Book Launch Guest Post by Rachel Elwiss Joyce, Author of Lady of Lincoln: A Novel of Nicola de la Haye, the Medieval Heroine History Tried to Forget (The Nicola de la Haye Series Book 1)

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A true story. A forgotten heroine. In a time when women were told to stay silent, could she become the saviour her people need? 12th-century England. Nicola de la Haye wants to do her duty. But though she’s taught a female cannot lead alone, the young noblewoman bristles at the marriage her father has arranged to secure her inheritance. And when an unexpected death leaves her unguided, the impetuous girl shuns the king’s blessing and weds a handsome-but-landless knight.

Lady of Lincoln and Today’s Anniversary of the Start of the Great Rebellion 1173-4

The Night Everything Changed

5 March 1173. King Henry II's birthday celebration at Chinon Castle blazed with torchlight and wine. The great hall rang with laughter as father and son—the old king and Henry the Young King—made their public reconciliation. Courtiers toasted. Musicians played. Their earlier rupture seemed healed.

But precisely 853 years ago to this day, in the dark hours before dawn on 6 March 1173, while the royal household slept off their drunkenness, the young king slipped through the castle gates and rode hard with his companions for Paris.

Henry II

By morning, England's future had split open. Within weeks, the kingdom would descend into the brutal civil war we now call the Great Rebellion of 1173–74—a conflict that would cost countless lives and tear families apart.

What the Chroniclers Didn't Tell You

The medieval chroniclers followed kings and magnates across battlefields and courts. They recorded troop movements, sieges, diplomatic manoeuvres. What they rarely recorded were the consequences for everyone else—the people whose lives were upended by decisions made in royal councils, whose lands became battlegrounds, whose futures hung on which army prevailed.

They especially ignored the women.

But women didn't cease to exist during civil wars. They didn't stop managing estates, protecting dependents, or making impossible choices when their world fractured around them. They just didn't make it into the chronicles—unless they did something truly extraordinary.

An Inheritance Already Under Siege

By 1173, Nicola de la Haye wasn't waiting to inherit. She already held her family's barony and the hereditary constableship of Lincoln Castle—one of the most strategically vital royal fortresses in England. These weren't future expectations. They were working realities: estates to manage, villagers depending on her protection, a castle forming part of the king's defensive network.

She was young, she was married, and she understood her world's rules. But the inheritance was hers. Not her husband's. Hers.

The problem? Her husband assumed the title of Baron and Constable in her name. And when civil war erupted, he chose the Young King's cause, being one of those very companions of the Young King who had ridden into the French King’s arms. 

Suddenly Nicola faced a nightmare: her husband in rebellion, her inheritance threatened, her people exposed to violence. Should she remain loyal to the man she'd married, or to the birthrights and responsibilities that were hers alone?

Caught Between Loyalty and Survival

The medieval world didn't offer women many choices. But Nicola de la Haye wasn't like most women. She couldn't abandon her villagers to slaughter or starvation. She couldn't let the old king's agents strip away her family's legacy. And she certainly couldn't let her husband's choices destroy everything she'd been born to protect.

This was the woman who would later hold Lincoln Castle against a French invasion—the woman William Marshal himself would call "so brave a lady" that it would be dishonourable not to ride to her aid. Even in her youth, trapped between a rebelling husband and a suspicious king, Nicola found her path.

Lady of Lincoln tells that story—the story the chroniclers missed. The early years of a young woman who would become known as "the woman who saved England," tested by a brutal civil war she never chose, forced to make decisions that would define her life.

Remembering the Edges of Rebellion

On this anniversary of the day Henry the Young King slipped away from his father's court under cover of darkness, it's worth remembering something the chroniclers rarely acknowledged: civil wars aren't only fought by those men at the top who start them.

Henry the Young King 

They're also lived by those who must hold estates together while the ground shifts beneath them. By those who must keep people fed, justice functioning, defences maintained—even as armies march and loyalties fracture.

And so often, they were lived by women like Nicola de la Haye: women who held everything together while the men who claimed authority tore it apart.

Lady of Lincoln explores the early life of Nicola (also known as Nicholaa) de la Haye against the backdrop of the Great Rebellion—a devastating conflict born of Henry II's bitter struggles with his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine and their sons. It's a story of inheritance and identity, of impossible choices and iron will, and of a young woman learning to command in a world that wanted her silent.

Rachel Elwiss Joyce

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About the Author

After a rewarding career in the sciences, Rachel returned to her first love—history and the art of storytelling. Fascinated by the women history neglected, or tried to forget, she creates meticulously researched, emotionally resonant fiction that brings her characters’ stories vividly to life. Her fascination with the past began early. At six years old, she was already inventing tales about medieval women in castles, inspired by her treasured Ladybird books and other picture-rich stories that transported her to another time. By the time she discovered Katherine by Anya Seton as a teenager, she knew the joy and escape that only great historical fiction can bring. Rachel’s two grown-up children still tease her (fondly) about childhoods spent being “dragged” around castles, archaeological sites, and historical re-enactments. For Rachel, history and imagination have always gone hand in hand.There was, however, a long gap between the stories of her childhood and her decision to write her own novel. The spark came when she discovered the remarkable true story of Nicola de la Haye—the first female sheriff of England, who defended Lincoln Castle against a French invasion and became known as “the woman who saved England.” Rachel knew she had found her heroine, and a story she was destined to tell. Rachel lives in the UK, where she continues to explore the lives of women who shaped history but were left out of its pages. Lady of Lincoln is her debut novel, the first book in her Nicola de la Haye Series, with sequels to follow. Find out more at www.rachelelwissjoyce.com and find Rachel on Facebook and 

X/ Twitter: @RachelElwJoyce