The Favourite by Mathew Lyons

I have just published my interview with Mathew Lyons, author of The Favourite, ‘The true story behind one of the great love affairs in British history: Sir Walter Ralegh and Queen Elizabeth I.’

Book Description

When the adventurer Walter Ralegh first encountered Elizabeth I he supposedly placed his cloak over a puddle and allowed the queen to walk across it. Thus began one of the most intriguing relationships between a monarch and her favourite.

The Favourite explores the labyrinthine complexity of human emotion, ambition and ritual within the restricted confines of the Tudor court. Was the favourite a Machiavellian schemer who fooled the queen in her affections? Was Elizabeth willing to manipulate her courtier for her own ends? The Queen’s affection for Ralegh would protect him but he would soon become the ‘most hated man in England’.

In The Favourite, Mathew Lyons reveals a new portrait of an immortal relationship and a fascinating exploration of the many layers of love between Gloriana and Ralegh – courtier, chancer and privateer.

I think the book sounds fascinating and I really enjoyed reading Mathew’s detailed and interesting responses to my interview questions. The paperback will be released on 21 June and includes a new afterword.

Read the full interview here.

SPEAKING THE SILENCES: WRITING, ADVOCACY AND ENABLING VOICE –An extract from Wendy’s paper for the refereed proceedings of the 16th annual AAWP conference, Ethical Imaginations: Writing World.

The full paper can be found here:

Biographical note:

Dear Heart, How Like You This?

Wendy J. Dunn is obsessed with Tudor History. Her first published novel, the award-winning Dear Heart, How Like You This? is described as ‘one of the best novels ever written about Anne Boleyn’s life’. After completing her Masters in Writing at Swinburne University in 2009, Wendy took up a position as a sessional tutor in the same course and became a PhD Candidate.  Her own writing journey continues.

Historical Fiction and Advocacy

Historical fiction is a multifaceted and demanding genre with complex ethical considerations for the writer to surmount. As Jonathan Nield writes in his 1902 Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales,

The spirit of a period is like the selfhood of a human being – something that cannot be handed on; try as we may, it is impossible for us to breathe the atmosphere of a bygone time, since all those thousand-and-one details which went to the building up of both individual and general experience, can never be reproduced’ (Nield 1902: 41).

Continue reading here.

I know that we have many budding authors in our midst that may be interested in what Spartan Publishing is offering prospective authors. They offer a variety of comprehensive packages and services to assist in all stages of e-publishing, including:

• Proofreading
• Copy-editing
• E-book conversion and design
• Book promotion and marketing

To find out more about Spartan Publishing please visit their website here.

Wycliffe College Chapel, Toronto

The Wycliffite bible will be displayed at the Norfolk Heritage Centre in Norwich during May and coincides with the Boleyn Festival Blickling – four days of all things Anne Boleyn!

Clare Agate, community librarian at the Millennium Library, said:

“In itself, just being a Wycliffite bible means it is of interest, but the connection for people in Norfolk is through Anne Boleyn. It is the sort of thing that scholars are usually more likely to be interested in for study, but with the Boleyn Festival going on we thought it was a good opportunity to let people know we have it and to let them have a chance to see it.”

I am attending the first two days of the Boleyn Festival Blickling and so hope to see this historic bible in the ‘flesh’.

The Boleyn bible will be available to view in the Norfolk Heritage Centre, on the second floor of the Millennium Library at the Forum in Norwich, from 2pm-4pm on May 2, 5, 8, 10, 16, 17 and 21; and from 10am-midday on May 4, 9, 15 and 23.

Robert Parry

On this, the 3rd birthday of Robert Parry’s wonderful novel Virgin and the Crab, I am delighted to share with you a guest article about the protagonist of Parry’s novel – the fascinating John Dee.

We are also giving away a copy of Virgin and the Crab to one lucky commenter, so be sure to leave a comment after Robert’s post.

You can read my review of this remarkable book here.

Welcome Robert!

Thank you Natalie, for helping me celebrate the 3^rd Birthday of my novel ‘Virgin and the Crab’ here on The Tudor Trail. The novel itself is set in the middle of the 16^th century, within that brief, extraordinary period in English history when we had no less than two kings and three queens in rapid succession, all within a twelve-year period. The main protagonist through all of this, is the astronomer, alchemist and spy, John Dee (1527-1609) and I would like to write a little here about how his reputation has suffered, often unjustly, over the centuries. For those who do not know too much about him, you can find a brief biographical sketch here.

Virgin and the Crab

In my story, Dee is a young man on an heroic mission, and many of the more controversial accusations to be levelled against him by his enemies, of which he had quite a few, had yet to be fashioned. But fashioned they were. As a character, he has made various appearances in novels and screenplays over the centuries, but unfortunately usually in a less-than-flattering guise. Often he has a walk-on part as some deranged magician or as a fantastical, half-wizard half-prophet kind of figure full of dire predictions of impending doom.

It is remarkable how someone who, in his time, was regarded as the greatest of humanist scholars, a man in possession of a library more extensive than that of most universities and who was consulted by almost every major player in Elizabethan society from the Queen downwards on matters as diverse as geography, mathematics, geometry, navigation, astronomy and optics, should have been virtually airbrushed out of history. But this has happened – and only very recently has there been any serious attempt by historians to rescue his name from obscurity.

John Dee

He did, at least, get off to a good start as far as character portrayal goes. He was almost certainly the source for the wizard Prospero in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. He might also have provided more than a little inspiration for Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. He makes an appearance in Spenser’s Faerie Queen and, a little later, Ben Jonson probably incorporated a piece of him in his play The Alchemist. But from there it all seems to have gone downhill rather fast.

The damage was already beginning to take place, in fact, towards the end of his life, after the passing of Queen Elizabeth and the protection she had afforded him. The new regime under King James, with its witch hunts and its suspicion of anything redolent of demonic forces, could only view his inquiries into the world of the unseen as an embarrassment and a threat. The man who had once held the attention and ear of so many of the kings and queens of Europe, from London to Paris, from Moscow to Prague, began to lose status.

Later, during the 16^th century, Dee’s posthumous reputation suffered a further blow due to the writings of a gentleman by the name of Meric Casaubon, a classical scholar who is said to have fallen foul of the government and church during the harsh Puritanical regime of Oliver Cromwell and who, for reasons perhaps best known to himself, resolved to argue against one of the fundamental principles of Protestant belief, namely that humans can receive guidance directly from divine sources, without intercession. Dee’s extensive records of angelic conversations were compiled in a volume by Casaubon as a means of demonstrating that such revelations could be evil and mischievous. Mud sticks, of course – and over subsequent generations, Casaubon’s character assassination of Dee in his lengthy introduction to his volume became ammunition for sceptics of the occult, and even of other, more sobre forms of spiritual enquiry.

By the Victorian era, Dee had been demoted to little more than a figure of ridicule. Any appearances he made in literature were often frivolous, trading merely on his vague associations with the world of magic and the occult and which could therefore always be trucked out to provide the occasional lurid touch for writers and dramatist in search of a ‘character.’ In our own times, Dee has occasionally fared a little better in fiction and on the screen, but not very often.

The fact is, John Dee, was a man who lived on the cusp between the old world and the new. That was what the 16^th Century did – gradually changing its priorities from spiritual values to material ones. Astride these shifting sands, Dee was not only one of the most gifted of scientists at the forefront of the change, but he also remained a devout Christian and a dedicated and faithful servant of the Crown. The accusation, repeated still, that he died alone in abject poverty, the victim of a life of foolishness and ignorance is probably more than a little inaccurate, therefore. Hearsay statements to this effect made years after his death by those who did not know him – by the astrologer William Lilly, for example – are confused and cannot be relied upon as evidence. Lilly even refers to Dee’s education being at Oxford, when in fact it was at Cambridge. Yes, it is true that Dee’s diaries indicate that he sometimes borrowed money or sold books, but this is not necessarily a sign of poverty. In Tudor times, well-to-do people in large households would borrow to maintain cash flow – it was the ‘credit card’ of the times. The fact is, John Dee enjoyed the company and patronage of numerous wealthy and noble families until the end of his days. His son was a successful physician, and his daughter appears to have been devoted to him. He is even known to have cast horoscopes for his grandchildren.

Perhaps we need to look at Dee in a more tolerant light – not because he was a man who believed in angels, but rather because he was a man who asked whether there might be angels. And there is quite a difference between those two statements. In my novel I have tried to portray him as an intelligent and courageous being, a force for good and for progress – someone at the very centre of the intellectual and political universe of Tudor England. I wanted to do that because I believe that was what he was like.

http://robertparry.wordpress.com

https://www.facebook.com/RobertParry.author

Conditions of Entry

For your chance to win a copy of Virgin and the Crab you must be subscribed to On the Tudor Trail’s newsletter (if you are not already, sign up on our homepage).

Then simply leave a comment after Robert’s guest post between now and May 4, 2012.

Don’t forget to leave your name and a contact email.

Good luck!

Had the Queen Lived: An Alternate History of Anne Boleyn by Raven A. Nuckols.

A guest post by Raven A. Nuckols, author of Had the Queen Lived: An Alternative History of Anne Boleyn.

In October 2011, I published my first historical novel entitled “Had the Queen Lived: An Alternative History of Anne Boleyn.” I set out to write my novel with what I thought was an interesting idea for a story that might appeal to fans of Queen Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII of England. I also thought that there could be many such fans because in recent years the popularity of the Tudor reign, particularly as portrayed on television and in film, has brought her story once more to the spotlight for a new generation to enjoy. The premise of the book is exploring the question of what might have happened had Queen Anne lived past her tragic execution in May 1536 on false charges of treason, adultery, and incest with her brother. With this idea as a starting point I created an entirely new universe for Henry & Anne, developing a history of England with possible events that Anne might have influenced. Using the actual history of the reign of Henry VIII as a foundation, I was able to select those specific events that I thought would have realistically been altered based on the continuing presence of Anne on the scene, as well as entirely fictional events that I believed Anne would have been responsible for making come to pass.

Creating a successful and believable storyline weaving together actual and fictional events and characters is challenging; however, it can be done and is wonderfully exciting. For example, in my novel I used the Pilgrimage of Grace as a key event leading to the downfall of Lady Mary Tudor. I spent months researching every piece of original material I could find as well as consulting the works of historians who wrote at length on the subject to ensure I fully understood not only the broad, actual history, but also key, in-depth details. I chose this event specifically to bring down Lady Mary because its history linked well with her deep loyalty to Catholicism.  The principal cause of the rebellion in actual history was to cease the Crown’s dissolution of the monasteries and to reinstate mass and other Catholic practices that had been stripped away with England’s breaking away from the Catholic Church. As Lady Mary was royalty and viewed as a figurehead behind the inspiration for the rebel movement, it was critical in establishing my story that I use this event to bring about her end. To make this happen, I had to exaggerate the number of deaths during the rebellion (790 from 330), but I made this alteration of history deliberately so as to show the influence Anne’s continued presence would have on the King’s state of mind, and dramatize how his desire for unquestioned authority would lead to bloodier actions to reinforce his decisions. Even so, I wanted to keep the inflated casualty number from being too excessive, to preserve historical believability, consistent with illustrating the power dynamics in Henry and Anne’s relationship.

It truly has been a rewarding artistic experience to create these wonderful plots with characters that changed the shape of British (and thus world) history. I look forward to writing future alternate histories and am working on finishing a trilogy set within the universe of Had the Queen Lived. There will be plenty more weaving of actual history and fictional events in the period of 1551-1601 for the first sequel, which I am currently in the research phase for and will cover the reign of King Henry IX, the fictional son had by Anne and Henry in the first book. I am also researching for works of actual history in the Twentieth Century on far different events of great personal interest to me, but nothing will take the place of my passion for writing about the Tudors and, in particular, Queen Anne.

By Raven A. Nuckols

Knights of the Order of the Garter

On 23 April 1536, the annual meeting of the Order of the Garter took place at Greenwich attended by the King and many Lords. It was expected that George Boleyn would be preferred but instead Henry chose Sir Nicholas Carew, ‘Anne’s known enemy and the man who had been mentoring Jane Seymour’ (Weir, pg. 88).

The entry from Letters & Papers reads,

On St. George’s Day, 23 April 28 Hen. VIII., a chapter of the Order of the Garter was held at Greenwich, at which were present the King, the dukes of Richmond and Norfolk, the earls of Northumberland, Westmoreland, Wiltshire, Sussex, Rutland, and Oxford, lord Sandys, and Sir Wm. Fitzwilliam. It was determined to hold the feast on May 21, the earl of Northumberland taking the Sovereign’s place, assisted by the earls of Rutland, Westmoreland, and Oxford, and Sir Wm. Fitzwilliam. Votes were taken for the election of a knight; and the next day, after mass for the dead, the King declared Sir Nic. Carew elected. He was installed when the feast was kept, on May 21. On this occasion the earl of Northumberland was seized with vertigo and weakness, so that it was feared he would not be able to take his part as deputy, but he recovered. The next day the hatchments of the deceased were offered up.

On April 29, Chapuys wrote to Charles V,

The Grand Ecuyer, Mr. Caro, had on St. George’s day the Order of the Garter in the place of the deceased M. de Burgain (lord Abergavenny), to the great disappointment of Rochford, who was seeking for it, and all the more because the Concubine has not had sufficient influence to get it for her brother; and it will not be the fault of the said Ecuyer if the Concubine, although his cousin (quelque, qu. quoique? cousine) be not dismounted. He continually counsels Mrs. Semel and other conspirators “pour luy faire une venue,” and only four days ago he and some persons of the chamber sent to tell the Princess to be of good cheer, for shortly the opposite party would put water in their wine, for the King was already as sick and tired of the concubine as could be; and the brother of lord Montague told me yesterday at dinner that the day before the bishop of London had been asked if the King could abandon the said concubine, and he would not give any opinion to anyone but the King himself, and before doing so he would like to know the King’s own inclination, meaning to intimate that the King might leave the said concubine, but that, knowing his fickleness, he would not put himself in danger. The said Bishop was the principal cause and instrument of the first divorce, of which he heartily repents, and would still more gladly promote this, the said concubine and all her race are such abominable Lutherans. London, 29 April 1536.

Some ominous signs for Anne and the Boleyn faction but as Weir points out in The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn, five days later, on April 28, Henry Lord Stafford wrote to the Earl of Westmoreland to thank him for ‘furthering my suit with the Queen.’ Although Chapuys believed that Anne was falling from favour, clearly others still felt her influence intact.

A Visitor's Companion to Tudor England

When I first interviewed Suzannah Lipscomb in early 2011, she was immersed in researching and writing A Visitor’s Companion to Tudor England. Whilst talking to Suzannah about her book, I discovered that we share something in common – a love for walking in the footsteps of the great historical figures of Tudor England.

There is something magical about standing where Henry VIII or Anne Boleyn once stood, it is as though recorded in the walls of these ancient buildings are the very conversations that took place hundreds of years before. Listen closely enough and you can hear the courtiers whispering and politicking.

What really fires the imagination, is that when standing in these historical locations, it is only time and not space that separate us. If we could only peel back the layers of time, we would be there, face to face with the iconic characters of sixteenth century England.

Suzannah summed it up perfectly,

‘In the places featured in this book, the veil between the past and the present seems very thin.’ (pg. 8 )

It is in these locations, where history happened, that we can get close to the people whose lives we hope to understand.

In this wonderful book, Suzannah takes us on a journey to over fifty Tudor places, introducing us to the key characters of the Tudor age and sharing their fascinating stories.

I really enjoyed the variety of locations; we visit houses, palaces, castles, abbeys, tombs, Museums and even a tree! I also found the inclusion of information about other aspects of life in Tudor England – such as sports and pastimes, clothing and the royal progress, enhanced the overall experience.

Little Moreton Hall

Expect to find locations that you are familiar with, like the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace and Westminster Abbey. But what makes this book stand out is the inclusion of less well-known houses, like Sandford Orcas Manor House and Little Moreton Hall.

Some of the locations included are ruins: Tutbury Castle, Kenilworth and Hailes Abbey, to name but a few, and these are worthy of inclusion, as the events that unfolded within their now crumbling walls, are of great importance.

Suzannah is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide who brings each location vividly to life through an engaging narrative.

Although academic references are not included, you can be confident that only verifiable stories and details have made the pages.

I eagerly awaited the release of this book and it has not disappointed. Judging by the amount of post-it notes that now reside on the pages of my copy, I have learnt a lot!

Tuck it under your arm on your next Tudor pilgrimage or enjoy it from the comfort of your own home. Who said that time travel wasn’t possible? Highly recommended!

I leave you now with the words of historian G. M. Trevelyan, quoted in Suzannah Lipscomb’s book:

‘The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing after another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cock-crow.’

http://suzannahlipscomb.com/

Hever Castle

When you hear the words, ‘Boleyn family home’ it’s difficult not to immediately picture Hever Castle, a fairytale castle in the beautiful Kent countryside that has long been thought of as Anne Boleyn’s birthplace.

The home is, as Eric Ives puts it, ‘a romantic shrine to Anne and her love affair with Henry VIII. Unfortunately, for romance and tradition, Anne was in fact born in Norfolk, almost certainly at the Boleyn home at Blickling, fifteen miles north of Norwich.’ (pg. 3)

Blickling Hall, Norfolk (built on the site of the Boleyn home)

Ives’ source? Mathew Parker, Anne Boleyn’s private chaplain born in Norfolk, who later became archbishop of Canterbury and described himself as her ‘poor countryman’. Sir Henry Spelman, a Norfolk antiquarian writing during the reign of Elizabeth I, echoed this view:

‘To Blickling was decreed the honour of Anne Boleyn’s birth.’ (Weir, pg. 19)

The Boleyns were a Norfolk family long before they moved to Hever Castle in Kent and after the annihilation of the noble Boleyn family in 1536, the gentry family survived at Blickling until the 1560s and the death of Sir James Boleyn.

The focus of this post is not to debate Anne’s birthplace or whether the Boleyns abandoned Blickling for Hever. Instead, it is to bring to your attention another Boleyn property situated by the River Wensum on King Street, Norwich.

Elizabeth Griffiths describes the Boleyn house as lying adjacent to the building now known as Dragon Hall in an area where the Pastons and the Heydons once maintained homes alongside the Boleyns.

The staff at Dragon Hall very kindly informed me that Sir William Boleyn owned part or all of what is now 125-127 King Street. Records show that William paid ‘landgable’, a type of council tax for the property and Blomefield, the Norfolk historian, called it ‘the house of Sir William Boleyn’.

Although referred to as a ‘house’, there is some doubt as to whether the building was ever used as a home. Norfolk Archaeology Report, number 500 (2000), dates the building as ‘probably late 15^th century’ and ‘suggests that it was not a private dwelling house’ and instead may have been an ‘inn’ with a corridor running along the King Street side and rooms off it.

I was delighted to find some old photos of the building taken by George Plunkett who took photos of old Norwich between 1931-2006.  I have reproduced two photographs here with kind permission of his son, Jonathan Plunkett.

The first picture was taken in 1936 and Mr Plunkett provided the following information:

‘Adjacent, and to the south of the renowned Dragon Hall, is another building of note, that comprising Nos 125-129. When photographed in 1936 its half-timbered upper storey had for long been hidden under plaster, but some ten years later the plaster was removed to reveal its sturdy construction of timber and brick. After a few more years its owners chose to rip out the entire ground floor, replacing the modest 19c shop fronts with a continuous range of plate glass and leaving the medieval first floor suspended as it were mid-air.’

King Street, Norwich 125 to 129 © George Plunkett

The second photograph was taken in 1946 when the plaster had been removed.

King Street Norwich, 125 to 129 © George Plunkett

I am visiting Norfolk next month and hope to see the building for myself even though I have been told that it is in a sad state today, having been empty for many years.

The Palace of Placentia in a 17th-century drawing

On April 18, 1536 Chapuys met with Henry VIII at Greenwich.

On arrival, George Boleyn welcomed the ambassador and Cromwell presented Chapuys with a message from Henry, inviting him to visit Anne and kiss her hand. The ambassador could not bring himself to acquiesce and so begged Cromwell to excuse him, perhaps, for Chapuys’ sake, he should have accepted this more intimate encounter with Queen Anne because what was to follow was a much more public acknowledgement.

Queen Anne Boleyn

Rochford conducted the ambassador to mass and Eric Ives relates what took place.

‘Anne accompanied Henry from the royal pew down to the chapel to make her offering, and knowing that Chapuys was placed behind the door through which she entered, she stopped, turned and bowed to this representative of the Empire, and necessarily he responded likewise. After mass, Chapuys was careful not to go with the king and the other ambassadors to dine with Anne, but again it was her brother who entertained him in the presence chamber…’ (Pg. 313)

Chapuys recounts the encounter in a letter to Charles V,

‘I was conducted to mass by lord Rochford, the concubine’s brother, and when the King came to the offering there was a great concourse of people partly to see how the concubine and I behaved to each other. She was courteous enough, for when I was behind the door by which she entered, she returned, merely to do me reverence as I did to her. After mass the King went to dine at the concubine’s lodging, whither everybody accompanied him except myself, who was conducted by Rochford to the King’s Chamber of Presence, and dined there with all the principal men of the Court. I am told the concubine asked the King why I did not enter there as the other ambassadors did, and the King replied that it was not without good reason.’ (LP, x.699)

It’s difficult to believe that only two weeks after this triumphant victory for Anne, she would be arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Even more disturbing, in 31 days – she would be no more.