her protests were ignored. The four women held Mercy down, shoved in the tube and poured the liquid mixture into her stomach. When they were done they dropped her limp body back on the bed.

Then it was Livia’s turn.

She tried to run but there was no escape. They picked her up bodily and strapped her into a chair by her wrists, ankles and thighs, then tied a sheet under her chin. The sour breath and stale sweat of the women’s armpits made her want to vomit; their heavy breasts suffocating her as they held her down. The wardress was panting with the effort of trying to force open her mouth, while another woman held her nose closed. Livia did her utmost to resist, heart racing, teeth clenched, but she could scarcely breathe.

Then she felt the cold taste of metal slide between her lips. The implement, whatever it was, cut into her gums as the wardress attempted to prise them open. Livia tried to jerk her head away but it was held firmly by one of the women standing behind her. Once again pictures flashed into her mind of the tower room at Angel House, the place where her father had carried out unspeakable tortures upon the three sisters, bullying one in order to control the other.

Livia hadn’t been able to escape then, and she couldn’t now. The constant stabbing at her gums and teeth was every bit as painful as having one drawn. The steel probe scraped against her gums, and Livia tasted the iron saltiness of her own blood, felt it trickle down her throat. She heard the rasp of a screw, felt the inexorable pressure of a lever. Either she opened her teeth beneath the unrelenting pressure of the steel instrument, or they would shatter. That’s if she didn’t die of suffocation first.

As Livia snatched at a breath a tube was instantly shoved down into her stomach. ‘Gocha!’ the woman cried in triumph.

It scraped down her dry throat, causing the muscles to convulse. Then the screw, or lever, whatever it was, jammed firmly between her teeth so that she could resist no more as a curdled mix of milk and egg was poured into her.

Livia felt as if she were choking, as if her entire body were filling up with the liquid and drowning her. When the tube was finally pulled out, the whole mess seemed to explode out of her, spraying the clean aprons and hard, unyielding faces of her assailants. They were furious and flung her on to the hard bed, gathered up their equipment and left her blessedly in peace, stinking of sour milk and vomit.

Angels at War, published by Allison & Busby - now released.

On olives, longevity and litigiousness

2011-05-25T00:39:00.008+10:00

There's something serious about olive-trees. Gnarled, ironhard, producing grey-green leaves and succulent salty fruits often for centuries on end, they are frankly a bit special. Nowadays there is a connoisseur trade in ancient olive-trees, symbols of a timeless rustic lifestyle, old masters with bark on them.

In Greece olive oil was essential as a staple crop for local consumption and export, as it still is, and in Athens the trees were under regular inspection. Amongst them the sacred olive-trees were especially precious, as the un-named defendant of a lawsuit in around 395BC knew well. Scattered across the farms of Attica, some of them little more than stumps with fences around them, these trees were thought to descend from one presented to the infant city by Athene herself and were protected by religious law.

We know of the case, though not its outcome, from the speech written for the defendant by the professional speechwriter Lysias. The piece of land in dispute had once been confiscated from a discredited oligarch and since then resold to the defendant, who had proceded to rent it out to a series of tenants. The accusation had been made, for reasons unknown, that he had uprooted and removed a sacred olive stump from his land. This could have resulted in his exile and the confiscation of his property by the state, so the man's defence was robust.

The speech touches on several aspects of Athenian society. First the defendant denies that there had ever been this olive-stump on his land in the first place, then blames the Peloponnesian War, in which the Spartan army had devastated olive-trees, which take a generation to grow large enough to bear fruit, as a scorched-earth tactic. Why, he went on, should he do anything so stupid as to destroy a sacred object in broad daylight, when anyone could report him? Even if he had managed to keep it secret, his own slaves could have blackmailed him for ever after. In any case, there were no other olives on that piece of land and its absence would have been obvious for all to see. He has offered those same slaves for torture - a common tactic implying an absence of anything to hide - but his generous offer was spurned by his accuser, who dismissed slave evidence as unreliable.

The details go on, but the speaker ends with a familiar appeal. Since Athenian law concentrated not purely on the case but on the characters of the plaintiff and defendant, he plays up his services to the city - financing a trireme for the navy, supplying funds for a play at one of the dramatic festivals (themselves semi-religious affairs) - and piles on the sack-cloth and ashes. How unfortunate I would be, he says, driven into exile, torn from my children, leaving my mother destitute and my house deserted!

All about a tree-stump. But in the Athenian context it was a matter of enormous importance, bringing together religious belief, social and political jealousy, the master-slave relationship, past history, civic identity and the love of going to law. Being rich enough to equip a warship meant that this defendant was also rich enough to hire Lysias, but he had to deliver every word of the speech himself. On the Hill of Ares, before the King-Arkhon and jurors, with the prospect of exile in front of him, this unknown man was on his own.

It's in this context that I wrote A Pig in the Roses, which includes a trial held in this court - full details are at http://peteralanorchard.net/, along with my children's story The House in Athene Street, my short story collection Voices in the Past and the latest Anglo-Saxon story, Starlight.

STOP PRESS: A Pig in the Roses is a miserly $1.99 this week at Smashwords if you use coupon ST73U (offer ends on June 3).

Peter
http://www.peteralanorchard.net/
http://twitter.com/peteraorchard

Regency Romance and Cats

2011-05-23T18:48:00.009+10:00

Grace Elliot - cat lover and romantic

I recently met another English historical novelist on Facebook - Grace Elliot, and was interested to discover that by day she is a vet.
I interviewed her to find out how historical romance and the world of science and animal medicine might meet, as they seem strange bedfellows. Although people might think it a little odd, incongruous even – evidence based science versus flights of imagination - Grace expained that the two very different occupations make perfect companions.

Grace said:
"Vetting is an emotionally draining job and as a professional I must hold my feelings in check, whereas writing is about expression and helping others to experience emotion. After a demanding day’s work, writing is my therapy; a completely different skill that helps me leave the pressures of work behind. Immersing myself in plot and description has taught me how to switch off from the real world and escape for a while to a time of satins and silks, where real men rode stallions and a woman with opinions was considered rebellious.

Deborah: What made you embark upon writing historical romance?

"Until five years ago, despite being an avid reader, I was prejudiced against the romance genre. Mistakenly, I had the impression romance was light weight fiction, a flimsy read for ‘losers’ (Before you throw things at the screen, let me say that it took me reading Prince Charming by Gaelen Foley, to see how utterly wrong I was.) In a eureka moment I realized there was enough pressure and angst in the real world, to make the escapism of reading historicals a sensible way of staying sane.
I describe myself as a ‘guerrilla’ writer. As a wife, mother and working woman, I take advantage of every spare moment and ruthlessly hunt out moments that would otherwise be lost to watching TV soaps (or doing housework!), to spend them writing instead."

Deborah:Tell us about your Regency debut novel, "A Dead Man's Debt" and what inspired you to write that particular story.

‘A Dead Man’s Debt’ is a story of blackmail, duty and unexpected love. I wanted to explore how an independent minded woman (Celeste Armitage) would fair in the Regency world of etiquette and restrictions. As a foil to unconventional Celeste, the hero, Lord Ranulf Charing, is a man hamstrung by duty who subjugates his own desires to protect the family’s reputation.
The inspiration behind the story for ‘A Dead Man’s Debt’ sprang from a portrait of the young Emma Hart (who later married Lord Hamilton and became Horatio Nelson’s mistress) The painting by George Romney shows an innocent yet lush young woman, scantily clad with a hint of bosom, brazenly staring out of the canvas with an allure that is quite hypnotic. It struck me as sensational for an 18th century work, that the sitter was not prim, proper, straight backed and starchy. At the time the picture must have been utterly scandalous.
So what if the woman in the portrait wanted to shock? From this, Lady Sophia Cadnum, (Ranulf’s mother) was born; a woman used as a brood mare, who resented her children. What if years later, this same portrait threatened to disgrace her son, forcing him to do the very thing she resented and marry from duty…"

Thanks Grace for taking the time to talk to me. You can find out more about Grace at
http://www.graceelliot-author.blogspot.com/
‘A Dead Man’s Debt’ is available on Amazon, Smashwords, Fictionwise as well as other eBook stores.

For more about Deborah -

http://www.royaltyfreefictionary.blogspot.com/

http://www.deborahswift.blogspot.com/

Macaroni! And I Don't Mean Pasta

2011-05-20T10:01:00.000+10:00

Every era has its extremes of dress. The Sixties had micro-minis. The Roaring Twenties had flapper dresses. Georgian England had macaronis.

Although today most fashion is geared toward women, the macaronis were men. "Macaroni" or "maccaroni", from the Italian word, maccherone, which literally means a boorish fool, described the height, and often the extremes, of male fashion in the mid 1700's.

Brought from the continent by idle young men on their Grand Tour, macaroni dress took the standard male wardrobe of wig, coat, waistcoat, breeches, stockings and shoes to absurd lengths. The express purpose was to shock people. And shock they did. Coats were tight. Huge buttons decorated short waistcoats. Narrow, dainty shoes sported buckles almost larger than they were. And copious amounts of lace, ribbon, ruffles and whatever other outrageous decoration took the wearer's fancy trimmed the outfits, with everything in gaudy colors and showy fabrics like silks and satins.

Perhaps the most obvious feature of macaroni fashion was the wig. As in these pictures, macaroni wigs were excessively elaborate and tall, and, by contrast, crowned with a tiny hat that literally could be removed only with the point of a sword.

Macaroni clothing was never mainstream. While the fashion provided a wealth of fodder for caricatures, most people laughed it off as the blatant posturing of immature males.

The word remains in the vocabulary, although today its definition has constricted to pasta. But several vestiges of its original meaning linger to confound us.

The Macaroni Penguin, a large crested penguin native to Antarctica and the southern tip of South America, owes its name to the Georgian macaronis. English mariners in the Falkland Islands, off the coast of Chile, named the bird. With its flamboyant, colored head feathers, the penguin reminded the sailors of the macaronis back home.

And Yankee Doodle "stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni".

Next time, Yankee Doodle and macaronis.

Thank you all,
Linda
Welcome to My World of Historical Hilarity!
http://www.lindabanche.com

A Rake's Progress Through Literature

2011-05-14T12:11:00.002+10:00

HOW TO TAME A RAKE

Blake, Viscount Dangerfield must marry Wilhelmina Corbet, his cousin three times removed, or lose his inheritance. It is a codicil in his despised father’s will. That he must marry at eight and twenty, when life is just as he likes it comes as a shock, but to marry a drab hoyden just out of the schoolroom, a hayseed from Northumberland, is deplorable. The last time he saw her she had her hair down and was climbing a tree.

When Willy comes to stay at Hawkeswood, she proves to be everything Blake feared and more, riding his father’s untamed horse and rescuing a fox cub with a broken leg. Blake grits his teeth and decides that after they marry, he will leave her in the country to raise his child, while he returns to London, where his men friends and the ladies of the opera know how to live.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Tame-Rake-ebook/dp/B003XYETXO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A24IB90LPZJ0BS&s=books&qid=1305336890&sr=1-1

RAKE is short for rakehell, a historic term for a man of immoral conduct, who uses women heartlessly for his own ends.
In Restoration English comedy (1660-1688) the rake was a carefree, witty, sexually irresistible aristocrat. The merry gang of courtiers, of which the 2nd Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Dorset were a part, combined riotous living with intellectual pursuits and patronage of the arts. After the end of Charles II rein, however, the rake took a dive into squalor. His fate was sealed in debtor's prison, venereal disease or in the case of William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress, insanity in Bedlam.
In 18th Century England, a rake was seen to be someone who wasted his inherited fortune on gambling, wine and women incurring vast debts. He was also a man who seduced innocent young women and left them pregnant.
This thoroughly unattractive rakehell has been turned into a brooding hero by authors such as the Bronte sisters, and later, Georgette Heyer and Barbara Cartland. In modern historical romances, he continues to be redeemed by a feisty heroine.
My three novellas are available in e-book and are coming to print in an anthology, Regency Bucks soon.
HOW TO TAME A RAKE
STIRRING PASSIONS
LOVE AND WAR
http://www.maggiandersenauthor.com

Free historical short story

2011-05-11T11:03:00.002+10:00

My historical short story, A New Dawn, is now available for FREE on my publisher's website.

http://www.knoxrobinsonpublishing.com/bindex.php?cPath=17

Burb

Escaping a brutal father, Briony runs to James, the man she loves.
With his family’s blessing, they marry and prepare for a new life in a new country – America.
A wedding gift of two tickets to travel on an ocean liner is a wonderful surprise.
Full of anticipation and hope, they set sail.
Only, fate has sent them a challenge that tests, not just their strength and love, but their very survival.

Ancient Greece for mystery-lovers... and for children

2011-05-01T20:50:00.004+10:00

As I wrote my ancient Athens mystery, A Pig in the Roses, I grew rather fond of the hero's family: Diokles himself, the determined but harrassed merchant with a lot on his mind; his wife Helike, a bustling country girl making a go of city life; their young daughter Xanthippe, bright-eyed and curly-haired, desperate to achieve some grown up dignity in spite of the activities of her much younger brother Euphemos, a self-absorbed bundle of chaos.

One of the elements I tried to maintain in what is in places quite a dark book - it contains several deaths and some murky social undertones - was the picture of a normal family coping with a desperate situation while trying to maintain their normality. There was no criminal investigation in ancient Greece, and it was the duty of the family to pursue an offender and bring cases to court, so Diokles is knocked sideways when his wife's uncle Makron, earning a living in town as a stonemason and living with his hypochondriac ex-slave mistress in Diokles' house, is hauled before a magistrate and accused of murdering his brother, an elderly farmer.

The book is set in 431 BC, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, a time of country folk abandoning their villages to cram themselves into every available living-space in Athens, of tensions and divided loyalties. The chain of events involves several murders and all the family becomes involved. Diokles bears the brunt of it, with his persistence, trading contacts and tendency to jump in with both feet, but Helike makes important contributions through her dealings with other wives and spiky encounters with another key figure, Melitta, a young Samian courtesan.

Xanthippe and Euphemos, too, have their parts to play, and it was involving the children which made me think there was a story for young readers to be made out of the family, or characters based on them. The result was The House on Athene Street, a 10,000-worder for the 9-12s. This is a much more straightforward plot. Those who read both books will recognise the family, but most of the names are changed and the hero is an elder brother, the 13-year-old Hermippos, created for the children's story. Athene Street keeps the social context, ditches the politics and goes for a kidnap and chase plot involving the youngest child, the Egyptian girl Tiya, who keeps a perfume-stall, Tiya's uncle Wenamun, a length of rope, a pottery horse and rider and a stroppy red-head up a tree. Hermippos, naturally, saves the day, with lessons learnt about loyalty, bravery, co-operation, difference and the persistence of small brothers.

The difference in writing between the two? Not much, really. The Pig is much the more complex and has elements which children will not (probably should not) follow, but still qualifies as a 'cozy'. The parents are seen in a protective role in Athene Street, with the children to the front of the action, and nobody comes to much harm except the villain's dignity.

Both books are Smashwords titles, are available in all the usual formats and are scheduled to appear at the main ebook sellers as part of Smashwords' premium programme. All the details, summaries, buy links and excerpts are on my website, http://www.peteralanorchard.net/, and my Smashwords page.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story

2011-04-23T00:01:00.002+10:00

A very fanciful news item made the rounds a few weeks ago: the discovery of the first gay caveman. When I saw the story, I figured the headline writers were just being salacious, as such writers are. However, the "gay caveman" was the conclusion of the lead archeologist.

A few weeks later, a similar news item on the discovery of nine skeletons, mostly children, led to the lead: “The screams must have been unbearable.” The story goes onto say, “Dozens, maybe even hundreds, of women, babies and children were strangled, stripped of possessions and tossed into the ditch that encircled the fort.” The writer based the beginning entirely on supposition.

My former city editor used to say, “Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.” He was being sarcastic, of course, and I can only imagine his words—most of them unprintable—if either of these two news stories came across his desk.

The facts, in both cases, comprise of skeletons, and the items the bodies were or weren’t buried with. In the first case, a man from the Corded Ware culture was found buried in a manner previously only seen in graves for females. According to the article, the society, sometimes called the Battle Ax or the Single Grave culture, typically buried people with gender-specific tools—weapons for men, pots and jugs for women.

So what does this mean? Apparently that the man was gay. Lead archeologist Kamila Remisova Vesinova said, “From history and ethnology, we know that people from this period took funeral rites very seriously so it is highly unlikely that this positioning was a mistake. Far more likely is that he was a man with a different sexual orientation, homosexual or transsexual.”

Far more likely? Far more likely that the archeologist either is looking for publicity or she forgot to check her biases at the door. Almost all societies did—and do—take burial rites seriously.

I’m not saying that the man in question wasn’t gay. The fact is, we have no idea who he was, what he was, or why he was buried as a woman. As a novelist, I could spin quite a tale about how he came to be buried in such a manner. But that's the fun part of writing fiction. Nonfiction writers and journalists need to stick to the facts even as they questions them.

In the second story, we have no idea why the three adults, teenager, toddler and four infants ended up in a mass grave minus any possessions. The archeologist in charge believes it could be—could be—possible that more skeletons will be found in the ancient ditch, all victims of intertribal fighting during Britain’s Iron Age. While the theory is solid, “could be” is a long way from unbearable screams and unheeded pleas for mercy.

Am I the only one bothered by such lapses in academic and journalistic objectivity?

Interview: Diane Scott Lewis

2011-04-20T13:31:00.000+10:00

Today at Historical Belles and Beaus we welcome historical author Diane Scott Lewis.

Diane has a new historical release, Elysium, a story about Napoleon and his exile on the island of St Helena and the people who went with him, including the delightful Amélie Perrault.

Diane, what inspired you to write this book?

Anne, thank you for having me here. When I wrote my first novel, The False Light, in my original ending (now deleted) I had my heroine travel to St. Helena to visit her old friend, Napoleon. I started to research his time on this rugged, remote, island, and became fascinated by his character, the politics that trapped him there, the people who traveled with him and the possibility he may have been poisoned. The island is intriguing with unusual flora and fauna and topographical features—a character in itself.

I decided I needed to write an entire book with Napoleon as a main character. I also created my heroine, Amélie, a strong-willed woman—the fictional daughter of the head chef—who would rally his soul and love him for himself. She suspects an assassin has been sent with their entourage to murder Napoleon, and ferrets out the culprit.

How did you choose the title?

In my research, Napoleon’s chamberlain—who took dictation and wrote the ex-emperor’s memoires—said he spoke like a spirit on the Elysian Fields. I chose the shorter, Elysium, which in Greek mythology is a “delightful paradise where the gods are sent to die.” Of course, it’s also very tongue-in-cheek, because St. Helena was far from delightful for Napoleon. To Amélie it was her paradise because she found love.

What is your writing process?

I rise early, because mornings are my best time with the most energy. I’m afraid I write by the seat-of-my-pants; in other words, I don’t follow an outline. All my early novels were conceived this way, just throwing ideas onto the computer screen, then researching as needed. This process led to long, rambling stories without enough focus. The False Light and Elysium were first created over ten years ago, and I had to trim them down after I learned about plot, theme and structure. From now on I plan to be more disciplined and at least have some idea where I need the story to go.

How hard, or easy, was the research for Elysium?

In the time before the internet, I spent hours at the Library of Congress researching books on Napoleon’s final exile. Some of the books were actually written during his time there, one in 1817, a marvellous resource. I purchased books recommended, such as historian Octave Aubry’s detailed Sainte-Hélène. I read books written by Napoleon’s valets who suffered with him on the island. I spoke regularly to a Napoleonic scholar who had visited St. Helena several times.
The research wasn’t easy, but I enjoyed the process.

Did you learn anything from writing and publishing this book? What?

I learned so much, I could have written another novel about the characters on St. Helena. In fact, I had to delete actual historical personages from the story because it grew too huge. Through my careful research, I learned that Napoleon wasn’t at all the extreme villain many have portrayed him as, and I tried to show that in this novel. I’m sure I’ll hear disparagement—as I did in one contest—over my effort to make him a rounded human being who desired love as we all do. I also discovered that many escape schemes were formulated to rescue the ex-emperor from his exile. I played on this theme in Elysium. Could Napoleon have escaped? In trying to publish Elysium, I found that mainstream agents and editors weren’t comfortable with me fictionalizing Napoleon, so I chose an innovative small press.

What is your favourite time of year?

The spring. I’m originally from California, where we had mild winters. Now I live in Virginia where it actually, gasp, snows! I run my heating bill up so high just to keep warm. When spring arrives, like now, and the flowers bud, the birds sing, I can stand on my front porch and not shiver, it’s like a reprieve from the Arctic.

What are you working on now?

Another historical—my favorite genre—Ring of Stone. The story is set in the late eighteenth century in Cornwall, England. My heroine, Rose Gwynn, aspires to practice as a physician, uncovers evil village secrets and finds love in the least expected place.

Do you have another release coming out soon?

I hope to have my sequel to The False Light, Without Refuge, out early next year.

Thank you for visiting us, Diane.

Elysium Blurb:
In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte is exiled to remote Saint Helena. Amélie Perrault, the daughter of Napoleon’s head chef, is determined through healing herbs to rise in importance and is fascinated with the fallen French Emperor. After her beautiful singing voice catches Napoleon’s attention, she is drawn into his clash with their British jailers, court intrigues and a burgeoning sexual attraction.
Napoleon is soured on love. Since political maneuvers fail to release him, he desires freedom no matter the risk. Amélie suspects someone in their entourage is poisoning the emperor. Now she must uncover the culprit and join in Napoleon’s last great battle plan, a dangerous escape.

Elysium can be purchased here:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=elysium+diane+scott+lewis

Or visit Diane’s website: http://www.dianescottlewis.com/

The Smuggler Squire

2011-04-15T05:17:00.003+10:00

During the English Civil War, a new tax on domestic consumption, excise, was levied by Parliament to pay for the war. By 1660, this applied to items like chocolate, coffee, tea, beer, cider and spirits. Also in this year, all exports of wool was forbidden to promote the English wool trade, the penalty being the gallows for transgressors, or ‘owlers’ as they were called due to the fact they worked at night. In 1688, the excise was extended to include essentials such as salt, leather, and soap.

Collecting taxes was a cumbersome and inefficient process with a hostile population where communication and transport links were slow and inefficient, so whole communities tended to become involved in the 'free-trade', as it was euphemistically known. The farm labourer helped carry goods inland; the parson bought cheap tea and wine; the local squire lent his horses for transport; the wealthy merchant obtained cut-price supplies of silks and lace; and at the very pinnacle of society, members of the gentry conducted foreign business through intermediaries involved in smuggling. In the West Country, some houses would have a bottle bottom set in the plaster below a gable end of the house to indicate the owners were smugger sympathisers.

Whilst researching 17th Century smuggling in the Exeter area, I came across a character named Thomas Coumbe, known as The Smuggler Squire. Born in Devon in 1620, he married a tall, auburn haired beauty named Bridget, who was much younger than himself and reputed to be a descendant of Sir Ralph de Blanchminster, a Cornish Knight who followed Richard Coeur de Lion on the Third Crusade.

Coumbe became a church warden in 1666, and grew very wealthy from his association with the smugglers at Bude on the North Devon coast, where signal flares could be seen by the smugglers at sea.

In the 17th Century, sand was used to break up the heavy loam of Devon before the employment of artificial manures. The Smuggling Squire made a weekly trip between Tavistock and Exeter on his sand cart, in which he hid tobacco, silk, brandy and wine.

According to old deeds, he owned land from "Sea to Sea", i.e. from Exeter on the South Devon coast to Bude on the north, a distance of 53 miles. He had a number of illegitimate children, to whom no doubt some of the farms were bequeathed. Described as:

a brown, hard, stern looking man with one blue eye, over the other he wore a patch having lost an eye in a duel, and regularly dressed in leather with a *bob wig.

How could I resist adding this colourful man to my story?

* The most popular undress wig was the shorter, bob wig originally worn by tradesman who could not afford the longer wigs. Bob wigs were also the standard wig worn by Protestant clergymen of the 17th Century

Historical Fiction Book Trailers - Guest Cynthia Neale talks about her trailer for "Norah"

2011-04-13T02:31:00.002+10:00

I met Cynthia Neale in the historical fiction group on She Writes. Her debut novel, Norah, about an Irishwoman in 19th century New York is just out.

I was impressed by the fact she has a book trailer, so I asked her:
What made you decide to have a book trailer?

Cynthia: My publisher, Lucky Press, recommended doing a book trailer. She is very progressive and there are other Lucky Press authors with book trailers that I took a look at. And then I also went on She Writes and looked at book trailers. I felt that if done professionally, a book trailer can be a great marketing tool. I had shivers watching a couple of book trailers and wrote down the titles of the books to buy in the future.

Did you do it yourself, or did someone else do it for you? If the latter, what sort of discussions did you have about its content?

My friend's son, Nathan Sorrentino, is a student at Geneseo College in New York State and he created a video for a course that caught the attention of Google who asked him to do some work for them. They live in Rochester, NY and when I visited there in October, we had dinner and brainstormed what kind of trailer I would like. He would do it for the experience and as a friend and I would give him a "tip." We e-mailed back and forth for a couple of months. I wrote up the text and he gave me links to music downloads with a one-time use fee (minimal). He found some images himself in archival material and I sent him photos of landscapes in Ireland I had taken in 2008. Nathan understood the legal requirements and the technical aspects of making this video, but he also could fathom the heart of what I wanted to relay in the video. He advised doing some tweaks here and there. I edited the text a few times and sent it to my publisher who also did some tweaks on my texts. Nathan is a talented young man and anyone who would like him to do a book trailer, should contact him. His information is on the credits at the end of the trailer.

Where did you source the images for the trailer, and how did you go about finding the music?

The sources are listed in the credits of the trailer. I listened to a lot of the music on various sites. I have a lot of Irish music I listen to and dance to, but I didn't want to go about getting permission, etc. I had even thought of asking some musician friends to play for the video, but time was of the essence. It took quite a few hours for me to pick out just the right music for the video, but I felt quite pleased with deciding on the tunes I found. And the cost was only about $30.00!

What sort of feedback have you had about the trailer and has it raised interest in your book?

Since the trailer went up mid-January, there has been nearly 1500 hits and many positive comments. Comments from some people in other countries, including Ireland. As an American writer, I wanted to be delicate, but strong, about the subject of The Great Hunger. I was not born in Ireland and many of the Irish-born still have a good deal of angst over this event in their history. I found that it was necessary to include the background (my first book material) of An Gorta Mor to make it understood what was at stake for the Irish, and especially Norah McCabe, to have immigrated to a city such as New York. I have had positive feedback from the Irish-born and from everyone who has viewed the trailer. Now...for a screenwriter!
Thank you Cynthia. Very best of luck with "Norah.

Deborah's Review Norah is a story of a young immigrant woman battling hardship, poverty and prejudice in New York in the 1850's. It has obviously been lovingly researched. The portraits of Norah McCabe and her family are beautifully drawn, and we catch most of the character of Norah from the attitudes of her Mam and Da who want the best for her but are unable to understand just how far she wants to climb. Cynthia Neale is particularly good at getting inside the minds of her characters to understand their motivations, although this is her first novel for adults - previously she has written books for children.

Make no mistake, although at times the language is lyrical, this tells it like it was, grit and all. All the hard facts of life for an Irish immigrant are between these pages; poor housing, the bordellos, street fights, and the cut and thrust of the gang underworld. At a time when to be black made you a second-class citizen, the book raises the question of what forms a person's identity, particularly for a white minority such as the Irish in New York.
Da discusses black equality with Norah:

"We all feel inferior, Norah."
"We all feel inferior? The Irish? Or all human beings?"

At times this novel is rather documentary in style, and it is certainly not the usual run-of-the-mill historical, but I can highly recommend it as a slice of real life for anyone with an interest in this period of New York history, particularly those with family or connections to Ireland.

***

Fancy making your own book trailer? Here's how with the excellent article by Brenda Coulter.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977019853
And if you already have a book trailer out, or know of a particularly good one, please let me know!

http://www.deborahswift.co.uk/
http://www.deborahswift.blogspot.com/

Romanticism ~ Its influences on Art and Literature

2011-04-12T17:58:00.000+10:00

I thought I'd look back over the history of art and literature, to understand the influences which informed romanticism and later, romance novels

The Basics of Romantic Art - 1800-1860

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

Romanticism - or the Romantic Era, first appeared in the second half of the 18th Century. It was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement, a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, and a revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment. It was also a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature.

The strong emotions of horror, terror, awe and trepidation became an authentic source of aesthetic experience. When confronting nature, untamed and picturesque, it was called 'the sublime'. An example is Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem Mont Blanc - the awe and spirituality the mountain inspires:

The secret Strength of things

Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome

Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!

And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,

If to the human mind's imaginings

Silence and solitude were vacancy?

The Industrial Revolution took hold in the latter part of the 18th century, beginning in England and spreading to France and America. This revolution, which although more peaceful than the French Revolution, wasn’t entirely free of violence, and brought with it a new market economy, based on new technology. The machine began to replace human tools and animal power. Villages became urban centers drawing people from farms and the countryside to work in the new factories. Not yet regulated, men, women, and children worked fourteen hour shifts, going weeks without seeing the sunlight. Cities grew and became dirty and crowded, the poor living in squalor, the air polluted by soot from smokestacks.

There were those who looked back with nostalgia to a romantic vision of the days when people worked the land under a clear sky, using animals to draw the plough.

Romantics rejected the philosophy of reason, turning instead to emotion, imagination, and intuition. A life filled with deep feeling, spirituality and free expression were seen as a way of dealing with the dehumanizing effects of industrialization. Human beings were infinite, with godlike potential.

This was reflected in poetry such as Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey:
Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The Chancel and Crossing of Tintern Abbey, Looking Towards the East Window, by JMW Turner, 1794. Tintern Abbey was a monastery founded in 1131 and rebuilt in the 13th century. Abandoned in 1536, it was left to decay for two centuries. Artist Joseph Mallord William Turner paid two visits to the site, and it inspired him to paint this piece which juxtaposes the smallness of man alongside and wildness of nature, the unstoppable power of which has reclaimed this man-made edifice. The haunting abbey was a popular muse for many Romantics

JMW TURNER
Turner was fascinated by the mood of nature, her ever changing effects. He was always sketching the clouds, the sky, and his natural surroundings. Turner was particularly fascinated with the power of the ocean and said that he had once asked to be lashed to the mast of a ship in order to “experience the drama” of a mighty storm at sea. Romantics believed that God’s presence was embodied in nature and evidence of His existence. Turner saw light as a divine emanation and played with it in pictures to evoke that truth

JOHN CONSTABLE
Art began to demand an emotional response from the viewer, and a nostalgic yearning for a rural, pastoral life, the stirrings of life’s mysteries and an awareness of the power and grandeur of nature.

Frenchman Eugene Delacroix Liberty Leading The People. Art of this period also depicted the romantic ideal of Nationalism

Source: Wikipedia
The Norton Anthology of Poetry
Sydney University

Part II coming soon: The Romantic Novel

Guest Abigail Reynolds: The Scandal of Eloping in Regency England

2011-04-11T10:01:00.009+10:00

Linda Banche here. Today I welcome Abigail Reynolds and the latest book in her Pride and Prejudice Variations, What Would Mr. Darcy Do?. Since Lydia's supposed elopement with Wickham is the starting point of this Variation, Abigail tells us about the scandal involved in eloping during the Regency.

Leave a comment with your email address for a chance to win the copy of What Would Mr. Darcy Do? which Sourcebooks has generously provided. Abigail will select the winner. Check the comments to see who won, and how to contact me to claim your book. If I cannot contact the winner within a week of the selection, I will award the book to an alternate. Note, Sourcebooks can mail to USA and Canada addresses only.

I always ask the author to select the winner, but I haven't heard back from Abigail, so I'm making an executive decision. The winner is Peggy Gabriel! Peggy, if I don't hear from you by May 15, 2011, I will award your prize to an alternate.

Welcome back, Abigail!

All the regency romances notwithstanding, marriage in Regency England was in most cases a business arrangement, often entered into by the parents of the prospective bride and groom as a way to increase the family fortune and/or prestige. Husbands and wives often lived separate lives, with infidelity occurring on both sides. That doesn’t necessarily mean they were unhappy with their marriages; it was precisely what they’d always expected marriage to be like. Love and passion didn’t have a lot to do with it, but that didn’t mean love and passion didn’t exist.

Elopements were the result of love or passion without the family stamp of approval. Most young gentlemen didn’t have the remarkable luck to fall in love with a woman who would be acceptable to his parents as a bride or to his own sense of family duty. Gentlemen and ladies who were of age (over 21) could legally marry whoever they pleased whether their parents approved or not, but the family would shun the wedding and snub the bride. It would likely lead to significant family strife if not disinheriting. A minister who performed such a wedding could find his living endangered.

Elopement was a way out. A couple, even ones who weren’t of age, could go to Scotland, where they could be legally married. It didn’t even require a clergyman, only two witnesses. On the Old North Road, the first town over the border was Gretna Green, so that was the usual destination for eloping lovers. The blacksmith performed most of the weddings there, with his anvil serving as an altar. To this day, Gretna Green’s main business is weddings.

When the newly married couple returned home, they presented their family with a fait accompli. Often the families would try to make the best of a bad situation and pretend they approved in order to avoid the scandal associated with elopement. But there was no way to get around the fact that a couple who eloped had not only been disobedient to their parents and disloyal to their duty to their family, but they had also spent the better part of a week unchaperoned on their way to Scotland. A wedding ring couldn’t wash out the stain. A lady who eloped was considered something of a fallen woman.

The scandal also engulfed the family. It was a sign of ‘bad blood’; it made anyone else in the family a much poorer marriage prospect, and the family might well find themselves shunned. In A Pemberley Medley, my new book of short stories, there’s a variation where Elizabeth suffers that shunning to such a degree that she is left to adopt reckless plans. Families wanted to hush up elopements, and that’s why Elizabeth thought that Darcy would want nothing more to do with her after discovering her sister’s elopement. If he had in fact been concerned with maintaining a high social status, that likely would have been true. Fortunately for all of us, Darcy’s love proved stronger than his pride!

One interesting point that’s rarely discussed is Georgiana Darcy’s near-elopement with George Wickham. Had Darcy been unable to hush that up, Georgiana’s reputation would have been in shambles. But you’ll hear far more from me about that topic in the future since the new book I’m starting follows that path!

Thanks for inviting me!

WHAT WOULD MR. DARCY DO? BY ABIGAIL REYNOLDS
This sexy installment in the Pride and Prejudice Variations series explores one of the roads not taken in Jane Austen’s original. Before Darcy leaves the Lambton Inn after learning the scandalous news about Lydia and Wickham, he and Elizabeth declare their true feelings. Determined to give Darcy up rather than drag his name through the mud, Elizabeth will have to choose between what is right, and what she wants more than anything...

About the Author
Abigail Reynolds is a physician and a lifelong Jane Austen enthusiast. She began writing the Pride and Prejudice Variations series in 2001, and encouragement from fellow Austen fans convinced her to continue asking “What if…?” She lives with her husband and two teenage children in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information, please visit http://www.pemberleyvariations.com/ or http://www.austenauthors.com/.

Review: WHAT WOULD MR. DARCY DO? by Abigail Reynolds

2011-04-10T10:01:00.000+10:00

Note: Abigail Reynolds will guest blog here tomorrow, and give away a copy of What Would Mr. Darcy Do?

What Would Mr. Darcy Do? by Abigail Reynolds is a fast-reading sensual and emotional tale of love conquering all despite supposedly insurmountable odds.

In this latest of Ms. Reynolds's Pemberley Variations, Darcy, instead of concealing his feelings at Lambton, proposes to Elizabeth after she tells him Lydia has run away with Wickham. Despite his proposal, Elizabeth convinces herself the disgrace to her family is too high for his love to overcome. She requests time to consider, while ultimately planning to refuse. With reluctance, he accepts her delay, and then hurries to London where he deals with Wickham.

When he returns, he presses her for her answer. Misunderstandings continue until both Darcy and Elizabeth each explain the behavior which has so confused and angered the other. Love so long suppressed comes to the rescue.

This relatively short (227 pages) account of Darcy's and Elizabeth's tortuous journey to understanding, love and passion is a delight to read. Both have suffered for their pride and prejudice, but the self-knowledge gained and the explanations given for misconstrued conduct make their love the sweeter. I especially enjoyed their negotiations in setting and resetting their wedding day. Elizabeth wants the wedding a week after Jane's and Bingley's. Darcy wants it sooner. Both are so eager, they finally fix on the day immediately after the other wedding.

Two weddings in a row and twice the marital bliss. Another wonderful Pemberley Variation from Abigail Reynolds.

Thank you all,
Linda
ARC provided by Sourcebooks

Fragonard's Stolen Kisses and Love Letters...

2011-04-04T08:40:00.003+10:00

The Stolen Kiss, c. late 1780's

By Raine Miller

Do you ever use art as inspiration for your writing? I do. In fact it was a painting that got me started on my very first story. People have asked me about the paintings featured on my website, so I thought I'd share the one in my header image. I actually have this print on a canvas on the wall above my laptop. I used it for inspiration for a scene in a WIP where the hero, Colin, goes after Elle and gets exactly what he was after, thank you very much!

The artist, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, (pronounced without the /d/ at the end) was a French painter whose work became all the rage for the wealthy art patrons of Louis XV's pleasure-loving, licentious court. Let’s face it, these people were all about the sex and this very tenet of the culture influenced what Fragonard painted: mostly scenes of love and voluptuousness. Even though his painting was considered scandalous, it remained hugely popular with the hedonists of the day. History lesson: Louis the 15th was the French king just before the one who lost his head in the French Revolution. So, the wild revelry was great while it lasted.

A Young Girl Reading, c. 1776

The Swing, 1767

The reading girl in the yellow dress is an image much copied and reprinted, so you may have seen it before. Another vastly popular painting is the one of the girl swinging while her lover checks under her skirts. Ahem, yes, those French boys were naughty that way.

The lady composing what appears to be a secret letter is also inspiring. What scandalous prose has she written? We are left only to ponder. The last one is my favorite. Aptly named, The Bolt, we get a clear understanding of the urgency of the scene and why he’s in such a hurry. As a device for creating tension in writing, the sliding or latching of a bolt always works well.

The Bolt, 1778

The Love Letter, 1770

So what happened to Fragonard, you ask? Well, the French Revolution happened, that's what. And it cost him his private patrons (they got the axe, or guillotine as it were) and he decided it would be a good time to get the hell out of France himself. Fragonard didn't return to Paris until early in the 19th c. where he died in 1806, almost completely forgotten.

For a half century after that he was ignored, not even mentioned in the 1873 edition of History of Art. Reevaluation by later scholars have changed that though, confirming his position among the all-time masters of French painting and one whose works will continue to inspire this writer every time she sets out to work on her stories.

All best history lovers,
Raine

Raine Miller loves exploring history from most any time. She finds herself best entertained by writing fiction based on the truth of the past. You can learn more about her writing and upcoming book by stopping by her blog:

Raine Miller Romance~where history comes...unlaced

http://www.rainemiller.com/

Everyone loves a Wedding

2011-04-02T02:25:00.012+11:00

With everyone in England getting a day off for the Royal Wedding, weddings are very much in people's thoughts and minds.

In the seventeenth century there were several interesting customs that our Royal pair might like to take up once they are married.

Ball -money
The first is that it is usual for the gentry to bestow charitable largesse on the poor, and for the bride to give out "ball-money" to her former female companions to help them buy finery and so find a husband.

In 1604 Dudley Carlton writes about a court wedding and says:

"there was none of our accustomed forms omitted; of bride cakes, sops-in-wine, giving of gloves, laces and points.... and at night there was sewing into the sheet, casting of the bride's left hose, and twenty other petty sorceries."

Bride cakes were a tradition where a cake of wheat or barley symbolising fertility would be broken over the heads of the bride and groom.

Lace and points
The Exeter merchant John Hayne laid out £5 13s for ribbons, posies, favours and points at his wedding in 1635. Gloves are given to the ladies and to the bell-ringers. Gloves symbolise the joining of hands, or the hand of friendship when sent to friends who care unable to be at the ceremony.The bride herself usually goes bare-handed.

Public Bedding
In order to make sure the marriage is consummated it is the custom for the wedding party to accompany the couple to bed. The bed is decorated with ribbons and herbs and flowers for the occasion - rosemary, myrtle (known as the herb of wedlock) and maiden's blush were common choices.

Sops-in-wine
The couple were then fortified for the night by a special posset made of wine and spices. I expect that alcohol might have been essential if most of your neighbours were to witness the act!

Stocking-throwing
When everyone crowds into the bedchamber there's a game played where the bride's garters are removed and the young men seize upon them to put in their hats as a trophy. Garters are traditionally blue as they are associated with the Virgin Mary.The bride's-maids carry the bride into the chamber and the groom is meanwhile undressed and put into a nightshirt elsewhere, with much rowdiness and lewd jesting. After the groom's-men bring him to the bed, the couple's stockings are handed out and the assembled company tries to throw the garments backwards over their shoulders to hit the couple.

"if the man's stockings thrown by the maids, fall upon the bridegroom's head it is a sign she will be quickly married herself and the same prognostic holds good for the woman's stockings thrown by a man."
from the diary of William Lawrence 1661

It is customary to wake the couple early next morning with loud music - usually a fiddle and drum, and for the neighbours to enquire whether "it is done" before the pair are allowed to make their sheepish escape.

The Royal Wedding will probably be more traditional than most - I shall watch with interest to see if any of these 17th century customs have been retained!

The wedding in this picture by Jan Steen of 1667 looks particularly riotous, the man in the foreground decidedly the worse for ale!

You can find out more about my books at www.deborahswift.blogspot.com/

Regency Hygiene, or the Lack Thereof, Part II: Beau Brummell

2011-03-29T10:01:00.002+11:00

George Bryan "Beau" Brummell (1778-1840) almost single-handedly brought frequent bathing into vogue in the Regency. The son of a clerk, he was not particularly distinguished for his good looks, education or connection. But he was always very neat, his clothes were a masterpiece of simple elegance, and both his garments and his body were always spotless.

Brummell insisted that a gentleman be clean--clean as in total body immersion in water. His efforts succeeded in part because he had gained the favor of the crown prince, George, later the prince regent. When Brummell converted the prince, the upper classes followed, with the lower orders not far behind.

Brummell turned personal hygiene into an art form. He was famous for his daily three-hour regimen of scrubbing every part of his body, removing all the hair from his face, and then wrapping himself in immaculate, simple clothes that were the antithesis of the male fashions of the previous fifty years. Although his manner of dress was at first called "dandyism", Brummell created the masculine attire we still use today: shirt, tie, jacket and trousers, all well-tailored, on a meticulously clean body.

When he was born, the standard of male beauty consisted of a wardrobe of costly, brightly-colored fabrics, powdered hair or wig, makeup (yes the men wore makeup) and high-heeled shoes. All over a dirty body and filthy hair, both heavily doused with perfume in an attempt to mask, usually unsuccessfully, massive body odor due to infrequent bathing. See previous post.

As an example, these stills from the 2006 BBC production Beau Brummell: This Charming Man show (left), the Prince of Wales before Brummell's influence, and (right), afterwards.

Brummell was not the first proponent of cleanliness. The return to bathing had started before he was born. In the mid 1700's, Philip Stanhope, the fourth Earl of Chesterfield, wrote a famous series of letters to his son emphasizing personal hygiene. In France, Jean-Jacque Rousseau extolled cleanliness in his novel, Emile, or On Education (1762), although he personally was not that fastidious.

But the English considered anything French suspicious, and they turned to copious amounts of soap and water only when the consummately British Brummell arrived on the scene.

Brummell's story did not end happily. He fell out with his patron, the Prince of Wales. Afterwards, his gambling debts forced him to flee to France, where he spent the rest of his life. His gambling debts increased as his health declined. He died at sixty-two due to the complications of tertiary syphilis.

Today, we remember Brummell as a male fashion plate. In time, advances in science and the wider availability of soap and hot water cleaned up a world mired in dirt. But Beau Brummell hastened that day by making cleanliness fashionable.

Thank you all,
Linda
Linda Banche
Welcome to My World of Historical Hilarity!
http://www.lindabanche.com

Why not Avebury?

2011-03-25T06:12:00.000+11:00

I've recently been watching and enjoying two UK TV series about the early pre-history of Britain (Neil Oliver's and Bettany Hughes's), and they brought back memories of stone circles. Not of Stonehenge, however, but of Avebury, where we spent some time when I was writing Bronze Lightning. I took my heroine Sarmatia to Avebury and used the powerful setting for some of the pivotal scenes in the story.

As a place Avebury remains impressive and intriguing, despite the ravages of time and the deliberate vandalism of some of the huge stones. It’s older than Stonehenge and much bigger, incorporating several circles, avenues and barrows. The ditch was dug by red deer antler picks and was 30 feet deep. Its proximity to the West Kennet long barrow and Silbury Hill, the largest man-made mound in Europe, has led some archaeologists to speculate that this is a vast ritual site.

I've noticed, though, that the star status of Stonehenge has tended to put Avebury a bit in the shade. Is it because the massive stones don't have lintels? Or because the tiny village of Avebury has grown up within the site and so it doesn't appear as broodingly untouched?

Anyway, when we were there, it seems ages ago now, there was a white pheasant squawking in the village, a flight of old Lancaster bombers flew over to mark a wartime anniversary and the chimney of the cottage had a birds' nest in it. I have a soft spot for Avebury.

Lindsay
http://www.lindsaytownsend.net/
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The King's Highway

2011-03-21T00:17:00.006+11:00

Loaded by Jen Black

The roads in Tudor times were designed to get people to market. Where no towns existed, there were only rough tracks. Most people travelled on foot. Since fresh produce did not travel well, carts carried fruit and vegetables only short distances. Meat always travelled on the hoof, some of them great distances via the ancient drove roads.

People who were very old or ill sometimes travelled in a litter, either horse-drawn or carried by servants, but there were no coaches or carriages. The first coach in England was built for the Earl of Rutland by a Dutchman, Walter Rippon, in 1555. In 1564 he built one for Queen Elizabeth, but they were not common until the seventeenth century.

Couriers and government officials, pilgrims, scholars and merchants travelled great distances, but many English never left the parish in which they were born. Others did, and risked arrest and a flogging if they left their parish without a licence from the authorities and a good reason for travelling.
The foot traveller hoped to make twenty miles a day, and it was rare for an ordinary horseman to cover more than thirty. In bad weather, hilly or flooded country, the distance could be reduced to fifteen miles or less. Heavy wheeled carts wrecked roads and tracks alike, and without attention in a thousand years, the Roman roads were disintegrating.

During Mary and Elizabeth’s reign, some roads were paved. Four long-distance roads were maintained: The Great North Road from London through Durham, Newcastle and Alnwick to Berwick-on-Tweed, Dunbar, Haddington and on into Edinburgh. (During my childhood in Durham, Silver Street was still called the Great North Road). Watling Street ran from London to Chester, taking travellers to Ireland; Dover Road ran from Dover to London; and the great road from London to Exeter and on to Plymouth. Beyond Plymouth, the traveller went by tracks and byways.

The King’s messengers used relays of fresh horses kept at staging posts twenty miles apart on these four roads, and they covered much greater distances than the ordinary traveller. The Great North Road was one of only six north of York. One went from Newcastle to Otterburn across the Cheviots to Jedburgh. It was the shortest route to Edinburgh, but inhabited by reivers and bandits who killed and robbed on either side of the Border. The King’s Street ran north from Lancaster to Penrith and Carlisle. Two roads went from east to west – from York to Catterick Bridge and Penrith, and the Newcastle to Carlisle road through Hexham and Haltwhistle along the north bank of the Tyne. The sixth road ran from York to the port of Scarborough which carried on a busy trade with Scandinavia.

The journey from London to Edinburgh took the normal traveller fourteen days at thirty miles a day. Messengers riding post could do it in five. The seventy miles of the Dover road could be done in two days, but the fit and strong courier could do it in a day. The 215 mile journey to Plymouth took the ordinary traveller a week; couriers thirty-six hours.

By contrast, when Henry and Elizabeth travelled ‘on progress,’ they rarely covered more than ten miles a day. Henry went to France, but he never travelled further north than York, and to that city only once. But there was one good thing about the scarcity of roads: you could be reasonably sure of meeting someone on a certain road on any given day.

Charles IX of France

2011-03-18T20:31:00.000+11:00

Writing about the Valois was fascinating as they were such a troubled family. All Catherine’s sons seemed to be blighted, probably as a result of inherent syphilis, and all suffered from consumption. Yet they were highly intelligent, well educated, and with the exception of poor Alençon, good looking. Their tutor was the Humanist Jacques Amyot. He wrote poetry and a work on hunting, and his happiest moments were when he would sit up late into the night talking to writers and musicians. On these occasions he would be entirely calm and content.

Charles IX was the most sensitive of the brothers, often emotional and easily moved to tears by a poem or a sermon. He loved hunting and all field-sports but was weak and unstable. If his wishes were thwarted by the smallest degree, his golden brown eyes would grow fierce, his manner turn brusque and uncivil, which could quickly deteriorate into a temper tantrum, often caused by jealousy of his brother Anjou.

Catherine controlled his every waking hour. The time he must rise, insisting that once in his chemise, the lords and nobles, gentlemen of the bedchamber and his man-servants should be allowed in for the King’s lever, as was the custom in his father’s day. After this came council business and dispatches until ten, when he was expected to attend Mass. A walk before dinner, which was taken at eleven, to be followed twice a week by an audience. Time was allowed each afternoon for him to ride, joust, or perform some other sport, and he was also expected to visit the Queen Mother, and the Queen his wife, according to tradition, before preparing for supper which he took with his family.

In addition, she set out careful written instructions on how he must address his councillors, what questions to ask local governors, how to organise appointments and honours and not simply give to those who begged for favours.

He was remarkably obedient and dutiful to his mother’s wishes, which was her intention, but if Catherine pressed him too far he would fall into a rage. Even Margot, who was fond of him, could not deny that he was an odd boy. He would often sink into worrying moods of deep melancholy, stay in bed all day, or be gripped by a mad frenzy when he would don a mask, waken some of his wilder friends, and, taking lighted torches, would go on a rampage around the darkened streets of Paris. They’d call on some poor unfortunate, drag him from his bed and beat him senseless, purely for the pleasure of it. Or he might turn on his dogs or horses and thrash them instead. When the lust for violence came upon Charles, there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. The mere sight of blood seemed to both terrify and excite him. I believe this flaw in him was the reason Catherine was able to terrify into giving his support to the massacre.

Catherine accepted these flaws as she did not expect the boy to live long, and in this she was proved to be correct. When Charles ultimately succumbed to the disease that had claimed his late brother, Francis II, Anjou, Catherine’s favourite, whom she loved with an almost incestuous passion, took his place on the throne.

Charles IX only mistress was Marie Touchet (1549 - 1638) He loved and remained loyal to her for all his adult life. Besides his sister Margot, she was the only person able to control his mood swings, calming him and making him warm cinneman milk as if she were his nurse.

A pretty, gentle girl from a humble backward, she was in her late teens when she first became his mistress. She was well liked by Catherine, and when Charles married Elisabeth of Austria, fortunately his new bride had the wit to accept her as Marie created no problems. In time the two young women even became good friends. Marie bore him a son, which his wife sadly failed to do, Charles de Valois, who later became the Duke of Angoulême.

After Charles’s death, Marie married the marquis d'Entragues, Charles Balzac d'Entragues, and it was her daughter, Henriette, born in 1579, who became one of Henry IV’s most notorious mistresses. I've written about her in The Queen and the Courtesan,the last in the Marguerite de Valois trilogy which comes out in hardback in September.

Scene from Hostage Queen - in which Charles IX attempts to stand up to his mother, Catherine de Medici.

When the time came for the royal party to depart, Jeanne begged the King to allow her son to stay on an extended visit, and because Charles was soft-hearted and felt sorry for a mother being separated from her son, he readily agreed. Catherine entered the chamber just as Jeanne was thanking His Majesty for the favour.

‘What is this?’ she curtly demanded of her son, eyes cold. ‘Are you now making decisions on your own account, so soon after reaching your majority?’

Panic clouded his sensitive features, and Margot, feeling pity for the over-sensitive Charles, hurried to offer him her support. ‘I’m sure it would be but a short stay,’ she said, thinking what a relief it would be to be rid of Henry of Navarre for a while.

Charles agreed and hastily added, ‘Think how distressed I should be were we to be parted, Mother? Is it not unnatural for a family to be kept apart?

Such matters had never concerned Catherine, having rarely seen her own children as they were growing up, although she had frequently asked for portraits to be painted of them so that she could check on their progress. ‘I am sure the Queen of Navarre will think so.’

The two queens faced each other, the one furious, the other defiant. They might go through the motions of good manners and diplomacy, but they remained sworn enemies. The Queen Mother feared the lesser kingdom, with it’s strong Huguenot character, might raise an army against her with young Henry at its head.
Jeanne was afraid her precious son might be turned into a papist by the influence of the French Court and its Queen.

‘Pray leave us and permit me to discuss this delicate matter with the King.'

Jeanne curtseyed, paying the homage that was due to the other, more powerful, queen. ‘As you wish, Your Majesty, but the King has promised, and I trust him to keep his word.’

Alone with her son Catherine allowed her anger to show. ‘You had no right to make a political decision without consultation. Many factors need to be taken into account, and you do not possess the experience to make such a decision.’

Seeing how her brother’s eyes rolled back in his head, always a bad sign, Margot dared to interrupt. ‘Madame, the King is not well.’

‘Silence, girl!’

Charles clung fast to his sister, hating to be scolded. ‘I can think for myself. I am not stupid. I am the King!’
Seeing that her brother was growing agitated, Margot began to stroke his hair, trying to calm him, crooning soft words in his ear.

Catherine ground her teeth in fury. ‘Of course, and are you not the cleverest of my sons?’ It was a lie, meant to pacify him. Her beloved Henri was more brilliant in every way. ‘Yet you need good counsel in order to make wise decisions. I would not have you taken advantage of by these Protestants.’

‘I have many friends who are of the new faith, and Jeanne is my aunt. I have ever had a fondness for her.‘
There was a fever now in his gaze and a foaming at the mouth as he began to chew on his fingernails. ‘I am King! I can do as I like, and I have given my word.’

‘There are times when even a king must break a promise.’

‘No, I will not, I will not!’ Then he fell to the ground and began drumming his heels in temper. Terrified he might harm himself Margot dropped to her knees beside him, desperately trying to prevent the convulsions which would surely follow. Catherine strode from the room calling for his nurse, knowing she must relent. The King had promised that the young Prince of Navarre could stay for a short holiday with his mother, and a king’s word must be kept, even though she held the power and always would.

Hostage Queen, now available in paperback and as an ebook.

For more details about my books call in at my website www.fredalightfoot.co.uk

A little bit about... St. Patrick

2011-03-15T06:00:00.000+11:00

By: Stephanie Burkhart

St. Patrick was an interesting guy who helped to bring Christianity to Ireland. It's kind of hard to pin down when he was born, but it's believed he was born between 385-387 AD in Wales. He was born a pagan. When he was 16, Irish raiders kidnapped him and held him as a slave. It's believed he was held on the west coast of Ireland, near Mayo, but the exact location is unknown. While in Ireland he lived as a Shepard. It was lonely work, and Patrick turned to God for comfort. According to Patrick, God spoke to him in a dream telling him to leave Ireland. After 6 years, he escaped to Gaul where he studied and became a Christian.

In 432 AD he was called to go back to Ireland. When he returned, he helped to establish churches and schools. He used a shamrock to help teach the Holy Trinity to the people. The shamrock represented how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit could all exist as separate elements of the same entity.

He died on 17 March 461 AD.

There can be no doubt St. Patrick left his mark on the Irish people. In 1903, Ireland made St. Patrick's Day an official public holiday.

Interesting fact: The Chicago River is dyed green in honor of St. Patrick's Day each year.

Interesting note: The shortest St. Patrick's Day parade takes places in Dripsey Cork. It's only a 100 yards (a football field!) between the town's two pubs.

Interesting myth: St. Patrick is known for driving the snakes out of Ireland, but its highly unlikely he did. The island was separated from Europe during the last ice age.

Ewww?
St. Patrick's jawbone was preserved in a silver shrine.

While there's not much Irish in my house, we have a good time being green for the day. My husband enjoys cooking a corned beef. My son, Andrew, gets into wearing shamrock socks and a button that says "Kiss me, I'm Irish." I'm a sucker for Bailey's Irish Cream & Harp.

I'd love to hear about your customs and traditions.

Let me leave you with a couple of Irish sayings:

There's no fireside like your fireside.

Good luck beats early rising.

A diplomat must always think twice before he says nothing.

A Profile in Courage - George VI

2011-03-11T10:27:00.004+11:00

By Stephanie Burkhart

George VI was the right man for his times, but his life had never been easy despite his title. Recently, I saw the movie "The King's Speech." It is a brilliant peek into the personal courage that George VI embodied.

Born on a day full of heartache.

George VI was born on 14 December 1895, a great-grandson to Queen Victoria who was still on the throne. For Victoria, 14 December was the anniversary of her husband's death, Prince Albert. Unsure of how the Queen would take the news, George's parents offered to name their son Albert Fredrick Arthur George. Victoria was pleased. Interestingly, the Queen noted that "Bertie" as George VI was known by his family, was born on such a sad day, but was given a name so dear to her, it was a name that was great and good.

And Bertie would be a good king, despite the challenges he faced.

Bertie was the second son of George, Duke of York (George's father was King Edward VII, Victoria's son). Bertie's parents were not overly demonstrative, leaving their children to be raised by nannies. In "The King's Speech," Bertie tells Lionel of a particular bad nanny who used to pinch his cheeks and withhold food from him.

As a young child, Bertie suffered from ill health. He had to wear painful splints because he was knock-kneed and he developed a stammer. Left handed, young Bertie was forced to use his right.

These challenges only helped the young prince develop strong personal courage.

Bertie saw service in World War I as a midshipman in the Navy. His fellow officers referred to him as Mr. Johnson, in order to hide his identity and protect him. Later, he became involved in the Royal Air Force. After the war, he studied at Cambridge and on 4 June 1920, he was created Duke of York by his father, George V.

Then Bertie met Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyons at a children's birthday party. She gave him the glace cherry from her cake. Bertie was determined to win her heart.

While Lady Elizabeth had bloodlines going back to Robert the Bruce, she was considered a commoner by British law. Bertie pursed her wholeheartedly, but he had to buck up when she turned down his first marriage proposal. Displaying that dogged personal courage he had since birth, Bertie did not give up and finally Lady Elizabeth told him yes. They were married on 26 April 1923. In 1926, their daughter, the current Queen Elizabeth II was born.

What I find interesting about this historical tidbit, is that Bertie was given a lot of leeway from his royal parents to find a bride. Yes, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was a commoner, but she was beloved. Queen Elizabeth II, knowing this about her parents, had still insisted her son, Charles, find a royal bride. (dare I add one that was virginal?) If she had followed her parents' example, I suspect Charles would have been as happy as his grandfather with his marriage the first time around. Now, with Prince William posed to marry Kate Middleton, a commoner, it seems the Queen has taken history to heart.

In 1925, Bertie gave a speech at Wembly in which he couldn't hide his stammer. Knowing the people expected more from the Duke of York, he sought help from an Australian born speech therapist, Lionel Logue. Lionel worked with Bertie to help him master his stutter and by 1927, Bertie spoke with much more confidence in public. Lionel kept working with Bertie through the 30's and 40's. In 1937, now King, George VI awarded Logue with the Royal Victorian Order, which recognized distinguished personal service to one's sovereign.

Bertie loved tennis and was very physically active, but he would need all his stamina when his brother, Edward VIII abdicated the throne in 1936.

Some find Edward VIII's story romantic, some find it appalling, but Bertie's older brother abdicated to marry the love of his life, Wallis Simpson on the eve of World War II.

Bertie came to the throne and styled himself George VI. He was 41. Interestingly, he had to buy Balmoral and Sandringham from his brother since they were private properties and didn't pass to him automatically.

When World War II struck, George VI displayed his personal courage once again for all to see, staying in London during the bombing raids of the Germans. London's east end was hit hard. When two German bombs exploded in a courtyard at Buckingham Palace, George stood by his wife when she declared, "I am glad we have been bombed. Now we can look the east end in the face." The couple's profile gave Britain the morale boost it needed.

Starting in 1949, George's health started to fail. The fact he was a heavy smoker didn't help. In September 1951, his left lung was removed when a malignant tumor was discovered. He died peacefully in his sleep on 6 February 1952.

While born under the shadow of sadness, Bertie and his great-grandfather, Prince Albert, shared the trait of great personal courage. (I consider Prince Albert the ultimate "beta" male – after all, he took a backseat to his wife, Queen Victoria, at a time when men should rule the marriage. This took a lot of confidence in himself and a lot of chutzpah to look his contemporaries in the face.) This courage defined them both, invigorating a nation, and proving they were the right men for their times.

About Stephanie: She enjoys history, especially British history. Some of her favorite monarchs include; Edward IV, George II, Queen Victoria, and George VI. You can find Stephanie on the web at her blog: http://sgcardin.blogspot.com or her website at: http://www.stephanieburkhart.com

Send more socks

2011-03-05T01:53:00.000+11:00

I lost my day planner last week, and I've been lost without it.

So lost, in fact, that I completely forgot to post my blog yesterday when it was scheduled to run. For two days, I had the nagging feeling that I'd forgotten something...and this morning I remembered what it was.

Remains of a sewer drain at Vindolana

Sigh. Does anyone else do this?

I'm not feeling particularly stressed out at the moment, but my life is cluttered with a lot of little chores and menial worries that clearly affect my brain function.

All this, oddly enough, makes me think of the letters of Vindolanda. So rather than post what was going to, I'm just going to continue with the theme of menial stressors.

My area of study was 11th and 12th century English history, but you need to learn a lot about the entire era to master a handful of decades. As a result, I studied Roman Britain extensively, and a few years ago I was able to visit the ruins and museum of Vindolanda.

Vindolanda was a Roman fort and settlement near Hadrian's Wall. Excavations have turned up a treasure trove of daily life: shoes of all shapes and sizes, utensils, and most importantly, hundreds of small wooden tablets on which letters were written. The letters include everything from a birthday invitation to a child's writing lesson to a soldier's letter home asking for more socks.

The best, though, and an example of what must of been a really big headache to the fort's commander is the one that suggests he had to submit expense reports to Rome. (Imagine having to explain your coffee and chocolate budget to Caligula--now that's a stressor!)

So what about your time period? What type of small stressors ruined their memories?

Building's foundation and floor at Vindolanda

English Jacobites

2011-02-27T06:27:00.001+11:00

Loaded by Jen Black

It is often forgotten that there were Englishmen amongst the Jacobite supporters who rose in rebellion in 1715. If one name is remembered, it is usually that of James Radcliffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, a Northumbrian and an illegitimate grandson of Charles II on his mother's side. (Anya Seton's novel Devil Water may have brought him a little fame.) He owned huge estates in Northumberland and Cumberland, and his loyalty to the Stuarts was undisputed.

He and his brother Francis went to Saint-Germain in 1702 as companions to James Francis Edward Stuart and became ardent Catholics. His first attempt to help restore James Stuart to the throne occurred during the failed invasion of 1708, when he was unlucky enough to be captured in a French ship.

In 1709 he settled on his estates in Dilston, Northumberland, and very quickly developed a wide range of friendships among the Catholic and High Anglican gentry of Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland and Lancashire. He worked constantly to promote James Stuart’s cause and married a Catholic heiress, Anna Maria Webb, who was a devoted supporter of the exiled Stuarts.

Another key local Jacobite was William, 4th Baron Widdrington who had spent much of his youth at Saint-Germain. He lived at Stella on the Tyne, had extensive mining interests and was well known among the region's Catholic community. Both Derwentwater and Widdrington had large extended families of co-religionists across Northumberland and Durham. Other important Catholic Jacobite families were the Haggerstons, the Swinburnes of Capheaton and the Erringtons of Beaufront, near Hexham.

The Catholic families of Northumberland and Durham represented a wealthy and powerful force with considerable influence, and all favoured the cause of James Stuart.

Two local MPs, William Blackett of Newcastle and Thomas Forster of Bamburgh, though not Catholic, were deeply involved in Jacobite plots. Thomas Forster was High Anglican and Tory, and he believed that many Tories could be persuaded to come over to the Jacobite side once a rebellion had begun.

William Blackett was a successful Newcastle merchant who had bought Wallington from another Jacobite family, the Fenwicks. He was a Tory and was also a secret Jacobite. Being a successful member of the mercantile community, it was hoped he would be able to bring over the political establishment of Newcastle. These men were the ring leaders of Jacobite activities in Northumberland and Durham and were to be key players in the failed Rising of 1715.

Lords Derwentwater, Widdrington, Nithsdale, Carnwath, Wintoun, Kenmure and Nairn were impeached for high treason. Forster, John Clavering, Thomas Errington, William Shafto and eight Lancastrians were also impeached for conspiring against church and state, inciting the people and raising rebellion in Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland and Lancashire.

On 19 January all but Wintoun admitted their guilt before the Commons. Lord Chancellor Cowper asked each of the Lords if they had anything to say before sentence was passed. Derwentwater gave a strong assurance of his future loyalty and appealed to Cowper to consider his wife and children. Widdrington, Kenmure and Nairn made similar pleas.

Cowper was unmoved. All seven lords were immediately sentenced to death. The Countess of Derwentwater, together with several family members and influential friends, gained audience with the King and begged for clemency. Her heart-rending pleas were in vain, though a reprieve was offered on condition that the Earl renounced his religion and conformed to the Established Church.

Derwentwater turned the offer down down on grounds of honour and conscience. Nairn, Widdrington and Carnwath were more fortunate, being reprieved shortly before their execution. Nithsdale and Wintoun managed to escape from the Tower.
Derwentwater was led out to Tower Hill and just after midday 24th February 1716 had his head severed from his body by the axe-man. Kenmure followed him to the scaffold.

Meanwhile, in Liverpool on 12 January trials had been prepared against thirty-six Scots and thirty-eight English. Four were Northumbrians. Thirty-four of them were executed in various towns in Lancashire. They included John Hunter and George Collingwood. Collingwood's wife desperately tried to win a reprieve for him, but in spite of Lord Lonsdale's involvement, he was hung, drawn and quartered on 25 February.

The Putney Debates

2011-02-25T05:19:00.001+11:00

By summer 1647, the Roundheads were winning the English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army had crushed the Cavaliers at Marston Moor and Naseby, and King Charles was in custody at Hampton Court Palace; albeit an easy captivity for he was allowed to see his children, entertain his friends, play bowls and go hunting.

At this time, the New Model Army officers, among whom were Puritans and Levellers, could see an end to their usefulness and the generals, the ‘Grandees’ feared Parliament, who, suspicious of the religious fanaticism of the army, feared they would disband them.

Keen for a final settlement with the King, Parliament also wanted to cut soldiers' pay, disband regiments, refuse indemnity for war damage and pack them off to Ireland. Worse, they looked set to betray the religious and political ideals the New Model Army had spent five years fighting for. The soldiers complained: ‘We were not a mere mercenary army hired to serve any arbitrary power of a state, but called forth ... to the defence of the people's just right and liberties.’

The ‘Grandees’ responded by inviting the Leveller Agitators to debate their proposals before the General Council of the Army at a gathering that took place between the 28th October and 9th November. With Oliver Cromwell in the chair, the New Model Army came together at St Mary the Virgin Church at Putney, in October 1647, to argue the case for a transparent, democratic state free from parliamentary or courtly corruption.

The Debates

The leading grandees were Sir Thomas Fairfax, Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton, The prominent Levellers were, Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, ‘Honest’ John Lilburne, Richard Overton, Edward Sexby and John Wildman.

The Issues:

- Should they continue to negotiate a settlement with the defeated King Charles I?
- Should there even be a King or a House of Lords?
- Should suffrage (a civil right to vote, known as the franchise) be limited to property-holders?
- Would democratic changes lead to anarchy?
- Would religious toleration be granted to Puritans, Quakers, Anglicans and Presbyterians?
- As King Charles made no effort to negotiate and had brought ‘foreigners’ [Scots] into the country to fight his people – what should be done with him?

Levellers

The Grandees submitted, ‘The heads of the proposals’ – a conservative document that did little to challenge the existing power structures, in effect offering to hand the crown back to King Charles with few concessions.

The Levellers offered their own manifesto entitled the ‘Agreement of the People’, which set out a constitutional settlement urging religious toleration, a general amnesty, an end to conscription, a system of laws that applied equally to everyone with no discrimination on grounds of tenure, estate, charter, degree, birth or place. They also demanded regular, two-yearly parliaments and an equal distribution of MPs' seats by number of inhabitants.

They believed in human liberty and a conviction that politicians were as dangerous as princes when it came to undermining personal freedom, and that all those who placed themselves under government should have the right to elect it.

The wealthy, socially conservative Grandees were horrified, assuming this would mean anarchy and corruption with wealthy politicians buying up the votes of the uneducated, dependent masses.

Instead, Cromwell's son-in-law, Henry Ireton, proposed that the franchise be limited to those with a ‘fixed local interest’, that is, the independent property owners.

Colonel Rainsborough declared this a betrayal of the civil war sacrifice, and finally a compromise was reached that the vote should be granted to all adult males - excluding servants, apprentices, foreigners, beggars and, of course, women.

As for the King, the mood had by this time hardened against that ‘man of blood’ and general opinion turned to putting him on trial for high treason.

The issues of the Putney Debates - liberty of conscience; a government dependent upon the sovereign will of the people; equality before the law - would, via the ministrations of John Locke, make their way into the American constitution. In Britain, these philosophies remained buried late into the 19th century mainly thanks to ASP Woodhouse's 1938 work, Puritanism and Liberty, which implicitly conjoined the struggle against fascism with Rainsborough's cry of liberty.

What the Levellers proposed nearly 400 years ago was precisely the kind of secular constitution that guaranteed freedom of conscience and speech alongside a sovereign parliament.

Why Putney?

Putney in 1647 was a small Thames-side town of about 900 people, strung out along the High Street and the river bank, with London six miles away and easily accessible by horse, coach or boat.

The inhabitants of the town no doubt bitterly resented having soldiers billetted upon them without being paid compensation. There were plenty of attractive billets for officers both in Putney and Fulham, Lord Thomas Fairfax stayed at William Wymondsold’s, the largest house in Putney. Cromwell lodged at Mr Bonhunt’s, [possibly Thomas Bownest], and Henry Ireton, stayed at Henry Campion’s near the corner of the High Street and Putney Bridge Road.

The New Model Army’s headquarters were at Putney, so officers and soldiers must have been a familiar sight on the streets. Thomas Rainsborough was able to stay at his brother’s house in Fulham, while the agitators lodged at Hammersmith, and presumably passed to and fro on the Fulham ferry, but they met at least once at Hugh Hubbert’s house, close to Putney church.

Inscribed inside St Mary’s Church, are the immortal words from the Debates of Colonel Rainsborough, the highest ranking officer to support the ordinary solders:

'I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he’