Special Guest Post by Helen Hollick, Author of A Mystery if Murder #HistoryWritersAdvent24

Will the discovery of a murder spoil Christmas for Jan Christopher and her boyfriend DS Laurie Walker – or will it bring them closer together?

Introduction by Helen Hollick:

You wouldn’t think that a murder mystery story would be the right thing for Christmas would you? But nearly all of us like solving mysteries, especially via the more light-hearted crime-solver TV series like Poirot, Miss Marple, Father Brown Midsomer Murders, Death In Paradise and the like.

And then there are easy to read (but not easy to solve!) who-dun-it novels that can be nicely tucked into a Christmas Stocking or left beneath the Tree. And if these Cosy Mysteries happen to also have a theme of interesting characters set against a Christmassy background ... well, what is there not to enjoy?

A MYSTERY OF MURDER

A Jan Christopher Murder Mystery

By Helen Hollick

(2^nd in the series, but can be read as a standalone)

Amazon Universal Buy Link

http://mybook.to/AMysteryOfMurder

Christmas 1971. Library Assistant Jan Christopher is to spend Christmas with her boyfriend, DS Laurie Walker and his family, but when a murder is discovered, followed by a not very accidental accident, the traditional Christmas spirit is somewhat marred...

What happened to Laurie’s ex-girlfriend? Where is the vicar’s wife? Who took those old photographs? And will the farmer up the lane ever mend those broken fences?

Set in 1971, this is the second Jan Christopher Cosy Mystery. Join her (and an owl and a teddy bear) in Devon for a Christmas to remember.

Excerpt From Chapter 1

The thought of driving all the way from London to Devon with my boyfriend, Laurie, for Christmas was exciting, but tinged with a smattering of reluctance. It would mean leaving my Uncle Toby and Aunt Madge, behind. I’d not had a Christmas or a New Year without them since they’d adopted me when I was orphaned at five years old. At almost nineteen, independence was knocking at the door, but all the same, I was concerned about leaving them for the duration of the festivities. Concerns which Aunt Madge soon put an end to.

“Goodness, Jan, we’ve been looking forward to a Christmas on our own for the past, I don’t know how many years!”

I wasn’t sure if she was being serious or joking.

Uncle Toby’s response to my worries about Christmas was less blunt. “Laurie is already taking leave, so we can’t all be off on merry jaunts at the same time, Jan. The crime rate would soar, and Chingford Police wouldn’t cope.”

My uncle, in his working capacity, was Detective Chief Inspector Tobias Christopher. Laurie – Lawrence Walker – had recently been promoted to be his Detective Sergeant bagman. Two important people within the realm of law enforcement, although, I suspected that the North London suburban town of Chingford would survive without them both for a few days. There were, after all, other men (and a few women) in CID. Although, maybe these others were not as competent – but then, my opinion is severely biased.

For myself, my full name is January, for the month I was born, but everyone calls me Jan. I was quite happy to take several days off from working as an assistant in our local library. It was always busy in the run-up to Christmas closing, and while I would miss out on the boxes of chocolates and tins of buttery shortbread given to the staff by appreciative members of the public, my already too broad waistline would not suffer from it.

My main fear, however, was meeting Laurie’s parents. I had spoken to them on the telephone several times and they seemed nice, but I had been going out with Laurie since late July – would they assume that our relationship was becoming serious?

Come to that, did I assume it was serious? By accepting the invitation, was I committing myself to a possible life as a policeman’s wife? Or was I reading too much into things? I mean, spending Christmas with your boyfriend’s family didn’t mean a marriage proposal, did it? Or did it? Then there was the question, did I, or didn’t I, want it to mean just that?

Had I known what was to happen soon after we arrived at Mr and Mrs Walker’s lovely old West Country house though, my apprehension would have dwindled to nothing.

And then a grisly murder was discovered, which somewhat tarnished the traditional jolly Christmas Spirit...

Buy Now: paperback or Amazon Kindle (and on Kindle Unlimited)

http://mybook.to/AMysteryOfMurder

 

Reviews and Comments

"There are lots of things to enjoy in the second in the Jan Christopher cosy mystery series" Best-selling cozy mystery author Debbie Young

Coffee Pot Book Club Online Tour Reviews

"Jan is an absolutely lovely character, and I loved following her story. She is a little naïve, but she is 18, and there are things about the world that she has yet to learn... a great story to settle down with to get you into the Christmas spirit, as well as pulling on your detective hat and analysing the characters."

Review: Like A Thousand Suns Blog

"A laid back sort of novel, the kind that you can relax while reading, and simply let the story happen. This author has a particularly unique style of writing... this book wasn’t simply a story, but an experience. You almost have the feeling that the author is reading the book to you, and is adding in her own little quips every now and again. I loved every second... The whole mystery is well thought out... utterly amazing!" Review: I Got Lost In A Book Blog

"The pace is gently cosy, despite the murder... Jan is a wonderful character; young, naïve, but also savvy when needed. And Laurie is a gem. All the characters and their foibles and actions stay true to the era... a lovely, warm story."

Review: Ruins & Reading

"I almost felt like I was in this book, and I absolutely fell in love with the characters…"

Review: Oh Look! Another Book! 

About the Author

First accepted for traditional publication in 1993, Helen became a USA Today Bestseller with her historical novel, The Forever Queen (titled A Hollow Crown in the UK) with the sequel, Harold the King (US: I Am The Chosen King) being novels that explore the events that led to the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Her Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy is a fifth-century version of the Arthurian legend, and she writes a nautical adventure/supernatural series, The Sea Witch Voyages. She has also branched out into the quick read novella, 'Cosy Mystery' genre with her Jan Christopher Mysteries, set in the 1970s, with the first in the series, A Mirror Murder incorporating her, often hilarious, memories of working as a library assistant. The fifth in the series, A Memory Of Murder, was published in May 2024.

Her non-fiction books are Pirates: Truth and Tales and Life of A Smuggler. She is currently writing about the ghosts of North Devon and Jamaica Gold for her Sea Witch Voyages.

Recognised by her stylish hats, Helen used to attend book-related events as a chance to meet her readers and social-media followers, but her ‘wonky eyesight’ as she describes her condition of Glaucoma, and severe arthritis is now a little prohibitive for travel.

She lives with her family in an eighteenth-century farmhouse in North Devon with their dogs and cats, while on the farm there are showjumper horses, fat Exmoor ponies, an elderly Welsh pony, geese, ducks and  hens. And several resident ghosts.

Website: https://helenhollick.net/

Amazon Author Page: https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helen.hollick

X/Twitter @HelenHollick https://x.com/HelenHollick

Blog: supporting authors & their books

https://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com/

Monthly newsletter : Thoughts from a Devonshire Farmhouse

(posted on a blog - subscribe to a 'reminder' list) Start Here: January 2024

https://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com/2024/01/thoughts-from-devonshire-farmhouse.html

public email: author@helenhollick.net

Special Guest Post by Sylvia Barbara Soberton, Author of Secrets of the Tudor portraits

In today’s guest post (thank you for inviting me, Tony!) I am pleased to reveal the title and cover of my next book: Secrets of the Tudor Portraits. In this new book I will talk about the visual and symbolic language of Tudor portraiture, delving into the political, familial and cultural messages encoded within these iconic images. By examining key works and their historical context, I will uncover how the art of this period shaped—and was shaped by—the ambitions and insecurities of the Tudor dynasty.

Tudor portraits are among the most iconic artworks of English history, showcasing not just the physical likeness of monarchs and nobles but a carefully constructed image of power, virtue, and authority. These portraits often hold secrets beneath their painted surfaces, from symbolic details to hidden layers of paint. They serve as a fascinating window into the ambitions, insecurities, and values of the Tudor dynasty.
The beauty of Tudor portraiture lies in its ability to continually reveal new insights. 

As new identifications are made and fresh discoveries emerge, our understanding of this fascinating period evolves, challenging long-held perceptions and deepening our connection to the past. Through ongoing research, new theories and technical analyses, we are constantly deepening our knowledge about the Tudor dynasty, uncovering hidden layers that enrich the legacy of this fascinating period.

 

Portrait of Jane Seymour by Hans Holbein

The portrait of Jane Seymour by Hans Holbein illustrates my point well. In the past, historians referred to her physique, often describing Jane as unattractive. Upon closer inspection, however, we see a woman who carefully shaped her image through clothing and jewellery. Jane is dressed to impress in an opulent gown of red velvet with oversleeves wrought in gold thread. 

Her matching undersleeves and kirtle are made of silver brocade. She wears an English gable hood with a black veil falling to the side. The intricate pearl necklace with a striking golden pendant set with ruby and emerald commands attention. She wears a brooch with letters IHS, the first three letters of Jesus’s name in Greek, pinned to her bodice. The pendant suspended from her necklace is similar to the one worn by Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr in their portraits; the IHS brooch is visible in the miniature of Katharine of Aragon by Lucas Horenbout. 

These were crown jewels, symbolising Jane’s status as Henry VIII’s wife and Queen. If you look down, you will see a girdle belt with small beads shaped like vases. Those, I argue in the book, are references to St Mary Magdalene’s ointment jars. This is significant because it shows that Jane was eager to establish link between herself and that particular saint.

In Secrets of the Tudor Portraits I will be discussing paintings of such prominent figures as Margaret Beaufort, Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon, Henry VIII and his six wives, Thomas More and his learned daughters, Thomas Cromwell, Susanna Horenbout, Jane Grey and her sisters, Margaret Douglas, queens Mary I and Elizabeth I and many others.

Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk

Is it possible that the sitter from the “Lady Bergavenny” portrait, often said to depict Anne Boleyn, is in fact Eleanor Stafford, Duchess of Buckingham? Can a contemporary portrait of Charles Brandon reveal a new date of his birth? What a now lost painting of Mary Tudor, Dowager Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk can tell us about the way she constructed her image? Those and many other questions will be answered soon and I cannot wait to share my findings with you.

Sylvia Barbara Soberton

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About the Author

Sylvia Barbara Soberton is a writer and researcher specialising in the history of the Tudors. She is best known for The Forgotten Tudor Women book series, which concentrates on shifting the perspective from famous figures like Henry VIII’s six wives to the lesser-known, but no less influential, women of the Tudor court. Sylvia has written ten books to date, and her newest titles include The Forgotten Years of Anne Boleyn: The Habsburg & Valois Courts, Ladies-in-Waiting: Women Who Served Anne Boleyn and Medical Downfall of the Tudors: Sex, Reproduction & Succession. Her ground-breaking paper on Anne Boleyn and the accusation of witchcraft was published in the Royal Studies Journal in 2023.  You can find Sylvia on Facebook,  Goodreads and Twitter @SylviaBSo

Special Guest Post by Andrea Zuvich, Author of Ravenous: Barbara Villiers’ Christmas Faux Pas #HistoryWritersAdvent24

Available from Amazon UK and  Amazon US

Barbara Villiers was a woman so beautiful, so magnetic and so sexually attractive that she captured the hearts of many in Stuart-era Britain. Her beauty is legendary: she became the muse of artists such as Peter Lely, the inspiration of writers such as John Dryden and the lover of John Churchill, the future great military leader whom we also know as the 1st Duke of Marlborough. She had an insatiable appetite for life, love, riches, amusement, and power. She was simply ‘ravenous’…

Barbara Villiers’ Christmas Faux Pas by Andrea Zuvich

Christmas is a time when many people give gifts to family, friends, loves, and neighbours. After all, in the Bible, the Three Wise Men gave gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to baby Jesus. It is a time for generosity, and for thinking of others, particularly those less fortunate. And so it was so back in Stuart Britain (1603-1714), which was a deeply Christian country (this said, the country was divided into Roman Catholic, Anglican (Church of England, Protestant), Presbyterian, Arminian, Quaker, etc, so not everyone agreed with each other). One royal mistress, however, apparently didn’t agree with the traditional spirit of Christmas giving – at least on one Christmas in 1662…

Barbara Villiers was born in the Autumn of 1640 into the Villiers family (she was, in fact, the granddaughter of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham’s elder half-brother). Although she had a rather illustrious aristocratic pedigree, the British Civil Wars hit her family hard and her father was killed when she was nearly three. Her increasingly impoverished widowed mother and she lived for some years in difficult circumstances which only improved somewhat when her mother remarried when Barbara was eight. The years of poverty impacted Barbara greatly and appear to have instilled in her a deep-set avarice – a constant desire to want luxury, beautiful clothing, rich jewels, and a wealthy lifestyle. 

Her beauty is legendary and when she was still in her teens, she caught the eye of the then-exiled King Charles II in the winter of 1660. She was, by that point, a married woman, having wed Roger Palmer the year before. Nonetheless, by the time of the Restoration, in May 1660, she was firmly placed in the king’s heart and bed. And in this privileged position she finally was able to have access to the fine clothes, fashionable accessories, and sumptuous lodgings she had craved for so long. She became a queen in all but name, with power and wealth.

In terms of her personality, Barbara was a fantastic hostess, great at enjoying herself, and being the life of the party. She was also consistently able to steal the show (even when she was merely an audience member at the playhouse). Many men were captivated by her great beauty and her magnetic allure. One of her admirers was a man named Samuel Pepys, who worked in an administrative role in the Royal Navy and is best known now for his incredible Diary which covers the better part of a decade (1660s). 

But even Pepys’s ardour for the beguiling Barbara had its limits.

Despite King Charles II having married the Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza, only the previous year, the New Year of 1663 brought with it even more intimacy between him and Barbara. Their growing brood led to greater closeness and affection, and the amount of time the couple spent together was well known, with Pepys reporting that: ‘the King sups at least four or five times every week with my Lady Castlemaine, and most often stays till the morning with her, and goes home through the garden all alone privately, and that so as the very sentries take notice of it and speak of it’. 

Charles didn’t seem to care who knew about his behaviour, but it was not considered very seemly (or regal). Pepys himself witnessed the king leaving Barbara’s home and opined that it was ‘a poor thing for a Prince to do’.

This was not the only aspect of the monarch’s relationship with the beautiful countess that irked the diarist. In February of 1663, Pepys discovered: ‘my Lady Castlemaine hath all the King’s Christmas presents [a few weeks before in 1662], made him by the peers, given to her, which is a most abominable thing and that at the great ball she was much richer in jewells than the Queen and Duchess put both together.’ In other words, she not only took the gifts that were specifically given to the King for herself, but she also upstaged the women who were of higher rank than she. Definitely a social no-no!

If someone as besotted as Pepys could be disappointed with Barbara’s behaviour, we can be sure that others at court had much worse to say. Barbara’s Christmas faux pas may make us cringe as her behaviour was in such poor taste, but perhaps we should remember her upbringing and how this likely led to her grasping, materialistic nature.

Andrea Zuvich

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About the Author

Andrea Zuvich is a British-American anthropologist and historian specialising in the House of Stuart, 1603-1714. She is the author of 'Ravenous: A Life of Charles II's Most Infamous Mistress', 'The Stuarts in 100 Facts', and 'Sex and Sexuality in Stuart Britain'. She is the hostess of The Seventeenth Century Lady podcast and the live-streamed online history show, 'Stuart Saturday Live'. Zuvich has been interviewed on BBC radio and appeared in history documentaries, including 'Charles I: Downfall of a King'. She was one of the original developers of the Garden History Tours at Kensington Palace. A professional audiobook narrator, she lives in Derbyshire, England, with her family. Find out more at https://www.andreazuvich.com/ and find Andrea on Facebook and Twitter @17thCenturyLady

Christmas in the 18th Century – Fact or Fiction? A Special Guest Post by Catherine Arthur, Author of King Oak #HistoryWritersAdvent24

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

The Common, 1780 George Hogtrough is risking his neck. 

When his friend lures him into the murky world of smuggling, unexpected events unfold. Fearful of destitution, his wife Molly turns to drink, and her attention soon wanders towards her husband’s hated brother. Jesse is everything George is not – sober, hardworking, God-fearing. Should George discover her eye has strayed all hell will break loose.

Christmas in the 18th Century – Fact or Fiction?

My debut novel, King Oak, published in 2021, was inspired after researching my family tree and discovering that some of my ancestors, who lived in and around Ashtead Common in Surrey, were not always holy or even very good. Their histories were sometimes intriguing but often grim. However, I really only had access to parts of them and so began an endeavour to re-create their lives and see where their stories led. I picked a date in June 1780 and began there.

Not knowing anything about everyday life in the late 18th century, I began to look for resources which would help me build a picture of what things might have been like. Some of the most fascinating, and perhaps authentic, are two invaluable diaries.

In 1758, James Warne, a farmer from Dorset wrote about his agricultural activities, while Thomas Turner wrote several entries in his diary every week between 1754 and 1765. Turner was a shopkeeper, schoolmaster and overseer of the poor, among many other roles he took on when he moved to the Sussex village of East Hoathly, less than forty-five miles away from Surrey.

While King Oak is set over four days in summer and the second in the series, Michaelmas Fayre, takes place in September, the third book begins at the winter solstice. Christmas traditions will definitely feature! However, the Advent Calendars we know today are a relatively new idea, as the tradition of opening doors to reveal a tiny picture only began in the 1920s. So what did they do to celebrate Advent in what was at that time a mainly Protestant country? For research I turned to the diaries.

Warne spent the whole of December dredging rivers, delivering loads, selling his barley and organising his business. Disappointingly, he does not even mention it is Christmas Day on the 25th December.

I hoped that Thomas Turner would tell us more about his preparations for the Yuletide season, being more concerned with village life than farming. However, things were not as I had expected.

Turner didn’t really get going with his diary until 1755 when he began writing more regularly. In December of that year, his entries were concerned with such delights as registering the number of rooms in his shop with the excise office so he could sell tea and coffee (a requirement of a statute made under George I) and having an ‘issue’ opened on his back, to enable the grim practice of letting blood. His wife had a tooth pulled, neighbours regularly turned up to dine with the couple or just to drink tea, while other entries were concerned with what he bought for his shop and what he subsequently sold.

On 19th December, Thomas writes that ‘his’ boys broke up, presumably related to the school, since he was the schoolmaster. St. Thomas’s Day is on 21st December, and as it was his name day, our diarist handed out some pennies for the poor, along with a ‘draught of beer’.

On Christmas Eve, we get the first mention of Christmas, albeit rather tenuous. The day was very busy, with a lot of activity in the shop, when mutton and beef arrived, as did cotton waistcoats and hats, and two of his customers paid their bills. A nice gift for him, perhaps. And finally, here comes the seasonal reference: Thomas gave a delivery boy 6d ‘for his box’.

On Christmas Day, Thomas mentions going to church with his wife, and then spending the rest of the day at home, reading. That’s about it, apart from a couple more donations to ‘boxes’ for the delivery boys which he gave out on 27th December. No decking the halls with boughs of holly, no mention of a special meal, no carol singing or wassail cups or any kind of large, happy gathering.

Skip forward eleven months to the beginning of December 1756, and things are not much different, except that this year, ‘trade is dull and everything expensive’. And no church on Christmas Day this year, but two visitors who dined with the Turners on a sirloin of beef ‘roasted in the oven’, with a batter pudding under it, plum suet pudding, boiled potatoes and some bullace (plum) pies. The evening was not spent singing carols around the hearth but reading Tillotson’s sermons.

In December 1757, Christmas Day saw Thomas attending church twice, morning and afternoon. Dinner was much the same as the previous year, except they also had a pearl barley pudding, potatoes and turnips with their beef. The only deviation to the Christmas dinner over the years was the thrilling addition of raisins to the suet pudding, and having gooseberry instead of bullace in their pies.

I learned from Mister Turner that Christmas was very much like any other day, with perhaps a little more extravagance at dinner and the donation of money for the delivery boys’ boxes. There seemed to be no preparation, no special baking of mince pies, nor were there any gifts or decorations. Church was not mandatory but often attended, visitors were no more or less than on any other day, neither were activities such as reading or drinking tea.

All in all it was all a little disappointing. Was this usual? Thomas was a relatively wealthy member of the community, not rich, but certainly not poor. When compared with a Jane Austen Christmas, admittedly half a century later than Turner’s time, it makes one wonder whether women and men saw the holiday very differently. While the men were working, was it the women who were making Christmas happen? Or was it perhaps that Austen’s characters were higher up the social scale than the Turners and the Warnes of the world?

Every one of Austen’s novels mentions Christmas, a time when there were festive dances, wholesome dinners, and in the words of Mister Elton in Emma, ‘…quite the season indeed for friendly meetings.’ In Persuasion, Jane describes a typical scene of Christmas preparation: ‘On one side was a table occupied by some chattering girls, cutting up silk and gold paper…’

Fanny Burney was writing at exactly the time my series is set; her first novel Evelina was published in 1778 and her next, Cecila, four years later. In Cecila we find one mention of a Christmas game called ‘Move-All’, which ensured the most interesting person at the gathering was not monopolised by one person. Other than that, nothing. References to spending the Christmas holidays here or there, but nothing describing the décor or the preparations.

So, it will be left to my imagination to recreate the Christmas my characters will experience after all. And, I suspect, that if it were not for the creativity of women through the years, the Christmas tradition as we know it may have died out long ago. The church, of course, has its own celebration, but remove all the preparation and planning women do today and how much would remain in our homes, I wonder?

Happy Christmas everyone! Enjoy the plum pudding and bullace pies.

Catherine Arthur

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About the Author

Catherine Arthur was born in Surrey, although most of her childhood was spent in East Sussex. She now lives in a farmhouse in Switzerland. Her interests include history, old maps, and local tales and traditions, among many other things. It was her delve into genealogy which provided the inspiration for her first novel, King Oak. The story follows the fortunes, and misfortunes, of a family living on the edge of a vast common, and how events at the King Oak shape their lives. During research into the way people lived at the end of the 18th century, she gained immense respect for the skills our ancestors possessed, which are now all but lost, and a deep gratitude for the ease of modern living.  Find out more at Catherine's website https://catherinearthur.com/ and find her on Facebook and Twitter @CatArthurian

Special Guest Post: Tudor Christmas Traditions, by Alexandra Walsh, Author of The House of Echoes #HistoryWritersAdvent24

Available for pre-order 

from Amazon UK and Amazon US

The Brandon blood is dark with lies and treachery and as it flows through my heart, my vow is this: they will all pay.’

 

Christmas is a time for celebrating, relaxing, spending time with loved ones and remembering the Christmas story. Our love of festivities is as mixed as those of previous centuries with the religious and the non-religious combining to make a celebration where everyone is welcome, no matter their background or beliefs. 

The winter festival of Alban Arthuran or Yule was celebrated on 21 December for millennia but with the arrival of the Romans in the fourth century and the gradual introduction of Christianity, the celebration moved a few days to 25 December. This was the date that coincided with the nine month span from Lady Day, 25 March, when the Virgin Mary was said to have received her vision from the angel Gabriel.  

Ever since, the festivities surrounding the winter celebration have been a strange mix of the pagan and the religious and the Tudor times were no different. In my new book, The House of Echoes, the Tudor story begins at Christmas. My heroine, Anne Brandon, daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the best friend of Henry VIII, is at the palace for her first Christmas when she was included in the adult celebrations. 

It is Christmas Eve in December 1521 and throughout the month, the Tudors had abstained from eating meat or dairy in preparation for Christmas. They had fasted until midday on Christmas Eve, when they attended the service of Sect, one of the seven ‘hours’ of the Catholic faith. After this, the fun and mayhem of the Twelve Days of Christmas could begin in earnest. 

These Christmas celebrations were a series of feasts and festivals including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the feast of St Stephen on 26 December where food was distributed to the poor and the feast of St John on 27 December. He was said to have miraculously survived drinking a glass of poisoned wine, to celebrate, wine was drunk in copious amounts in his memory. 

There was also wassailing, the sharing of ale in the wassail cup and gift giving at New Year before a final feast and masques on Twelfth Night (5 January) before Epiphany was celebrated and Christmas was over for another year. All the events were overseen by a nominated Lord of Misrule. During this period, behavioural norms and strict etiquette were waived and hi-jinks abounded. In The Letters and Papers of Henry VIII it notes that one Christmas, Henry VIII hosted more than 1,000 people over the festive period and when he became bored at one of the feasts the king began throwing sugared plums at his guests.

During his first Christmas as king, Henry VIII spent £7,000 on Christmas celebrations. To give this some perspective, his father, Henry VII’s yearly budget for the entire royal household was £12,000. 

When researching The House of Echoes, I discovered another of Henry VIII’s favourite Christmas Eve pastimes was becoming involved in the making of evergreen garlands to decorate whichever palace he was celebrating in. The courtiers were encouraged to help, even though the hard work had really been done in the weeks leading up to Christmas by the royal gardeners, botanists and assorted servants. This seemed a good scene to introduce Anne and her cohorts.

Anne is helping her friend, Margaret – Meg – More, the daughter of Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII’s dearest friend and advisor, to make traditional Christmas garlands. 

While Anne and her friends weave the garlands, they discuss the meaning and myths behind the plants they used. The Tudors believed the hanging of evergreens was the best way to create good fortune and protect their homes but the timing of when to being them into the house was tricky. A tradition passed down by the Druids and still in belief during the Tudor times was that tree spirits dwelled in greenery and if they were indoors for too long during the dark days of midwinter they would become bored and cause mischief for the household. It was therefore unwise to bring evergreens inside before Christmas Eve.

Other traditional decorations included bay, rosemary, ivy, holly and mistletoe. Again, there were Druidic connections; the Druids had used mistletoe for healing during their midwinter ceremonies but as Anne explains to her friends, there was an another ancient legend. The Druids also believed that when enemies met under mistletoe they should lay down their arms and observe a truce until the next day. A ball of mistletoe would be hung in a prominent place to encourage harmony and friendship. This is where the custom of exchanging kisses under the mistletoe originated.

There were religious traditions around mistletoe too. It is the character of Meg More, daughter of the devout Thomas More, who informs her friends, 

‘There are those who believe Christ’s cross was formed from wood of the mythical mistletoe tree,’ said Meg. ‘The legend says that as a punishment after the crucifixion the plant shrivelled and was forever more bound to being a parasitic vine, while the holly represents Christ’s crown of thorns. Although, there are many who claim his cross was made from holly wood. It’s suggested this has imbued it with protective qualities and is why it’s supposed to repel goblins.’

The other plants my characters weave into their garlands are ivy which kept its leave all year around and was thought to be associated with eternal life and bay leaves also known as laurel which symbolised courage and strength. In Roman and Greek mythology they used it to make their crowns. I was surprised by the inclusion of rosemary but there is an ancient legend that suggests rosemary was one of the plants placed in Jesus’s manger. 

Like us, the Tudors mixed up their traditions to create a time of celebration, happiness and family. Whatever festivities you enjoy, I hope you have a wonderful, peaceful Christmas.

Alexandra Walsh

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About the Author

Alexandra Walsh is a bestselling author of the dual timeline women’s fiction. Her books range from the 15th and 16th centuries to the Victorian era and are inspired by the hidden voices of women that have been lost over the centuries. The Marquess House Saga offers an alternative view of the Tudor and early Stuart eras, while The Wind Chime and The Music Makers explore different aspects of Victorian society. Formerly, a journalist for over 25 years, writing for many national newspapers and magazines; Alexandra also worked in the TV and film industries as an associate producer, director, script writer and mentor for the MA Screen Writing course at the prestigious London Film School. She is a member of The Society of Authors and The Historical Writers Association. For updates and more information visit her website: www.alexandrawalsh.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter @purplemermaid25 and Bluesky @purplemermaid25.bsky.social

Christmas – from the Tudor to the Stuarts: A Special Guest Post by Steven Veerapen, Author of The Wisest Fool: The Lavish Life of James VI and I #HistoryWritersAdvent24

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

James VI and I has long endured a mixed reputation. To many, he is the homosexual King, the inveterate witch-roaster, the smelly sovereign who never washed, the colourless man behind the authorised Bible bearing his name, the drooling fool whose speech could barely be understood. For too long, he has paled in comparison to his more celebrated – and analysed – Tudor and Stuart forebears. But who was he really? To what extent have myth, anecdote, and rumour obscured him?

Christmas with the Tudors sounds fun – not least because it wasn’t just a single day of ‘good cheer’ (for which we might read ‘heavy drinking’) but twelve of them. When people the length and breadth of Tudor England downed tools for the festive holidays, they were following the well-worn path of medieval Catholicism (as, indeed, Tudor England was very much part of the fabric of the Roman Catholic Church until its Reformations under Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth I).

 
Yet, curiously, the break with Rome did not greatly affect the general sense of gaiety associated with the Christmas Revels. Thus, we find Henry VIII overseeing a season of good cheer (if not always goodwill) with as much gusto in the second half of his reign as the first. Elizabeth I, too, was assiduous in overseeing splendid court revels (involving the staging of masques and plays and the ritual giving of New Year’s Gifts on January 1st, despite the official calendar not marking New Year until Lady Day in March).

Edward VI might have whitewashed the churches and Elizabeth’s more puritanical subjects might have grimaced at the cutting down and heaving home of Yule logs and the baking of ‘Shird Pies’, but Christmas, throughout the Tudor period, remained in rude health. 

We find, for example, in the pre-Reformation period a youthful Henry VIII receiving cups of gold from Cardinal Wolsey, whilst elaborate festivities were staged as court entertainments (in 1524, a mock-castle at Greenwich, for example, was besieged by the king himself, arrayed as an old man in a false silver beard). We might compare this to the equally opulent – and considerably more literary – plays staged before Queen Elizabeth in the Christmas period of 1593-4. There, at Hampton Court, the queen was showered with gifts:

Lord Admiral Charles Howard (1536-1624), 

by Daniel Mytens (Wikimedia Commons)

Among 184 gifts to the Queen: by Lord Howard, Lord Admiral:

‘One attire for the head containing seven pieces of gold like pyramids,

under them ciphers garnished with diamonds and rubies of sundry bignesses with thirteen pearls and her Majesty’s picture cut upon a sapphire in the midst’; by George Bishop, stationer: ‘Twelve books of Latin poets covered with vellum’; by William Clarke: ‘A book of Caesar’s Dialogues covered with vellum’; by William Dethick, Garter King of Arms: ‘One Book of Arms covered with black velvet’; by Petruccio Ubaldini: ‘A book covered with vellum in Italian’.

When Elizabeth died and her Scottish cousin James VI became James I of England, the opulence, pomp and flash of the Christmas period only got more glittery. During the first Stuart Christmas Revels at Hampton Court, both James and his queen, Anna of Denmark, spent wildly, commissioning productions of The Masque of Indian and China Knights, Robin Goodfellow, and The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses. In the latter – a masque composed by the playwright Samuel Daniel – Anna herself took to the stage, performing as Pallas. 

Anne of Denmark (1574-1619)

Within years of taking the throne, the lavish new king and the culturally-invested queen had run the royal players so ragged that they were required to seek out new plays: the court had seen everything in the King’s Men’s repertoire (a fact which must have sent Shakespeare – a member of the troupe – back to his quill and inkpot). By 1607 the monarch, indeed, found himself standing before his parliament and attempting to justify his spending (much of which went on gifts to his Scottish friends), with the words, ‘For my liberality, I have told you of it heretofore: my three first years were to me as a Christmas – I could not then be miserable [miserly]. Should I have been over-sparing…?’

Yet despite the new Scottish royal couple’s desire to keep the Tudor Christmas parties going, the English predilection for Christmas (or, at least, the predilection outside certain Puritanical circles) was not shared equally across Great Britain. Despite James and Anna’s passion for partying even when north of the border, Christmas had been looked at by Scottish Calvinists with asperity for years.

In James’s minority, those ardent Protestants had been in the ascendancy in Scotland. In 1573, the General Assembly (the Scottish ecclesiastical body which maintained governance of the Church) had shorn the country of all holidays save the Sabbath, which led to women in Aberdeen being rebuked for ‘playing, dancing, and singing filthy carols on Yule Day.’ In 1583, five men were publicly shamed in Glasgow for celebrating Christmas Day. A general air of cheerlessness, it seems, was very much in vogue.

This, however, does not appear to have been to James’s taste. To the king, who could – and frequently did – turn jealous eyes southwards, it was clearly possible to be a Protestant monarch of a Protestant nation without banning Christmas. At court, therefore, he remained willing to entertain as much as his shallow pockets allowed – and when he married Queen Anna in 1589, she added her own understanding of the value of monarchical largesse, display, and cultural patronage to his. 

Thus, the pair met – and faced down – the censure of disapproving Kirk ministers who appeared to find their own Christmas cheer in lambasting the royals couple for celebrating with overmuch pleasure and leisure and not nearly enough devotion to the Scriptures. Dancing at court, especially, came under fire, with the stauncher Kirk elders anticipating the later Baptists: they appeared to condemn premarital sex only out of fear that it might lead to dancing.

When James took Elizabeth’s throne in 1603, and when he proceeded to spend every Christmas hosting parties so rich, gorgeous and costly that they’d have made even the image-conscious Henry VIII green with envy, it was in part in deference to England’s ongoing love affair with the season and in part because the celebrations accorded with the new king’s own tastes. When Anna fell ill over the Christmas period of 1618-19, her absence was noted (and noted especially as having robbed the festivities of much merriment). 

So too was James’s during what would be his own final illness throughout the winter of 1624-5. Yet the Christmas revels would – at least until Cromwell’s regime later in the century – continue, as high and low celebrated (those ‘upstairs’ with grand festivities and those ‘downstairs’ with days free of labour and filled with wassail, log-burning and evergreen garlands). 

Cromwell’s pause on Christmas wouldn’t, of course, last – and today, when we sit in a Boxing Day slump of post-turkey and post-Baileys hangovers, it’s perhaps worth being grateful that we don’t have to seek a hair of the dog and keep the party going for another eleven days.

Steven Veerapen

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About the Author

Steven Veerapen is a writer of fiction and nonfiction and a lecturer at the University of Strathclyde who specialises in sixteenth-century literature. His first novel was The Queen’s Consort, which focused on Mary Queen of Scots’ infamous husband, Lord Darnley. Steven’s other books include the Simon Danforth trilogy, the Queen’s Spies trilogy, and three non-fiction works: Blood Feud, Elizabeth and Essex, and Slander and Sedition in Elizabethan Law, Speech, and Writing. Find out more at https://www.stevenveerapen.com/ and you can follow Steven on Instagram @steven.veerapen.3 and on Goodreads and Twitter @ScrutinEye

Book review: Harry of England: The History of Eight Kings, From Henry I to Henry VIII, by Teresa Cole

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Teresa Cole's "Harry of England" is an exploration of the eight English kings named Henry, weaving together historical events, personal anecdotes, and insightful analysis. I found I learned something new about each of them, and found it fascinating to compare their lives and legacies.

Cole's skill is to make these sgore accounts engaging and relatable to a modern audience. She navigates the turbulent reigns of each Henry, from the ambitious Henry II to the infamous Henry VIII. The author's vivid descriptions and insightful observations bring the past to life, allowing readers to connect with the personalities and motivations of these powerful rulers.

King Henry II (Wikimedia Commons)

One of the strengths of "Harry of England" lies in its ability to highlight the diverse and often contradictory aspects of each king's reign. Cole doesn't shy away from presenting both the positive and negative sides of these historical figures, offering a nuanced and balanced perspective.

While the book focuses on the kings, it also explores the broader historical context of their times. Teresa Cole weaves in interesting details of political, social, and cultural developments, adding depth and context to her narrative, making this more than just a collection of royal biographies.

The legacies of each of these eight 'Henrys' underpin much of British, parliamentary, financial and legal institutions, yet only two of them were born to be a king.

"Harry of England" is a recommended read for anyone interested in English history. Teresa Cole's storytelling, combined with her analysis and engaging writing style, makes this book an informative journey through the lives and legacies of the eight Henrys.

Tony Riches

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About the Author

Teresa Cole was a teacher for many years before turning to writing. She is the author of Henry V: The Life of the Warrior King & the Battle of Agincourt 1415, and three books about the Normans – The Norman Conquest: William the Conqueror’s Subjugation of England, After the Conquest: The Divided Realm 1066-1135, and Anarchy: The Darkest Days of Medieval England. 

Spacial Guest Post by Steven A. McKay, Author of The Heretic of Haltemprice Priory #HistoryWritersAdvent24

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

England, c. AD 1330: Winter fast approaches in East Yorkshire and the dark, cold nights have brought more than just frost to the newly founded Haltemprice Priory. An oppressive pall hangs over the area like a smothering blanket, prompting one of the anxious monks to seek help from an old friend.

Writing another winter tale – The Heretic of Haltemprice Priory

Winter is a time of traditions, it always has been. From the days of the Vikings bringing in the yule log, to the people of medieval Europe trying to brighten the drab colours of December by decorating their houses with the vibrant greens, reds, and whites of holly, ivy and mistletoe, right up to modern times when we enjoy Christmas songs by the likes of Slade, The Pogues, Mariah Carey, and even my own new rock track with Matthew Harffy, “Wassail The Night Away” (listen here).

Telling stories is another ancient tradition at this time of year and I’m a big fan of classics like “A Christmas Carol” which I’ll listen to every year on Audible as well as watching various movie adaptations. I don’t think it’s any mystery why so many people enjoy a good tale around December – it adds a touch of magic to a season where nature is mostly in hibernation, we’re often stuck indoors because of the cold or wind, and the nights draw in much earlier. For all that, Christmas is by far my favourite time of the year so it made perfect sense for me to follow in the footsteps of authors like Charles Dickens and Terry Pratchett and write my own snowy tales.

My first of these was Friar Tuck and the Christmas Devil back in 2015, and I’ve tried my best to publish a new one every year following the characters from my Forest Lord novels, Will Scaflock, Tuck, and John Little. This year I’ve published TWO stories in one collection – The Heretic of Haltemprice Priory, and The Christmas Hunt. Both are quite different, but I think they both capture the essence of the season pretty well.

What ingredients make a book one that readers will want to return to Christmas after Christmas? Well, for me, you’re looking for some excitement, a bit of danger for the main characters, perhaps a hint of the supernatural (ghost stories are perfect for this gloomy time of year!), friendship and love, and, of course lots of snow. As the star, or fairy, on top of your Christmas Tree of a tale, you might want to include plenty of roaring fires, warmed ale, and feasting! 

The Heretic of Haltemprice Priory might have a long title (in keeping with those classic old tales) but it’s a short novel packed with peril and intrigue and the setting is ideal. I think it’s sometimes easy for us to forget, or simply not quite comprehend, just what it was like for monks living in a medieval priory, monastery or abbey. Obviously, when I decided to write this story I had to do my research with books, videos, and a field trip to Kilwinning Abbey just outside Glasgow (see the photos HERE). While those old buildings were sturdily built from stone, with massively thick walls, their windows and shutters were no match for our modern day double glazing. The wind would have whistled through the corridors and rooms constantly and, with only the odd cozy fire allowed, it would have been absolutely freezing!

The poor brothers had to get up all through the night to pray too – shuffling in the darkness from the church to the dormitory at midnight, again around 3 A.M. and again at 6 A.M.. It’s hard to imagine that life but I suppose there would be a real feeling of camaraderie and family between the monks, standing in the candlelit church singing Gods praises together in their wool-lined night shoes. It certainly creates quite an image in one’s mind and really is the perfect setting for an eerie winter story.

I like to add a hint, even just a suggestion, of the supernatural in some of my Christmas tales and The Heretic of Haltemprice Priory has all sorts of eldritch happenings to send a shiver down the reader’s spine! Bizarre rituals, devil worship, an enigmatic monk with a collection of occult books in the chained library, and a sudden death which leaves our heroes divided on what on earth has really been happening. I hope readers enjoy it and think it can sit beside books like “A Christmas Carol” as something that can be enjoyed every December when the nights draw in and snow spreads its thick white blanket across the land.

It has to be said, if you’re an author thinking about writing a Christmas story, they do not sell particularly well. People only read them for one month of the year after all! Sure, you’ll get the odd one that will sell millions of copies, especially if it’s made into a movie or something like that, but, in general, I wouldn’t recommend writing a Christmas story if your main goal is to make money. 

I enjoy writing them and I see it almost as a palate cleanser after working on novels throughout the year – I wrote two full novels this year, King of Wessex (book 3 in my Alfred the Great trilogy) and The Vengeance of Merlin (book 6 in my Warrior Druid of Britain Chronicles). That is pretty hard going, keeping various threads and characters and plots all in line and separated in an author’s head, not to mention all the editing. 

Writing my winter tales, which range from novelettes to short novels, really gives me a chance to just immerse myself in the festive period and have some fun. Hopefully the pleasure I get from writing books like The Heretic of Haltemprice Priory comes across in the pages and, if you read it, you get the same sense of yule joy!

Merry Christmas everyone, and have a great 2025. Thanks also to Tony Riches for hosting this online event!

Steven A. McKay

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About the Author

Steven A. McKay was born in Scotland in 1977. He says, 'I enjoyed studying history – well, the interesting bits, not so much what they taught us in school. I decided to write my Forest Lord series after seeing a house called “Sherwood” when I was out at work one day. I’d been thinking about maybe writing a novel but couldn’t come up with a subject or a hero so, to see that house, well…It felt like a message from the gods and my rebooted Robin Hood was born. My current Warrior Druid of Britain series was similarly inspired, although this time it was the 80’s TV show “Knightmare”, and their version of Merlin that got my ideas flowing. Of course, the bearded old wizard had been done to death in fiction, so I decided to make my hero a giant young warrior-druid living in post-Roman Britain and he’s been a great character to write. I was once in a heavy metal band although I tend to just play guitar in my study these days. I’m sure the neighbours absolutely love me.' Find out more at his website https://stevenamckay.com/ and find him on Twitter @SA_McKay.

Saturnalia Surprise: Special Guest Post by Alison Morton, Author of the Roma Nova Series #HistoryWritersAdvent24

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Saturnalia Surprise

What if a part of the Roman Empire had survived? And they still celebrated the traditional celebration of Saturnalia? Carina Mitela, heroine of INCEPTIO, CARINA, PERFIDITAS and SUCCESSIO in the Roma Nova thriller series is anxious about her son Gilius missing the festivities, but knows that she owes it to her family, to her household to carry on with the biggest Roman festival of the year. 

From the journal of Carina Mitela 

Roma Nova, 17 December 2030 – Saturnalia

We were snowed in with metre high drifts. The media were having a field day with their graphs and charts. The ploughs and tractors were out despite it being an official holiday and battling to keep the main city roads cleared.

    Although most of the public Saturnalia celebrations were cancelled, the priests would nevertheless make the usual grand sacrifice and invoke Saturn’s blessings. I pitied them today; it was a Greek rite and they’d have to shiver in sleeveless fringed tunics, with heads bare instead of a warm woollen toga snuggly folded over the head. It was a sure bet they’d turn up the heating in the Temple of Saturn and have every open brazier burning hard.

    My husband, Conrad, and our youngest daughter, Tonia, sat in silence at breakfast. Our eldest, Allegra, had called first thing to say she would join us just after two when she finished her shift in the Praetorian Guard Special Forces. She looked tired on the screen; hopefully she’d get some sleep before tomorrow. Along with the rest of the military, she’d been called in to help ensure vital services were kept running.

    ‘I’ll be there, Mama, as long as there are no further disturbances in the city.’

    ‘What do you mean “disturbances”?’

     ‘Unfortunately,’ she said in the driest tone I’d ever heard her use, ‘some people seem to think the custodes concentrating on the bad weather crisis means they can help themselves to what’s in the shops. I’ve been freezing my extremities off in the Macellum district all night. We came across some kids with a crowbar in front of a smashed window, pulling stuff out of an electrical goods shop. The alarm was going full blast. As soon as they saw us, though, they ran like the Furies were after them.’ She chuckled.

    The sight of half a dozen Praetorians marching towards you with intent and attitude would make anybody run.

    ‘But the curia has opened the basilica for the public banquet. My oppo, Sergilia, has caught guard duty there,’ she added, making a face. The law court hall was huge and could accommodate up to a thousand. But good luck to those trying to keep order.

    After checking last details with my steward for our own celebration meal later, I retreated to my office for an hour to read my messages and ensure nobody had found my stash of gifts for the 23rd. Sigillaria was important not just for the kids who loved new toys, but a day when adults gave each other something to compensate for the excesses that would surely happen today.

    Normally on Saturnalia morning, my cousin Helena and I would sip a glass of champagne and exchange jokes and snippets of gossip. She had more than a finger on the pulse of city life; its lifeblood ran through her. She’d also forewarn me about any particularly risqué activities the household were planning for today.

    Ceding my place at the head of the Mitela tribe for a day to the princeps Saturnalicius was all well and good, but even misrule and chaos had its limit as far as I was concerned. But for a few hours, the house would be overrun with noise, people, stupid but fun dares, overeating, games, theatricals and stand-up of dubious taste, arguments, falling in lust, laughter and progressive drunkenness. Helena would make sure the children were safe out of the way when the horseplay became a little too raunchy.

By early afternoon the atrium blazed with light. Everywhere was covered in ferns, spruce and pine. In the centre was a large square table covered with linen, silverware, glasses, candles and the best china. I smelt roast pork, lemons and spices. In tune with the reversal of the day Junia, the steward, was enthroned in my usual place. Conrad handed me a glass of champagne even though he was on waiter duty. His Saturnalia tunic was bright orange. He shrugged. Then grinned. Wearing over-colourful clothes was traditional, but a strain on the eyes.

    ‘It’s only for a day,’ he whispered.

    ‘I know,’ and smiled back. ‘But I wish Gil had been able to make it.’ 

    Our thirteen-year-old son had been staying in the country with Conrad’s cousin and was caught in the atrocious weather. Gil loved the madness of Saturnalia. My geeky son would turn into a shiny-eyed imp of Tartarus, darting around, laughing and joking, pulling pranks I didn’t know he knew. Now he’d be holed up with Conrad’s serious cousin for days. I only hoped they had enough food and the electricity hadn’t been cut, like the phone.

    ‘Well, Tonia’s having fun.’ Conrad pointed to her skipping between people with trays of hors d’oeuvres, watched anxiously by the steward’s son, and me. I could see at least one of the trays coming to grief, contents slithering across the marble floor.

‘Io Saturnalia!’

    I blinked at the hearty shout from the household and guests gathered around and raised my glass, then bowed towards the steward. She went to speak, but a blast of cold air and a loud thud interrupted her. All heads turned towards the atrium doors, now open. Allegra, in her military fatigues and winter parka, cheeks burning with the indoor heat, tore off her field cap and shouted, ‘Io Saturnalia’.

Everybody shouted back, the noise filling the atrium. I hugged her to me, ignoring the cold and wet of her thick coat.

    ‘I’ve brought you something else, Mama,’ she whispered in my ear and nodded towards the double doors. On the threshold stood a lanky boy – pale, shivering and wide-eyed. He was enveloped in a survival blanket.

Gil.

‘I found him trudging through the city,’ Allegra said. ‘He’s walked the ten kilometres from Brancadorum to get here and —.’

    But I didn’t hear the rest of what she said. I ran to the door and crushed him in my arms.

    Io Saturnalia, indeed!

Alison Morton

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About the Author

Alison Morton writes award-winning thrillers featuring tough but compassionate heroines. Her eleven-book Roma Nova series is set in an imaginary European country where a part of the ancient Roman Empire has survived into the 21st century and is ruled by women who face conspiracy, revolution and heartache but with a sharp line in dialogue. INCEPTIO starts the adventure in the present. Her latest, EXSILIUM, plunges us back to the late 4th century, to the very foundation of Roma Nova. Find out more from Alison's website https://alison-morton.com and find her on Facebook and Twitter