Special Guest Post by Rosemary Griggs, Author of Queen Elizabeth I's Governess: The Real Kat Ashley

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

The name ‘Kat Ashley’, Queen Elizabeth’s ‘Governess’, is well-known to fans of Tudor history. Katherine Champernowne, later John Astley’s wife, joined Elizabeth’s household before the future queen turned three. Later she became Elizabeth’s ‘governess’, trusted with the upbringing of the King’s younger daughter. Formidably well-educated for a woman of her time, reports suggest Katherine did an excellent job. When Elizabeth came to the throne, one of her first actions was to name Katherine as Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, a highly influential position within the court of a female monarch.

Although they served at the court of Henry VIII, the Champernowne family are not well known to those who study Tudor history. However, anyone interested in the early life of Elizabeth I will have come across Katherine Champernowne, later the wife of John Astley. She is widely known as Elizabeth’s childhood governess, Kat Ashley. I prefer to call her Kate, partly because the evidence that Elizabeth actually used the short form ‘Kat’ is not overwhelming, but also to reinforce that I have found a woman who differs from the Kat of popular culture.

Kate appears briefly in many learned biographies of Henry VIII’s younger daughter. It’s often been supposed she came from a minor gentry family. Writers and filmmakers often portray her in fiction and on screen as a rather foolish, gossipy nanny figure, a minor supporting character in the fascinating drama of Elizabeth’s fraught early years. My research tells a different story.

Far from being from a rural gentry background, Kate was close to people at the heart of the Tudor Court. By the early 16th century, the Champernownes of Devon had expanded their lands well beyond the west country, into Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. Over many generations, through dynastic marriages, they forged alliances with powerful families, including Poyntz, Carew, and, most notably, Courtenay.

Like many women of her time, the historical record remains stubbornly silent about Kate’s early life. She first comes to notice when appointed to the household of three-year-old Elizabeth in 1536. Exploring her family connections and the people she was close to places that appointment in context.

Kate was the eldest daughter of Sir Philip Champernowne, a close relative of Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter, first cousin and companion of the young Henry VIII. The Marquess’s father was Sir Philip’s first cousin. Sir Philip served as squire of the body to the king for a time, mixing with other well-known courtiers, before he retired to the west country, where he often deputised for the Marquess. Kate may have gained her formidable education among her powerful Courtenay relatives.

Through her maternal grandmother, Kate also had connections to the Poyntz family, who held prominent positions in Catherine of Aragon’s household. Kate’s great aunt married Sir Anthony Poyntz. She is likely the Elizabeth Poyntz who had care of Henry VIII’s short-lived son, Henry Duke  of Cornwall. Also on the maternal side, Kate’s uncle, Sir Gawen Carew married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk’s sister. 

Brandon was a close friend of the king and married Mary Tudor, the king’s sister, after the death of her first husband, the King of France. Sir Gawen became a prominent courtier, soldier and diplomat. Sir George Carew, ill-fated captain of the Mary Rose, and his brother Sir Peter, were Kate’s cousins. 

Kate’s sister, Joan, was one of Catherine Parr’s ladies and shared her interest in the reformed religion. Joan married Sir Anthony Denny, a man so close to King Henry VIII that he was the only one brave enough to tell the dying king that his end was near. Kate’s brother, John, also had a place at court. According to Sir Richard Carew of Anthony, writing in the early years of the  seventeenth century, John was popular with King Henry ‘for his pleasant conceits’.  So Kate moved in circles close to the royal court. She also knew many Cambridge-educated intellectuals.

Not long after Anne Boleyn’s execution, Kate was one of a group of serving gentlewomen appointed to serve Anne’s three-year-old daughter. Their role was to keep company with the little girl, to entertain her, and at all times to model the behaviour and manners expected of a noblewoman in the sixteenth century.  Soon after this appointment, Kate made her first known appearance in the historical record with an extraordinarily bold letter to Thomas Cromwell. That letter, dated 5 October 1536, made me stop and think about the way historians and writers have traditionally portrayed Kate’s character.

To paraphrase the letter — there’s a full transcript in my book — Kate thanks Cromwell for recommending her to the king for her new post. She then asks him if he could speak to the king about payment for her services. Unfortunately, we only have half of this fascinating correspondence. Many of Thomas Cromwell’s papers were destroyed at the time of his downfall, and his response has not survived. In 1536, Cromwell was the most powerful man in the land, after the king. He was not a man who acted without a purpose.

Political considerations influenced his every decision, including Kate’s appointment.  I found it very hard to reconcile the author of that letter to the great man with the foolish character traditionally given to Kate. Would a girl, however well educated, from a minor gentry family, really have dared to write to him in those terms? And would Cromwell have even considered appointing someone so lacking in judgement?

I

n 1536, Lady Margaret Bryan was Elizabeth’s Lady Mistress, having overall oversight of the child’s upbringing and early years education. Lady Troy, working with Lady Bryan, was Elizabeth’s governess, and likely introduced the child to her letters using a hornbook. At that time, no one expected Elizabeth would become queen. Rather, as the king’s daughter, even though declared illegitimate, she was a valuable commodity in the marriage market. In her early years, she must gain all the attributes that would make her attractive as a bride.

Sometime after Lady Bryan took charge of the nursery of Edward VI in 1537, and Lady Troy became Lady Mistress to Elizabeth, Kate was promoted to Elizabeth’s governess. More than ten years later, in a letter to Protector Edward Seymour, dated 31 January 1549, Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, who was questioning Elizabeth about her involvement with Thomas Seymour, confirmed that it was King Henry VIII himself who promoted Kate to be Elizabeth’s Lady Mistress. That means she became Lady Mistress before King Henry died in 1547.  It also tells us that Kate not only had the support and trust of Cromwell but also of Elizabeth’s father.

Many assumptions and myths have grown up about Kate Astley, repeated so often that people consider them facts. She’s been called jolly and kind, with unconventional teaching methods, and given credit for single-handedly introducing the little girl to a long list of subjects. These statements are not confirmed in primary sources. As a royal governess, her remit was much broader than that of a Jane Eyre-style Victorian governess. Kate also had to be a mentor, adviser, and protector. She did not deliver all the academic lessons herself but had oversight of input from a range of tutors, music masters, dance teachers, riding instructors and a chaplain, who covered a wide-ranging curriculum.

From nineteenth-century scholars to more recent historians, the focus has been on the events of 1548-49 when Elizabeth was under the roof of her stepmother, the Dowager Queen, Catherine Parr, and her new husband, Thomas Seymour. Kate’s deposition, taken in the Tower of London in January 1549, gives all the salacious details of Seymour’s behaviour towards the fourteen-year-old girl, which appear to modern eyes beyond inappropriate. As a result, Kate has been declared negligent, a gossip, and even considered to have herself been infatuated with the dashing Admiral. 

These assessments do not seem to fit with the view of Elizabeth’s tutors, William Grindal and Roger Ascham, who both praised Kate for her care of the young princess. In my book, I explore an alternative scenario, placing Kate’s testimony in a different light as part of a strategy designed to protect the young princess. Interpretations of that difficult period have largely defined what people think about Kate Astley, while her later years have often been overlooked. Closer study reveals Kate as a political actor, staunchly loyal to Elizabeth.

In 1554, after the Wyatt rebellion against Queen Mary’s Spanish marriage, Kate suffered a long period of house arrest. She was suspected because her cousin, Sir Peter Carew, was a prime mover in the failed plot. Mary eventually allowed Kate to rejoin her mistress briefly, but clearly considered Kate a dangerous influence on Elizabeth and a threat. Only a few months later she held Kate in the Fleet Prison on suspicion of involvement in another plot and then banished her from Elizabeth’s service.

After Elizabeth came to the throne, she made Kate her Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, a pivotal role with unique, intimate access to the queen. Kate was Elizabeth’s eyes and ears, listening out for damaging gossip and keeping Elizabeth in touch with how her policies were being received at court and beyond. Anyone who wanted to approach Elizabeth talked to Kate. She gave advice on what sort of gifts might be welcome at New Year.  An Italian news sheet described her as ‘Patroness of all England’ in 1562.  A year after Kate’s death, Hugh Fitzwilliam wrote to the queen saying, ‘Now that Mrs Ashley is gone he has no friend to make his moan to.’

Kate acted as a highly political female courtier at the court of a female monarch. Her death in 1565 left the queen devastated. The two women shared a close bond of mutual love and respect for nearly 30 years. Kate Astley arguably had more influence on the young Elizabeth I than anyone else. She deserves our further consideration.

I hope that Queen Elizabeth’s Governess: The Real Kat Ashley will encourage further debate about a remarkable woman.

Rosemary Griggs

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About the Author

Author and speaker Rosemary Griggs has been researching Devon's sixteenth-century history for years. She has discovered a cast of fascinating characters and an intriguing network of families whose influence stretched far beyond the West Country. She loves telling the stories of the forgotten women of history — the women beyond the royal court; wives, sisters, daughters and mothers who played their part during those tumultuous Tudor years: the Daughters of Devon. Her novel A Woman of Noble Wit tells the story of Katherine Champernowne, Sir Walter Raleigh’s mother, and features many of the county’s well-loved places. The Dartington Bride, published March 2024, is the extraordinary tale of Lady Gabrielle Roberda Montgomery who travelled from France to Elizabethan England to marry into the prominent and well-connected Champernowne family. Rosemary creates and wears sixteenth-century clothing, a passion which complements her love for bringing the past to life through a unique blend of theatre, history and re-enactment. Her appearances and talks for museums and community groups all over the West Country draw on her extensive research into sixteenth-century Devon, Tudor life and Tudor dress, particularly Elizabethan. Out of costume, Rosemary leads heritage tours of the gardens at Dartington Hall, a fourteenth-century manor house and now a a historic visitor destination, events venue and thriving community of businesses, colleges and more. You can find out more on Rosemary’s website:  https://rosemarygriggs.co.uk/ and follow her on Bluesky and Twitter @RAGriggsauthor

Prince Henry Stuart: The Best King We Never Had?

One of the most intriguing characters in my new book, Queen Anna, was the story of her eldest son, Prince Henry Stuart, heir to the crown of three kingdoms.  Brave, ambitious and a devout Protestant, Prince Henry Stuart seemed destined to become one of Britain's most remarkable kings. His sudden death at eighteen left a grieving nation wondering what might have been.

Imagine a different beginning to the seventeenth century. Instead of Charles I inheriting the English throne in 1625, it should have been his elder brother Henry who became king. A confident young ruler, devoted to Protestantism, fascinated by military affairs and eager to strengthen the navy, might have taken Britain down a very different path.

It is an intriguing possibility. Henry Frederick Stuart, Prince of Wales, was more than the heir who died too young. During his short life, he became a symbol of national ambition, Protestant hopes and the promise of a new generation of Stuart rule. His death in November 1612, aged just eighteen, deprived his father, James I, of his eldest son and left the future of the monarchy in the hands of a very different young prince.

Henry was born at Stirling Castle in Scotland on 19 February 1594, the eldest surviving son of James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark. His birth was celebrated as a moment of great importance for the Stuart dynasty. James had no guarantee that his Scottish crown would pass smoothly to his descendants, and a healthy male heir offered the prospect of continuity.

When Elizabeth I died in March 1603, Henry's father inherited the English throne, becoming James I of England while remaining James VI of Scotland. For the first time, the crowns of England and Scotland rested on the same head. Henry was now heir to a monarchy whose future would eventually encompass both kingdoms, although they remained separate states with their own laws and institutions.

The new royal family attracted enormous interest. Henry represented the future: a young prince who might inherit his father's kingdoms and provide the strong, stable Protestant succession many people desired. His younger brother Charles, born in 1600, stood behind him in the line of succession, with little reason to expect that he would one day become king.

Portrait of Prince Henry Frederick Stuart (the eldest son of King James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark) painted around 1596 when he was about two years old,

Henry's childhood was not spent entirely in the company of his parents. He was brought up under the care of tutors and household officers, first in Scotland and later in England. One important figure in his life was Adam Newton, his tutor, who supervised an education intended to prepare him for the responsibilities of kingship. 

Henry's education was designed to prepare him for power. He studied Latin, French and Italian, alongside history, geography and the practical knowledge required of a Renaissance prince. He was particularly interested in military matters and seems to have responded more enthusiastically as his lessons became relevant to his future responsibilities.

He was athletic, enjoying tennis, hunting, hawking and other sports. Unlike the rather reserved reputation that later attached to his brother Charles, Henry cultivated an image of energy, discipline and action. His interest in military exercises and elaborate armour helped establish him as a prince who could lead his subjects rather than merely inherit their obedience.

In 1610, aged sixteen, Henry was formally created Prince of Wales in a magnificent ceremony. The occasion confirmed his position as heir to the English throne and provided an opportunity to present him as the embodiment of chivalric virtue.

Portrait miniature of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, 

painted around 1610–1612 by Isaac Oliver 

Yet Henry's public image was not simply the result of court propaganda. He demonstrated a genuine appetite for learning and a remarkable interest in the world beyond his father's court. His contemporaries saw in him a young man with the potential to become an unusually active and capable monarch. 

One of the most interesting aspects of Henry's life was the breadth of his ambitions. He was fascinated by the sea, exploration, military strength and the position of Protestant powers in Europe.

Henry supported the development of England's navy and took an interest in navigation and maritime technology. The celebrated shipwright Phineas Pett built a magnificent vessel known as the Prince Royal, launched in 1610. It was among the most ambitious royal naval projects of the period and reflected the prince's enthusiasm for maritime power.

Henry also supported exploration, including an expedition intended to find the Northwest Passage, the hoped-for sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. His name was associated with English colonial ambitions in Virginia, where the settlement of Henricus was named in his honour. He often visited Sir Walter Raleigh in the Tower of London to share ideas on exploration and ship design. These interests were connected. A stronger navy could defend the realm, protect trade, challenge rival powers and support England's expanding overseas ambitions. Henry appeared to understand that England's future would depend partly on its ability to project power beyond its shores.

His religious convictions also shaped his political outlook. Henry was an ardent Protestant, and his views were considerably more hostile towards Catholicism than those of many who favoured religious compromise. In an age when European politics were deeply entangled with religious conflict, this mattered enormously. A future King Henry might have pursued a more assertive Protestant foreign policy, although we cannot know how far his practical decisions would have matched the expectations placed upon him. 

For all his military interests, Henry was no narrow-minded soldier. He was an enthusiastic collector, a patron of artists and architects, and an important figure in the cultural life of the Jacobean court. His library contained more than a thousand volumes added to an already impressive collection. He commissioned architectural and garden projects, including a new library and riding school at St James's Palace and ambitious gardens at Richmond Palace. These projects reflected the intellectual curiosity and cultivated tastes expected of a European Renaissance prince.

Court entertainment was another important part of his public identity. In January 1610, Prince Henry's Barriers combined a masque with an elaborate tournament. The performances celebrated princely virtue through allegory, music, dance and spectacular costumes. The architect and designer Inigo Jones helped establish the visual splendour for which Stuart court entertainments became famous.

In the autumn of 1612, the Stuart court was preparing for a major royal celebration. Henry's younger sister, Princess Elizabeth, was to marry Frederick V, Elector Palatine, a prominent German Protestant prince. Their marriage, which took place in February 1613, promised to strengthen Protestant alliances across Europe. Frederick arrived in England in October 1612, and Henry spent time with his future brother-in-law. The atmosphere at court should have been one of excitement and anticipation. Instead, the celebrations were overtaken by a sudden and devastating illness.

Henry had apparently been suffering from periods of lassitude and headaches before becoming seriously ill in October. He continued to take part in physical activities, including tennis, despite his deteriorating health. Contemporary accounts describe fever and the increasingly desperate attempts of his physicians to treat him.

A later account associates his illness with swimming in the Thames after playing tennis, although the precise circumstances and significance of the swim remain less certain than some popular retellings suggest. What is clear is that his condition worsened rapidly, despite the efforts of the royal doctors.

On 6 November 1612, Henry died at St James's Palace. He was only eighteen. The loss was almost impossible to comprehend. The prince who had seemed to embody the future of the Stuart monarchy was gone, leaving his family and country to confront a future nobody had expected to arrive so soon. 

The sudden death of a popular heir naturally provoked suspicion. Rumours circulated that Henry had been poisoned, and speculation later attached itself to rivalries at court and to his father's relationship with his heir. There was no evidence that he was murdered. A post-mortem examination was ordered, in part to address fears and rumours surrounding his death. The surviving medical accounts have led historians to regard typhoid fever as the most likely explanation. The diagnosis is not based on modern laboratory testing, of course, but on the recorded symptoms and the historical evidence.

The poisoning stories reveal something important about Henry's place in the public imagination. His death was so unexpected, and his promise so widely celebrated, that many people struggled to accept an ordinary illness as the explanation. For a nation that had invested so much hope in him, it was easier to imagine that the future had been stolen than to accept that it had simply ended. 

The grief following Henry's death was extraordinary. His body lay in state at St James's Palace before his funeral at Westminster Abbey on 7 December 1612. The funeral procession was a magnificent and solemn affair, with around two thousand official mourners and crowds lining the streets.

The ceremony reflected not only the importance of the heir to the throne but also the emotional investment people had made in him. Poetry, sermons and music commemorated his life, while writers struggled to express the scale of the loss.

King James was devastated. Accounts of his grief suggest that the death remained a painful preoccupation, even when the king was occupied with affairs of state. Queen Anne of Denmark also lost a son whose position within the dynasty had made him central to the family's future.

Henry's younger brother Charles was now the heir apparent. He had to assume a position for which he had not been expected to prepare so soon, and the shadow of his elder brother's reputation would follow him for the rest of his life.

Henry was buried in the vault of his grandmother, Mary, Queen of Scots, in Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster Abbey. His funeral effigy, once richly dressed, has survived in fragmentary form, a poignant reminder of how the physical traces of even the grandest royal lives can gradually disappear. 

It is tempting to imagine Henry ascending the throne in 1625, when James I died. He would have been thirty-one: an experienced prince, familiar with government, military affairs and international politics, with a reputation for energy and strong Protestant convictions.

Would he have avoided the conflicts that engulfed his brother Charles I? Would he have worked more successfully with Parliament? Might he have strengthened the navy, pursued a more forceful Protestant policy in Europe or approached the relationship between Crown and country differently?

Henry had not yet ruled a kingdom. We can't know how he would have responded to financial pressures, religious divisions, parliamentary resistance or the competing demands of his subjects. His apparent confidence as a prince does not prove that he would have been a successful king.  Nevertheless, his death changed the course of the Stuart dynasty. Charles inherited the crown in 1625 and eventually faced the crisis that led to the English Civil Wars and his execution in 1649. Henry's life ended before he could encounter any of these challenges.

The contrast between the brothers is striking. Henry was remembered as a vigorous, idealised young prince, while Charles became associated with the bitter divisions of his reign. It is possible that Henry would have faced many of the same problems. It is equally possible that his personality, priorities and political choices might have produced a different outcome.

What matters is that the possibilities disappeared with him. Prince Henry Stuart lived for only eighteen years, yet he left a considerable mark on the culture and politics of his age. He supported the arts, took a serious interest in maritime power, embraced a strongly Protestant identity and inspired hopes that he would become an exceptional king.

His story also reminds us how history can turn on events that seem, at the time, almost unbearably arbitrary. A fever in the autumn of 1612 changed the succession, altered the future of the Stuart family and left the English monarchy to a younger brother whose reign would become one of the most turbulent in British history.

Perhaps that is why Henry continues to fascinate us. He belongs to that small group of historical figures whose lives are inseparable from the future they never lived to shape. We can admire the promise without pretending to know the outcome. We can mourn the loss without turning him into a flawless hero - and we can wonder what might have happened if the young Prince of Wales survived to wear the crown.

Tony Riches

See: Author Anna Belfrage Reviews Queen Anna, Book One of the Stuart Queens Trilogy

Blog Tour Spotlight: The Roll Of the Dice Series: We Who Endure, by J. A. Quarles

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

As the fires of war spread across a divided nation, three brothers from Louisiana are swept into the storm that will decide the fate of the Confederacy-and perhaps the future of America itself.

In the bloody aftermath of Fredericksburg, young Confederate officer Johan Lutze escapes Union captivity through courage, cunning, and sheer determination. Returning to General Robert E. Lee's army just in time for the Battle of Chancellorsville, Johan performs an act of heroism that saves the life of the legendary General Stonewall Jackson and thrusts him into the inner circle of Confederate power.

Now, with Vicksburg under siege and the Confederacy teetering between survival and collapse, Johan's bold strategic ideas begin to influence President Jefferson Davis himself. But in Richmond, ambition and politics can be as deadly as bullets, and not everyone welcomes the rise of the young officer from Louisiana.

While Johan helps shape daring military campaigns alongside Generals Lee, Beauregard, and Johnston, his brothers wage battles of their own. Paul Lutze Jr., maimed at Shiloh and fitted with a prosthetic leg, enters the shadowy world of Confederate espionage, where secrets and sabotage may alter the course of the war. Meanwhile, sixteen-year-old Jacques Lutze marches north with the ferocious Louisiana Tigers, consumed by grief, vengeance, and a burning desire to kill Yankees before they kill him.

From the fields of Pennsylvania to the banks of the Mississippi, from the halls of Richmond to the courts of Europe and the rising empire in Mexico, the war expands into a conflict of global consequence. Armies maneuver. Governments scheme. Brothers bleed.

And as the summer of 1863 approaches its reckoning, the Lutze brothers will stand at the center of history-where triumph and tragedy walk hand in hand.

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About the Author

Born and raised in New Orleans, Justin has always had a passion for storytelling. This writing process has always been important to Justin, a lifelong history nerd, who received a Bachelor’s in History from the University of New Orleans. After he is done with his day job, Justin loves to come home and play with his two wonderful kiddos and watch movies with his wife. Find out more at www.jaquarles.com

Special Guest Post by Anna Belfrage, Author of A Newfound Land (The Graham Saga Book 4)

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

It’s 1672, and Matthew Graham and his family have left Scotland. Having taken the drastic decision to leave their homeland due to religious conflicts, Alexandra and Matthew hope for a simpler, if harsher, life in the wilds of the Colony of Maryland.

The passing of a people – the consequences of colonisation 

It would have been very difficult to write A Newfound Land, set in 17th century Maryland, without considering the impact of European colonisation on the native peoples. I’d argue that the single biggest tragedy to befall the native population of the Americas was the arrival of Columbus upon their shores. Over the course of a couple of centuries, a deadly cocktail consisting of slavery, disease and warfare was to reduce the native population with 40-80% (it varies substantially from area to area) and what had been thriving civilizations were reduced to memories and ruins.

In 1607, The Virginia Company of London established its first bridgehead into its charter territories. Jamestown was founded on a marshy island in present day Virginia, and a couple of boatloads of settlers were deposited in the wilds to make a new life for themselves. Things did not go as planned, and the first few years of its existence, the colony teetered on the brink of extinction more than once. Fortunately, the colony had a capable leader in John Smith, adventurer extraordinaire, and this gentleman spent quite some time exploring the Chesapeake area and making contacts with the local people.

Many of the tribes John Smith visited no longer exist. One such lost people is the Susquehannock. Disease and warfare – both with their fierce cousins the Iroquois and the white settlers – caused the extinction of a once flourishing nation. In fact, today we have no idea what these Native Americans may have called themselves, because there is no one around who speaks their language anymore. Once a language dies, the culture that flourished with it dies as well, and so we have no idea as to what beliefs, what myths the Susquehannock held dear. It’s almost as they never existed – well, apart from the odd artefacts that are presently displayed in one or other museum.

A Lenape (Delaware) family or group from the mid-17th century, based on a drawing by Swedish engineer and traveler Peter Mårtensson Lindeström from his time in the New Sweden colony

But the Susquehannock did exist, a power to be reckoned with, masters over a large swathe of land that stretched from Delaware, through parts of Pennsylvania and into Maryland. John Smith was very impressed by the Susquehannock, claiming they went around dressed in wolf and bear pelts and were all of them big and strong, fully capable of beating the brains out of a man. Despite these ferocious qualities, for the first few decades of their co-existence both the Susquehannock and the Maryland colonists prospered – a win-win situation for both.

Things were not quite as peachy-pie in Virginia. The colonists repeatedly broke the treaties they had signed with the Powhatan Confederacy, and when the angered natives retaliated, the colonists screamed ‘murder’ and demanded that the natives be subdued once and for all.

In the 1670’s, the constant skirmishes between the Powhatan and the Virginia colonists escalated into open warfare, and through a series of unfortunate events, the Susquehannock were dragged into the conflict. A decade later, the once so mighty Susquehannock had more or less disappeared. Their wooden forts had been razed to the ground, their men had been slain, their women enslaved, and what few remnants remained had fled due north-west, seeking the protection of the Iroquois, their former enemies.

Some Susquehannock made it over to Pennsylvania and founded a community there, Conestoga Town. There they eeked out a living far removed from their former life, hiring themselves as labourers to adjoining farms. But in 1763, the last three dozen or so of true-blooded Susquehannock were massacred by the Paxton Boys, a militant group of white bad boys that killed whatever Native Americans they could get their hands on in retaliation for the recent French-Indian war. Less than two centuries after their first contact with the European settlers, the Susquehannock had ceased to exist.

The Susquehannock play an important and recurring role in my series The Graham Saga. My male protagonist, Matthew Graham, is a devout Presbyterian, a veteran of the Commonwealth armies and a man who initially at least tends to see the world as black or white. Which is why I gifted him with Alex Lind, an opinionated modern woman who had the misfortune (or not) of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, thereby being dragged three centuries back in time to land concussed and badly singed at an astounded Matthew’s feet.

Due to Matthew’s religious persuasions, the Graham family is forced to leave their homeland behind and immigrate to the Colony of Maryland where they establish cordial relationships with the nearby Susquehannock tribe. But as the tension between colonists and Indians increase, the fragile friendship between Matthew and Qaachow, a Susquehannock chief, is put under severe pressure.

The below excerpt is from A Newfound Land, the fourth book in The Graham Saga, which is when Qaachow first enters Matthew’s and Alex’s lives.

Alex didn’t see him until she had sat down on her normal perch, a fallen log just to the east of the clearing.  Qaachow was sitting in absolute stillness a bit further on, his eyes locked on what Alex supposed had been the main house of the settlement but that now reminded her of an elongated tomb. She shivered at the thought; after all, to some extent it was.

    “I’m sorry.” She stood up. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Qaachow tilted his head to show he’d heard her but otherwise remained where he was.

    “You come to think of your daughter,” he said, gesturing at the ‘RACHEL’ she had carved on a nearby tree. “Those thoughts do not intrude on mine.”

    Alex sat back down again. Not that there was any possibility of her thinking about Rachel now, with this slim, half-naked Indian some yards away, but it would be rude to walk away and disturb his meditation again. He was gaunter than last time she’d seen him, more careworn. He shifted on his perch and the breechcloth rustled, releasing a fragrance of crushed pine needles.

    “I sit here at times and remember the life that was. Before…” His low voice cut through the silence.

    “Before we came,” she filled in, following the dancing beams of afternoon sunlight that fell in from the west to pattern the ground with eerily lifelike shades of that long gone existence.

    “Yes, before John Smith brought the white man over.” He looked away through the screen of trees towards the river, barely visible from here. “He came to our village once.”

    “He did? What was he like?”

    “I’m not that old.” He smiled. “I never met him in person, but my grandfather did. We should never have let you land,” he added in a darker voice. “We should have listened to our wary brethren of the north and pushed you back into the sea.”

    Alex quietly agreed. Soon nothing would be left of the Indian way of life.

    “We still could, we still might.”

    “Too late,” Alex said. “We’ll never let this go. Not now.”

    Qaachow gave her a look of grim amusement. “We could steal in like shadows in the night, and none of you would notice until you lay dying in your blood.”

Alex huddled together with physical pain at the thought. “But you won’t, will you? You won’t kill my babies.”

    “No, my people will not. We owe you lives.”

    “Your people? Are there any other Indians we need to worry about?”

    Qaachow shrugged. “This is our land. They will not touch you. But, elsewhere, white women and children will be slain, and their men will be killed slowly and in agony. The coming years will be bad, Mrs Graham, very bad.”

    Alex nodded and bent to pick up a pine cone from where it lay on the shimmering green of the moss.

    “I know. That’s why Matthew’s been called down to Providence.”

Qaachow looked away, saying something in his own language that sounded very sad. For some time he sat sunk in thoughts, eyes lost in the dappled shadow of the surrounding woods.

    “I’ve never thanked you or your husband for what you did for my people, in particular for my wife.”          Qaachow stood up in one fluid movement. He was an attractive man, Alex reflected, his hairless torso outlined with muscles without becoming too excessive. Long, beautiful hands, and a mouth that, when relaxed, was soft and tender – kissable. Their eyes met. For a couple of heartbeats he held her eyes, the shadow of a smile playing round his mouth.

    Alex cleared her throat. “Your wife?”

    “Thistledown-in-the-wind; it was her sister that died.”

    “She’s very pretty,” Alex said, thinking of the young Indian woman with the thick braids – young enough to be his daughter, but apparently his wife. He seemed to see what she was thinking and smiled crookedly.

    “I loved my first wife very much, and it took many moons before I wanted to look at another woman.” He stared off into the distance. “Morning Dream – always first in my heart.”

    “Morning Dream, what a beautiful name.”

    “As was she.” With a courteous nod in her direction, Qaachow blended into the surrounding trees.

Anna Belfrage

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About the Author

Had Anna been allowed to choose, she’d have become a time-traveller. As this was impossible, she became a financial professional with two absorbing interests: history and writing. Anna has authored the acclaimed time travelling series The Graham Saga, set in 17th century Scotland and Maryland, as well as the equally acclaimed medieval series The King’s Greatest Enemy which is set in 14th century England.  Her Castilian Heart is the third in her “Castilian” series, a stand-alone sequel to her September 2020 release, His Castilian Hawk. Set against the complications of Edward I’s invasion of Wales, His Castilian Hawk is a story of loyalty, integrity—and love. In the second instalment, The Castilian Pomegranate, we travel with the protagonists to the complex political world of medieval Spain. This latest release finds our protagonists back in England—not necessarily any safer than the wilds of Spain! Anna has also authored The Whirlpools of Time in which she returns to the world of time travel. Join Duncan and the somewhat reluctant time-traveller Erin on their adventures through the Scottish Highlands just as the first Jacobite rebellion is about to explode!  All of Anna’s books have been awarded the IndieBRAG Medallion, she has several Historical Novel Society Editor’s Choices, and one of her books won the HNS Indie Award in 2015. She is also the proud recipient of various Reader’s Favorite medals as well as having won various Gold, Silver and Bronze Coffee Pot Book Club awards. Find out more about Anna, her books and enjoy her eclectic historical blog on her website, www.annabelfrage.com and find her on Facebook, Twitter @abelfrageauthor and Bluesky @abelfrageauthor.bsky.social

Special Guest Post: A Deadly Fall, by Jon Neal

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

What lengths would you go to in order to keep a secret? When private investigator Stanley Messina is called to a secluded Sussex manor house to re-examine an unexplained death, he hopes it might be a straightforward job - a few interviews, a tidy conclusion, and a chance

to catch his breath.

A Deadly Fall: Psychology, Secrets and a Sussex Manor

When a private investigator is called to a secluded Sussex manor house to re-examine an unexplained death, he hopes it might be a straightforward job. Behind the estate’s idyllic façade, however, lies a tangled web of strained loyalties, festering resentments and carefully curated lives. Every inhabitant has something to protect, and every story comes with a shadow…

A Deadly Fall is the third novel in my Stanley Messina Investigates series. Set in a grand house tucked away in the Sussex countryside, it is a mystery driven as much by the psychology and relationships of its characters as by the tragic event at its centre. Readers have described the series as intriguing, and this atmospheric instalment continues that tradition while remaining fully readable as a standalone.

As with my earlier books, the investigation into what happened at Lanthorn Manor provides the spine of the story, complete with clues, suspects and motives. Yet my primary interest as a writer has always been what makes people tick—the quiet tensions, hidden histories and shifting loyalties that shape how they behave under pressure. Along the way, readers also learn a little more about Stanley Messina himself, whose own backstory continues to unfold across the series.

I publish as an independent author exclusively through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. The greatest advantage of this is complete creative freedom and control over every aspect of the creative and business processes. I promote the books through social media and will soon launch a website and regular e-newsletter so readers can stay more closely connected.

The publishing landscape has changed markedly in the last five years. While greater opportunities for writers also mean more competition, I remain convinced there is still ample space to build an engaged audience for authentic stories.

I’m always grateful to readers who take the time to leave a rating or review on Amazon. These not only provide real encouragement but also help future readers decide whether a book might be one they would enjoy too.

Jon Neal 

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About the Author

Jon Neal is a British author. His first book, A Twin Room, was published in 2022 and reached number 1 in its Amazon category, selling copies around the globe. The Other Path introduced private investigator Stanley Messina and began the series of page-turning mysteries that continues with A Deadly Fall. Jon completed a Master of Arts in Writing while living in Australia and holds a Music & Media Studies degree from the University of Sussex. He was runner-up in the 2010 Sydney Mardi Gras short story competition, has been shortlisted for other prizes, and has had poems published in numerous anthologies. He grew up in Kent and now lives with his partner in East Sussex. To keep up to date with Jon’s news, follow his author page on Facebook and Twitter/X 

Blog Tour Interview with Marilee Aufdenkamp, Author of Sparrow’s Song

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Sparrow’s Song is a sweeping, intimate novel about resilience and belonging, rooted in the real history of wartime federal nursing education and the evolving landscape of modern American nursing. At its heart is a young immigrant woman pushing herself toward the advantages she’s convinced education will unlock, even as that drive pulls her away from the people and heritage she loves.

I'm pleased to welcome author Marilee Aufdenkamp to The Writing Desk:

Tell us about your latest book

Sparrow’s Song spans two world wars and follows one woman’s search for equal advantage in a country that doesn’t always welcome her. Rooted in the early twentieth century German from Russia immigrant experience and set against the federal nursing education programs of World War I and World War II, the novel explores resilience, belonging, and the cost of ambition.

In 1917 Nebraska, Kathryn Scheibel wants what every young woman hopes for: a fair chance at a future. As a German from Russia immigrant, she believes education is the only path to opportunity for herself and her family. When she reaches beyond the cigar making floor, her ambitions unsettle those closest to her. To Kathryn, her hopes are simply the means of gaining the same advantages native born families enjoy.

Joining the Army School of Nursing brings her closer to the life she imagines and farther from the family she loves. At Walter Reed, she faces open hostility from classmates who target her social status and her ancestry. As the years pass, Kathryn must decide whether she gave up too much in her quest to gain equal advantage and what it might take to reclaim the parts she never meant to lose.

What is your preferred writing routine?

I wrote Sparrow’s Song while I was still teaching undergraduate nursing students at a mid sized Midwestern Jesuit university. Evenings were often spent grading papers or preparing lectures, so I wrote when I could, mostly on weekends. I have been retired for the past two years, and now most of my days are devoted to writing and writing adjacent activities.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

I learned so much about the writing craft, first by reading craft books. This was well before the internet. By the time the internet was commonplace I started taking advantage of mostly free online webinars as well.

I’ve attended every Historical Novel Society biennial convention since 2015, either in person or virtually. If you can afford it, I recommend attending at least one conference each year. Early in your career, a craft heavy conference that focuses on your genre can be especially helpful.

Critique groups can be valuable if you find the right one, and thanks to the internet, networking with other writers is easier than ever and also recommended.

What have you found to be the best way to raise awareness of your books?

I’ve been doing as much speaking as possible. My protagonist was inspired by members of the community of Germans from Russia who immigrated to Hastings, Nebraska, early in the twentieth century. I’ve been a nurse since 1985 but I first worked as a nurse’s aide in our local hospital beginning in 1979 and cared for some of these individuals as they neared the ends of their lives. My nursing work and my protagonist’s background have influenced my speaking opportunities.

I presented about our local community of Germans from Russia at our county historical society’s annual meeting to an audience of more than one hundred people and tied their story to my novel. I also gave a presentation at our local library during Nurses Week, sharing how Sparrow’s Song highlights important nursing reforms of the early twentieth century. I recently spoke to the class of 1986 at the former hospital affiliated diploma nursing program that operated in our community from 1915 to 1988. And on October 1, I’ll present a program titled “Beyond Florence: The Value of Knowing Our History and How Fiction Can Help” for the Nebraska Nurses Association’s annual convention.

Tell us something unexpected you discovered during your research

Because I’m a nurse, I’m especially drawn to medical and nursing history. Part of my novel takes place in 1943, when my protagonist is teaching in a hospital affiliated school of nursing participating in the Cadet Nurse Corps. At that time, penicillin was beginning to be used by the U.S. military to treat venereal disease, especially syphilis.

Aqueous penicillin has a short duration of action and had to be injected every four hours, which was not practical in wartime. To prolong its effect, it was suspended in peanut oil and beeswax. Because beeswax is solid at room temperature, the mixture had to be heated before injection. I found a detailed description of how this was done and intended to use it in my story, but a computer crash erased my source. I couldn’t relocate it, and I no longer remembered whether the heating was done in a warm water bath or in some type of incubator or warming oven. My memory leaned toward a warm water bath, so in my author note I explained that this was one of the few historical details I wasn’t entirely certain about, but I didn’t want to exclude it because it was too interesting.

What was the hardest scene you remember writing?

No single scene stands out as harder than the others, but I write lean, and reaching standard word count expectations for my genre was difficult. 

What are you planning to write next?

My next story, my work in progress, is about ninety seven percent ready to send to my publisher. It’s set in 1927 Omaha. My main character is a young Irish immigrant who came to Nebraska with his parents a few years earlier and now works under the direction of the real jazz musician who led the Boys Town traveling band, Daniel Desdunes. He repairs and maintains the band’s uniforms and brass instruments, and I’ve learned a great deal about dent repair, soldering, and brass instrument maintenance.

To earn extra money and help his father, who is a down and out homeless alcoholic musician, my main character milks for a young widowed neighbor woman on the adjacent farm. He is beginning to have feelings for her. My work in progress is not a romance, but there are some romantic elements. The central conflict is his responsibility to his father set against his hope for a life of his own, a life he doubts he deserves and isn’t sure he has the strength to sustain alongside his father’s needs.

My debut novel Sparrow’s Song took place between 1917 and 1943, so I had plenty of room to stretch events out. My newest story, working title Leo but likely changing to A Measure of Cream and Flux, occurs over the summer of 1927, and much of the action happens on weekends. I needed to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently placed seven Saturdays in July and that I had room for everything I included. There is also a scene I need to rework, and I have two elderly Jewish immigrant men who serve as mentors to my young Irish protagonist. I need to make sure the scenes involving those two men respect their religious traditions for observing Shabbos.

Marilee Aufdenkamp

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About the Author

Marilee Aufdenkamp is a retired nurse educator who taught undergraduate nursing for twenty six years before turning her full time focus to historical fiction. She writes early to mid twentieth century stories grounded in immigrant experience and working class life.  Her debut novel, Sparrow’s Song, was inspired by her early nursing career in Nebraska, where she came to admire the Germans from Russia she cared for at the end of their lives.  Originally from Southern California, she has spent her adult life in Nebraska. Find out more at her website: https://marileeaufdenkamp.com  and find Marilee on Facebook and Instagram

Rogues, Rakes and Robbers: A True Crime History of Georgian Britain by Angela Muir

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

On October 20th, 1799, at Pensieri in the Isle of Anglesey, a fire breaks out, destroying cart house, corn, haystacks, and timber. A young woman is seen running from the scene―but what secrets drove her to set the fire? 

Exploring detailed accounts of historical crime is one of the best ways to catch a glimpse of a society and its culture decades and even centuries later. Of course, stories of crime and deviance are intriguing in their own right, but by understanding the context in which they were committed and how communities and officials responded to them, we can gain incredible insight into life at that time and place.

Rogues, Rakes and Robbers uncovers the tales of real-life murders, manslaughters, assaults, and arson in Georgian Wales and its borders that together give us a window into life for ordinary, common people whose lives would otherwise be lost from the historical record. From courtship rituals to the value of horses and Georgian attitudes on sex work and insanity, each chapter uses documents from Wales’s Court of Great Sessions to illuminate the past.

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About the Author

Angela Muir  is a social and cultural historian of Britain in the long 18th century (roughly 1680 to 1830) with a focus on gender, crime, deviance, sex and the body in Wales and England. She has worked at the University of Leicester since 2018, and in 2024 became an Associate Professor. Prior to Leicester Angela held a one-year lectureship and fellowship at Cardiff University after completing her PhD at the University of Exeter. Find out more at https://angelajmuir.wordpress.com/ and find Angela on Instagram and Twitter @muirdershewrote