Special Guest Post by Nicola Cornick, Author of The Forgotten Sister

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

1560: Amy Robsart is trapped in a loveless marriage to Robert Dudley, a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Surrounded by enemies and with nowhere left to turn, Amy hatches a desperate scheme to escape – one with devastating consequences that will echo 

through the centuries…

Writing and Researching The Forgotten Sister

Amy Robsart, wife of Robert Dudley, the childhood friend and favourite courtier of Elizabeth I, is largely famous for the way in which she died. When she fell down the stairs at Cumnor Hall in Oxfordshire on 8th September 1560, a scandal erupted over whether she had tripped, taken her own life or been murdered. Dudley, intent on clearing his name of all suspicion, might have initially thought that his wife’s death opened a path by which he might marry the Queen. However, the taint of Amy’s death was to prove fatal to his matrimonial ambitions even if Elizabeth had been prepared to accept him.

It was the mystery of Amy’s death that first caught my interest. Having read The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey at a young age, I’m fascinated by historical puzzles. The gaps in the historical record gives a novelist space for their imagination to roam. Once I started to research Amy, however, it was her life that became the focus of my book rather than her death. I wanted to find out more about Amy herself, a woman who is so often eclipsed by her husband and by the dazzling Queen Elizabeth I.

This was the basis for The Forgotten Sister, my dual time novel set in the present and in the years between 1550 and 1560. I wanted the present-day story to be a mirror of the historical one but not a precise parallel; the two timelines begin in different places but come together at the end.

Searching for evidence of Amy Robsart’s life is difficult. She is elusive. A couple of her letters are extant, from which we can deduce that she was literate and wrote a good hand, and that she was involved in the wool trade associated with the Norfolk estates she had inherited from her parents. Some mention is made in Robert Dudley’s household accounts of her expenditure on clothes. Perhaps it is as a result of this that some authors of non-fiction as well as fiction have portrayed her as being a fashionista with no other interests. A lack of evidence of her other activities can lead to a disproportionate amount of emphasis being placed on the things that we do know about.

As well as drawing on a couple of excellent books on Amy’s life, Death and the Virgin by Chris Skidmore and Amy Robsart A Life and its End by Christine Hartweg, I also read some of the earlier books about her, such as “An Enquiry into the particulars connected with the death of Amy Robsart” which was written in 1859. These were of special interest to me because as a public historian, I am as interested in the myths and legends that grow to surround a historical event or character as I am in the facts. Many Victorian writers were strongly influenced by the writing of Sir Walter Scott, who had written about Amy in his novel Kenilworth. They were not sympathetic to Robert Dudley.

One of the ways in which I found I could broaden my understanding of Amy and her background was to visit the places where she had lived. She was born in Stansfield in Norfolk which during her teenage years was in the throes of Kett’s Rebellion. With relatives on both sides of the dispute, Amy would have had an emotional understanding of the effects of political discord. East Anglia in that period was considered a wild and lawless place which was one of the reasons why Robert Dudley’s father, the Lord Protector, was keen to shore up alliances with prominent gentry such as the Robsart family.

Amy went from this relatively sequestered life to London and the royal court on her marriage to Robert. For a while she was at the pinnacle of society but it all came crashing down with the Duke of Northumberland’s failed attempt to place Jane Grey on the throne in 1553. Such extremes of fortune are always fascinating to explore and of course there was the very real prospect of Robert’s execution at this point. Amy was permitted to visit him during his incarceration in the Tower of London – what must such spousal visits have been like, one wonders.

After Robert’s release from the Tower of London, his and Amy’s stories diverge. Again I had to trace her in the places where she lived apart from him – at Throcking in Hertfordshire and then, finally at Cumnor Place in Oxfordshire, where she died. They are quiet places that must have been both isolated and isolating in the 16th century, a stark contrast to London and the court.

I visited Cumnor on a miserably grey and wet day which seemed all too appropriate. The manor house where Amy fell to her death was demolished at the start of the 19th century but a few walls remain in lonely isolation beside the churchyard. In the church is the life-size statue of Elizabeth I, said to have been commissioned by Robert Dudley in tribute to the Queen, which seems somewhat tactless in the place his first wife died. Amy’s tomb in the University Church of St Mary in Oxford has similarly been lost. All that is visible is a small plaque referring to the fact that she was buried close by.

Amy Robsart remains an elusive figure and one who’s life I would very much like to explore further. Again, as a public historian I am interested in the historical figures whose stories have not been told, including women from the footnotes of history. In some ways Amy Robsart’s afterlife has been much more significant than the mere 28 years that she lived for. Her death and the impact that it had on Robert Dudley’s life has ensured a sort of immortality for her but it is important to see her a woman in her own right and try to tease out the real person behind the myths.

Nicola Cornick

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About the Author

Nicola Cornick grew up in Yorkshire and studied History at the University of London and at Ruskin College Oxford where she was awarded a Distinction for her Maters dissertation on heroes and hero myths. She worked in academia for a number of years before becoming a full-time writer. She is the author of acclaimed dual-time mysteries as well as of award-winning historical romance. When she isn’t writing, Nicola volunteers as a guide and researcher for the National Trust at the 17th century hunting lodge Ashdown House. She has given talks and chaired panels for a number of festivals and conferences including the London Book Fair, the Historical Novel Society and the Sharjah Festival of Literature.  Nicola also gives talks on public and local history topics to WIs, history societies and other interested groups. She is a former Chair of the Romantic Novelists Association and is the current RNA archivist, and a trustee of the Friends of Lydiard Park. In her spare time Nicola is a puppy walker for the Guide Dogs charity. Find out more at Nicola's website www.nicolacornick.co.uk and follow her on Twitter @NicolaCornick

Special Guest Interview with J. A. Boulet, Author of The Strong Within Us (The Olason Chronicles Book 2)

New on Amazon UK and Amazon US

Nathan Olason picks up the pieces of his life in 1893 and becomes a devoted father and grandfather. Except something from his past is holding him back.

I'm pleased to welcome author J. A. Boulet to The Writing Desk:

Tell us about your latest book 

My latest book, The Strong Within Us, was an emotional journey for me, like nothing else that I have ever experienced. It is the sequel to The Strong Amongst Us (The Olason Chronicles Bk1), during which the Icelandic explorers landed in the developing nation of Canada in 1875. Book Two picks up the story in 1893 and stretches all the way to WWI, following Nathan Olason throughout his life with his grandson Mike. 

As the nation is gripped with the uncertainty of war, Mike makes the gut-wrenching decision to enlist with the infantry, travelling to the gruesome muddy battlefields of Vimy Ridge. Nathan fears the worst and is plunged into a personal hell of grief, fear and letting go. My book, The Strong Within Us is a powerful story of bravery, war, family bonds, love and fighting your way through the past.

I loved writing this book. My characters are fictional but somehow breathe life into the pages, jumping out and pulling you into their lives with a force that is to be reckoned with. I hope my book makes you cry, laugh and see the world with hope again. 

What is your preferred writing routine?

I write normally in the evening and well into the night, sometimes only stopping to take a sip of water at 1 am. But I can only edit during the day, lol. Brains are funny!

What advice do you have for new writers? 

Never give up, EVER.

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

Interesting question. I don’t think any individual action is the best way. Social media is key, in-person signings are important, talking to readers is a wonderful way to form connections, although, I think everything together forms the best awareness. Similar to putting all your retirement funds in one basket, in order to raise awareness of your books you need to utilize as many different platforms as possible and gain returns from worldwide exposure, not just one basket.

Tell us something unexpected you discovered during your research 

The target practice during WWI! I found it intriguing and unusual that these soldiers were in the “butts” as they called the dugout where the soldiers hand operated the pulleys to raise the targets up and down. When I asked Roy Boehli, from the King’s Own Calgary Regiment Museum, to describe exactly what the “butts” were, he instead sent me this picture.

Amazing!

What was the hardest scene you remember writing?

Definitely the Vimy Ridge battle scene. It was technically difficult because I have never experienced war myself so I had to immerse myself in research for weeks before I even wrote one word. Then I had to go over it, edit and polish it up several times before I felt it was perfect.

What are you planning to write next? 

Book Three of The Olason Chronicles. I started it last week but had to put the brakes on in order to research and get the dates right. The outline is still in draft version and evolving as we speak, lol

J. A. Boulet

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About the Author

J. A. Boulet is the passionate author of The Olason Chronicles, a historical saga of war, courage, love and strength.  J. A. Boulet was born and raised in Western Canada as a first generation Canadian from European descent. Her father was enlisted with the Hungarian military and fought bravely during the Hungarian Revolution, changing sides to stand up for what he believed in. He was granted asylum in Canada and built his family here.  J. A. Boulet was born many years later, raised with strong morals and values, which she stands behind to this day. She started writing poetry at the age of five and progressed to short stories and novels. She has a keen interest in settlers, healing, family bonds and military history. She currently lives in Canada with her two teenaged sons and a crested gecko named Mossio. Find out more at her website https://jaboulet.ca/ and follow her on Twitter @love_walk_life

Queen Elizabeth I Visits Gorhambury Manor in 1577

The ruins of Gorhambury Manor

While researching for book two of my new Elizabethan series, I discovered the accounts of the queen's visits to Gorhambury Manor House, near St Albans, Hertfordshire, which was was built by Sir Nicholas Bacon (1510-1579), Lord Keeper of the Great Seal during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

When the queen declared her intention to visit Gorhambury in 1572, Sir Nicholas was concerned enough to write to his friend Lord Burghley, ‘If it be true, then I might understand your advice for what you think to be the best way for me to deal with the matter, for in very deed, no man is more raw in such a matter than myself.’

It seems the visit didn’t go too well as the queen is reported to have said ‘My Lord, what a little house you have gotten’ to which Sir Nicholas replied ‘Madam, my house is well, but you have made me too great for my house!’ 

Sir Nicholas added a hundred-and-twenty foot long  gallery to the house for her second visit to Gorhambury on Saturday May 27th, 1577. The vaulted ceiling was painted with murals and, in what might have been a misjudgement, a life-sized statue of Henry VIII in gilded armour acted as a focal point. He also built a new ballroom with a minstrel gallery, for the evening entertainment. 

Lady Bacon was in charge of the banquet, and records show she prepared beer and ale and wines of all kinds, beef, mutton, veal, lambs, rabbits, cow’s udders and calves feet. There were chickens, geese, mallards, teals, larks and curlews, and all kinds of fish.

Sir Nicholas also had to pay for presents for the queen’s officers, and return travel costs from London to Gorhambury, as well as a golden cup as a gift for the queen, with twenty-five bucks and two fine stags. The total cost of the three day visit was about a fifth of the cost of building Gorhambury Manor.

Queen Elizabeth was so pleased with her visit, she gave Sir Nicholas a portrait of herself, which he later found out she’d been displeased with, as she thought it unflattering and a poor likeness.

Sir Nicholas only had another eighteen months to enjoy his gift, as he died in 1579, and Gorhambury passed to his son Anthony - and then to Sir Francis Bacon.

Tony Riches

Special Guest Post by Carolyn Hughes, Author of Children’s Fate, the Fourth Meonbridge Chronicle

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US 

How can a mother just stand by when her daughter is being cozened into sin? It’s 1360, eleven years since the Black Death devastated all of England, and six years since Emma Ward fled Meonbridge with her children, to find a more prosperous life in Winchester. Long satisfied that she’d made the right decision, Emma is now terrified that she was wrong. For she’s convinced her daughter Bea is in grave danger, being exploited by her scheming and immoral mistress.

Children’s Fate, like the first three CHRONICLES, is a work of fiction. The characters come entirely from my imagination. The principal location, Meonbridge, is a fictitious village and manor, but imagined as lying alongside the real River Meon in Hampshire, just as a number of existing Meon Valley villages do, and it is loosely modelled on one or two of them.

Yet, the story of Children’s Fate is underpinned by “history”, events that really happened when and as they appear in the novel.

The principal “event”, upon which the latter part of the novel hinges, is the arrival of another outbreak of the plague in England, in the spring and summer of 1361. This occurrence of the disease was thought of as the “Children’s Plague”, because a disproportionately large number of the victims were children. The reason for this is not clear, though one explanation might be that, as the children weren’t born at the time of the previous outbreak (what we call the “Black Death”, in 1348-9), they didn’t have the immunity their parents might have acquired having lived through it and survived.

If you happen to have read Fortune’s Wheel, the first MEONBRIDGE CHRONICLE, you’ll know that the novel series begins in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death, which killed up to half of people not only in England but across a huge swathe of the world from the far east to northern Europe. The next two chronicles, A Woman’s Lot and De Bohun’s Destiny, are set in plague-free years. But, for this fourth book, I had to think about plague again.

This has been a somewhat tricky book to write. For various purely “authorly” reasons, I was already grappling a bit with the storyline I’d created. I wasn’t quite sure that it was working, even though I really liked it… But then COVID-19 came into our lives and my writing world turned upside down… Well, no, that’s an exaggeration. But it was definitely disturbed… I wasn’t of course the only writer to suffer such disturbance during those difficult months, but my particular distraction was caused by what I was writing about: The Black Death…  plague… pandemic! It was rather unsettling to be writing about a pandemic, when our world was in the midst of one, but it gave me food for thought, comparing the two events.

The way that, in the first half of 2020, the coronavirus spread apparently so easily, and occasionally with such deadly effect, was frightening enough. But our doctors did at least know what coronavirus was (they understood the nature of viruses), how it spread (e.g. through coughing), had some idea of how to mitigate it (e.g. isolation) and what sort of treatment might work, developed a way of testing for the disease and began work to find a vaccine.

But imagine that you had no idea what the disease actually was, or how it spread?

In the middle of the 14th century, people had some curious (to us) notions about the causes of disease. Death was everyday – illnesses were mostly incurable, accidents commonplace, life generally subject to all manner of risk. Medieval people invariably ascribed every disaster, be it the loss of a child, dead cows, a bad harvest, or the failure of the butter to churn, either to God’s will or the Devil’s work. 

If a particular disaster was considered to be God’s will, then it might follow that the reason for his anger was man’s sin, and the disaster was His punishment. This was what priests told their congregations. It does seem rather odd that immorality was held responsible for the coming of a plague. But perhaps the apocalyptic nature of it provided a good pretext for the Church to censure the masses for their sinful ways. But I wonder to what extent the average Englishman or woman believed them? How I’d love to know…

There were scientific explanations too, promulgated by learned academics, such as complicated notions about the movements of the planets, and theories about miasma, or foul air. Foul air was thought to be a cause of disease in general, and plague was no different.

But, if medieval people had some notions of the “what” of the disease (even if they were wrong), I imagine that the “how” must have been trickier to understand.

People did understand the value of isolation as a way of avoiding plague although, practically and logistically, running away can’t have been easy or even feasible for most. Boccaccio’s Decameron (completed in 1353) is based upon the isolation premise, being a collection of stories told by a group of young men and women who flee Florence to a secluded villa to escape the 1348 Black Death. And Eyam in Derbyshire is famous for going into “lock-down” in 1665, after plague invaded the village (apparently from fleas in a bolt of cloth). The plan was to prevent the disease spreading beyond the village, but a large proportion of Eyam’s population did lose their lives to plague.

So keeping oneself to oneself was certainly understood: the value of social distancing, as we now call it, was recognised. A 14th century French physician, Jean Jacmé, wrote in a treatise on the plague: ‘In pestilence time nobody should stand in a great press of people because some man among them may be infected’*.

The good doctor also mentioned the value of hand-washing ‘oft times in the day’*, though with water and vinegar, rather than with soap.

Touch was clearly to be avoided, though another physician posited that looking into a plague victim’s eyes was also risky, on the grounds that plague could be transmitted via the “airy spirit leaving the eyes of the sick man”*, which does seem rather curious.

But, something again more familiar is avoiding a victim’s “foul air” – breathing, coughing. Doctor Jacmé recommended avoiding foul smells in general: ‘…every foul stench is to be eschewed, of stable, stinking fields, ways or streets…’* The “plague doctor” bird beak masks of later centuries hadn’t yet been invented, but I can imagine that those who attended victims might well have covered their nose and mouth, albeit just with a rag, or perhaps more elaborately with a bag full of protective and sweet-smelling herbs.

What medieval people didn’t seem to know about was the role of rats and fleas, which have long been implicated in the spread of the plague. Though some scientists think the speed of spread was, in practice, too rapid and too far for transmission by rat flea alone to be viable. Others have it that the rat fleas jumped host to people, and then human fleas and lice were infected, making it much easier for rapid people-to-people transmission. But the situation is unclear. The World Health Organisation says, ‘human to human transmission of bubonic plague is rare’. Yet, the 1361 outbreak was in the summer months, in which bubonic, as opposed to pneumonic plague, was more common. Whichever it was, it spread very quickly, and was undoubtedly hideous and terrifying.

But, if doctors had some ideas of how the disease arose, and even how to avoid it, they had little notion about how to treat it. Some would probably have tried their favourite cure-all, blood-letting, or applied a variety of substances to the suffering body, from herbs and vinegar, to urine and excrement, none of which were beneficial. In the novel, I have the barber-surgeon lancing buboes, a practice that wasn’t necessarily carried out in the 14th century, but was a couple of centuries later. But I can imagine some more eager surgeons might have tried an uncommon method if it might save their patients.

Horrific as it undoubtedly was, catching plague in the 14th century wasn’t inevitably a death sentence, for some people evidently did survive – even people who had been close to, or even nursed, victims – though of course vast numbers didn’t. Terrible as COVID-19 is, the huge numbers who died of the Black Death, as a proportion of the entire population, are very hard to even imagine. 

Of course our understanding of pandemic and that of 14th century people are undoubtedly very different, as I’ve already shown. But I have found it fascinating to discover also how very similar in many ways were 14th century reactions to disease and what people did to counter it, compared to ours.

Perhaps you’d enjoy a fictional visit to that long ago experience through the pages of Children’s Fate. Do give it a try!

Carolyn Hughes

* Quotes are from The Black Death, translated and edited by Rosemary Horrox. If you’d like to read more about plague in the 14th century, I really do recommend it, for it has a wealth of fascinating detail, and uses contemporary texts to reveal the thinking of the time.

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About the Author

Carolyn Hughes has lived most of her life in Hampshire. With a first degree in Classics and English, she started working life as a computer programmer, then a very new profession. But it was technical authoring that later proved her vocation, as she wrote and edited material, some fascinating, some dull, for an array of different clients, including banks, an international hotel group and medical instruments manufacturers. Having written creatively for most of her adult life, it was not until her children flew the nest several years ago that writing historical fiction took centre stage, alongside gaining a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Portsmouth University and a PhD from the University of Southampton. Find out more at Carolyn's website www.carolynhughesauthor.com and find her on Facebook and Twitter @writingcalliope

Special Guest Post by Dr Danna R Messer, Author of Joan, Lady of Wales: Power and Politics of King John's Daughter

New on Amazon UK and Amazon US

Joan of England, King John’s illegitimate daughter, Henry III’s sister and the wife of arguably the most famous and successful Welsh ruler Llywelyn ap Iorwerth of Gwynedd is the subject of my new book Joan, Lady of Wales: Power and Politics of King John’s Daughter. It is a biography of a woman who played a central role in early thirteenth-century Anglo-Welsh politics, simply by the nature of design of her position as daughter, sister and wife to three enigmatic rulers of Britain in the High Middle Ages. 

She was also player in Welsh courtly culture, again, by sheer design of her status, for all intents and purposes, as a ‘queen’. The ultimate intention and underlining drive behind the research and writing of this biography was a way of paying homage to a woman who’s name holds much significance in medieval Welsh and English history, but who’s real story has remained wholly unexplored, and arguably even misunderstood, over the past 800 years. 

The aim is to finally pay this mysterious woman her dues. Wales and its history has always been a place of fascination for me. As young child and adolescent the legends of King Arthur were the first to captivate my attention, for both this seemingly singular place on earth where myth, history and landscape overlap. As a late-teen inching towards a desire and calling to be a historian, I became more enchanted by Wales through historical fiction. Fiction yes, but stories driven by events and people in history. 

Above all, my hat needs to be taken off to Sharon Penman and her Here Be Dragons. Unsurprisingly, I was riveted – not only on its first read when first published, but with many subsequent reads over the years. More importantly, there was something in the undercurrents of the story line itself and characters that resonated with me on a much deeper level that first time around, in ways I probably still can’t explain in full. In particular, it was Joan’s character, Joan’s story that captured my attention in full. Who was this woman really?

For the past thirty years, Joan and the need to not only unearth her truth but to tell her story have haunted me. In essence, it was my fascination with Joan that drove my career to become a medieval historian by training and trade – specifically, to be come a women’s historian and a historian of medieval Wales, as it was before the end of the thirteenth-century.

Admittedly, it was very hard to write a whole book about a noble/royal woman who appears so little in sources, but who has been recognised, albeit often in a cursory manner, by both medieval contemporaries and later historians as being ‘relatively’ important in assuaging the political dynamics between an independent Welsh kingdom and the Angevin dynasty. 

As readers will note, my book aims to fill in some of the gaps – of the records, of our knowledge of events and in our understanding of how that world worked. There is a fine line between outright conjecture and a truly educated appraisal of situations at hand based on what evidence does, in fact, survive. Often, deep, historical research is about unearthing patterns found through things such as activities or similarities in circumstances that helps bring some of the shadows into the light. This is most true for research concerning women and minorities.

Although this book on Joan is biographical, I’ve tried to provide more of a thematic focus on two fronts: 1) Joan’s identity as a woman, an illegitimate member of England’s royal family, as a foreigner to Wales and, more specifically, her identity and position based on her lifecycles a wife, daughter, sister and mother; and 2) her status as a Welsh ‘queen’ and ‘the king’s consort’. 

As Joan’s appearance in sources is extremely limited, this approach provides a wider context to helping us understand what her influences were, what they may have been, and the how they may have helped define her agency and political activities. Again, assessing the patterns found in her activities and contextualising these against the backdrop of examples taken from her female forebears, her predecessors, contemporaries and successors, both in Wales and beyond, we find that, unsurprisingly, 

Joan found herself in situations similar to those that other women of her position and status found themselves. Such a finding of similarities also helped put pieces into place. Her story is an individual one, of course. But, it also falls within the greater collective.

One of the main threads I followed to try to tease out a better idea of how she may have been more politically involved in Anglo-Welsh relations than is actually recorded was to look at her economic agency, mapping English manors that she was gifted by the English Crown and when. Though there is supposition, it’s based on viable information in English Chancery sources that strongly suggests Joan was gifted her English lands as rewards for her role as a political diplomat – including the three instances during her lifetime in which England set out to invade and subjugate Wales.

In the overall picture, there just seems to be too many instances where her lands were either gifted or taken away by the English Crown exactly around specific times when political relations were fraught. Although much of the history of the medieval royal woman is centred around the personal being political, in Joan’s case it seems that the political was personal, too.

I also throw into the mix an underlining thematic discussion on what Welsh queenship may have looked like, in both practice and custom. A deeper reading of Welsh sources collectively suggest that a recognised royal consort in Wales was viewed as the female-symbol of the hegemonic authority of her husband. Such a perception likely included real expectations that women in these positions be more active, both in the royal court and the realm, than has been recognised by historians.

In many ways, Joan can be seen to be a paragon of Welsh ‘queenship’. Based on her activities that we do know about and our newer understanding of what ‘queenship’ may have looked like in Wales at this time, Joan’s story goes hand-in-hand with discussions of what a ‘queen’ or ‘queen consort’ was, certainly as pertains to the court of Gwynedd and the Venedotian rulers.

 
Ultimately, Joan, Lady of Wales: Power and Politics of King John’s Daughter aims to provide a fuller understanding of Joan’s life and activities, not forgetting the important notion that she was, after all, a human being, interacting with other human beings; all of whom were driven by emotions, and those emotions were conflated with ambition, necessity and protocol.

Danna R Messer 

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About the Author

Danna R. Messer is a medieval historian who received her PhD from Bangor University in Welsh History. Her doctoral thesis was on the agency of the wives of Welsh rulers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and this remains her overall specialism and main research focus. She is a contributing author to the Dictionary of Welsh Biography (articles on Joan and Eleanor de Montfort already out) and has published additional research on Joan and Welsh queenship in general for Women’s History Review, the Encyclopedia of the Global Middle Ages (Arc Humanities Press and Bloomsbury Academic), Foundations: Newsletter of the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy and in A Companion to Global Queenship, edited by Elena Woodacre (2018). Her current project is as editor for ‘Norman to Early Plantagenets’, the first volume (of four) of English Consorts: Power, Influence, Dynasty, edited by Aidan Norrie, Carolyn Harris, Joanna Laynesmith, Danna Messer and Elena Woodacre (forthcoming, Palgrave Macmillan). English Consorts will be the long overdue and much needed ‘handbook’ on the spouses of England’s rulers from 1066 to the present. Danna works in publishing as an editor for medieval history with Arc Humanities Press and Pen and Sword Books.

The Many Faces of a Queen: The Armada Portraits of Elizabeth I

Lise many Elizabethan portraits, the Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I, painted in 1588, is heavily symbolic, and intended to be a show the queen's strength and majesty. Unlike most portraits, it is in a landscape format, and three different versions survive.

The most famous of the three Armada portraits is thought to have been commissioned by Sir Francis Drake, and is known as the 'Tyrwhitt-Drake' portrait (above). 

The Armada Portrait held by the National Portrait Gallery has been cut down at some point, to fit the conventional portrait format, leaving  the central figure of the queen and remnants of the background.

Finally, the Woburn Abbey version has  the columns of red with gold coloured bases, which suggests these two paintings may have come from the same artist.

Restoration work on the 'Tyrwhitt-Drake' portraits included X-Rays, which revealed that the ships in the background had been painted over older ships, similar to those in the Woburn Abbey version.

The symbols in all three versions would have been recognised by the Tudor audience. The many large pearls symbolise Elizabeth’s chastity and connect her to Cynthia, the Greek goddess of the Moon, who was a virgin and seen as 'pure'. Elizabeth's hair and clothes are draped in pearls, and where Henry VIII's portrait by Holbein displays the king wearing an oversized codpiece to emphasise his virility, Elizabeth's portrait shows a giant pearl. 

Mermaids and sirens were subjects of Poseidon, god of the sea, sent to tempt sailors and then ruin them, so the inclusion of a mermaid here could show Elizabeth’s might against the Spanish seamen. It has also been suggested the mermaid symbolises Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth is facing away from the plots and Mary's execution

The red, egg-shaped object over Elizabeth's shoulder might seem out of place, and has been described as an egg, an acorn and a pomegranate, or even a decorative finial, but I believe nothing in these paintings is there by accident, and it is an egg to represent fertility, rebirth and eternal life, and is a symbol of wealth, luck and health.

Elizabeth rests her right hand on a globe, with her fingers pointing at the New World – imperial symbolism that underlines her power over the world, as well as England. The first European colony in America, Virginia, was established in 1584, a few years before the Armada Portrait was painted, and it was named for Elizabeth.

Her skirt and her sleeves are decorated with golden suns. The sun is an artistic symbol as old as history itself, a signifier of power, enlightenment and life. The circle of ruff extends from Elizabeth’s face like the Sun’s rays. She is shown as the centre and source of warmth, beauty, and goodness.Elizabeth herself is placed between scenes of storm and calm, suggesting that she is the sun, and the source of the clear weather shown to the left.

The Queen's posture, with open arms and serene gaze signify strength, and the exaggerated dress symbolises the the medieval idea of the ‘King’s two bodies’: the frail, physical one, and the spiritual, from where true power originates. 

Royal Museums Greenwich secured  the 'Tyrwhitt-Drake'  Armada Portrait in 2016 after raising £10.3m including £7.4m from the Heritage Lottery Fund, to buy the painting from descendants of Sir Francis Drake. The three surviving versions of one of the most famous portraits of Elizabeth I were on display together for the first time in 2020:

“A gripping read - it felt like I had been transported back in time.”  

Drake – Tudor Corsair (Book One of the Elizabethan Series)

🇺🇸 Amazon US.      🇬🇧 Amazon UK

Blog Tour Guest Post ~ The Last Blast of the Trumpet (Book 3 of the Knox Trilogy) By Marie Macpherson

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Scotland 1559: Fiery reformer John Knox returns to a Scotland on the brink of civil war. Victorious, he feels confident of his place leading the reform until the charismatic young widow, Mary Queen of Scots returns to claim her throne. She challenges his position and initiates a ferocious battle of wills as they strive to win the hearts and minds of the Scots. But the treachery and jealousy that surrounds them both as they make critical choices in their public and private lives has dangerous consequences that neither of them can imagine.

The Influence of John Knox

 

The louring figure of John Knox has cast a long, deep shadow over Scottish history and, love him or loathe him, you cannot deny his influence not only on our culture and psyche but also on the development of English Puritanism and the establishment of Presbyterianism around the world. To the great Victorian historian Thomas Carlyle, Knox was ‘the one Scotsman to whom the whole world owes a debt’ and who takes his rightful place alongside the leading reformers, Calvin, Beza and Farel on the Reformation Wall in Geneva.

For many, however, Knox is a prophet without honour in his own land. Carlyle’s fulsome praise was certainly not echoed by the Scottish bard, Robert Burns, a frequent victim of the cutty stool, a punishment for fornication. In Holy Willie’s Prayer he mocks the ‘unco guid’ the pious, self-righteous and dour Elect created by the doctrine of predestination. Knox is blamed for the stringent, puritanical restrictions that grasped Scotland in a tight iron grip for centuries and the caricature of the long-bearded, black-robed, Old Testament prophet spouting fire and brimstone endures. It is difficult nowadays to imagine but the preachers was a charismatic performer whose sermons drew huge congregations. Catholic congregations who’d been used to standing behind a rood screen at mass, cut off from priests chanting in Latin, were enthralled to hear scripture being expounded in their own language. 

Nevertheless, Knox’s extremism has become an embarrassment to his own Church of Scotland and his achievements have been overshadowed by his polemical pamphlet, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, which has marked him out as a rampant misogynist and violent revolutionary. Contrary to popular opinion, Knox did not hate women. Far from it. He was quite the ladies’ man as his two young wives and flock of female admirers and correspondents would testify. Nonetheless, he believed that because women were ‘the weaker vessel’ they were unsuited for any form of public office, let alone that of supreme monarch. He was appalled and bewildered by the prevailing situation when so many women were ruling the roost: Mary Tudor in England, Mary of Guise in Scotland, as regent for her daughter Mary, Queen of Scots, and Catherine de Medici, regent in France. This was not only monstrous, against the laws of nature, but against divine law. Taking his inspiration from Paul in Timothy 2:12, he famously wrote:

To promote a woman to bear rule, superioritie, dominion or empire above any realme, nation, or citie, is repugnant to nature.

Knox was not a lone wolf crying out in the wilderness, however. Most of his male contemporaries, and indeed the law, deemed women to be second-class citizens. Meanwhile in various Protestant countries subjects were beginning to question the validity of despotic rulers. In 1550, the authors of the Apology of Magdeburg urged its citizens to take up arms against a tyrannical magistrate. In 1556 an exiled English bishop, John Ponet, argued that tyrants could be deposed by common authority, a sentiment shared by Knox’s colleague, Christopher Goodman, as a popular rhyme of the time recorded:   

No Queen in her kingdom can or ought to sit fast

If Knox or Goodman’s books blow any true blast.

But no one was as vehement and violent as Knox who clamoured for the Catholic female rulers not only to be brought down but executed. This alarmed many including John Aylmer who accused Knox of overstepping the mark and ‘cracking the dutie of obedience’ to a monarch. For this rebuttal Queen Elizabeth rewarded Aylmer with the bishopric of London and banned Knox from ever setting foot on English soil. 

Knox in England

It’s often forgotten that Knox once had a promising career in the English church. Released after a 19-month stint in the galleys, the heretic was outlawed in his own country but welcomed in England where he served as pastor in Berwick-upon-Tweed and Newcastle. When the young King Edward VI invited the charismatic preacher to London as one of his chaplains, Knox’s career in England seemed assured. However, his uncompromising Calvinist beliefs startled the moderate Anglican bishops who sought to dilute them by offering him plum jobs–vicar of All Hallows in London and the bishopric of Rochester–if he followed their liturgy. Knox who abhorred idolatry in all its forms, refused to bend the knee at communion and wear episcopal vestments. No compromise was the motto of God’s chosen messenger.

Knox in Geneva

Edward’s premature death in 1563, followed by the succession of Mary Tudor, was a great blow for Knox. Chased out of England he sought refuge in Geneva, confident that Calvin would back his call to depose the ‘wicked Jezebel’ who was persecuting Protestants. When Calvin advised obedience and passive resistance, Knox approached other leading reformers in Switzerland and Germany but failed to drum up support. Sensing the fiery Scot was more Calvinist than he was, Calvin sent him as trouble-shooter to Frankfurt where Canon Cox, leader of the English exiles, was sneaking dregs of popery into the English rite. Knox failed to convert Cox who hounded the zealot and his radical followers out of Frankfurt. Though Knox didn’t realise it at the time, the Church of England’s door had been slammed firmly behind him. 

Angry and frustrated, Knox picked up his pen to write The First Blast of the Trumpet against the cursed Jezebel of England. Conscious of the criticism it would provoke he published his vehement attack anonymously. A furious Calvin banned its publication in Geneva and wrote to William Cecil, that the ‘thoughtless arrogance of one individual’ had endangered the lives of the English exiles.

For all his legendary gift of prophecy, Knox didn’t foresee Mary Tudor’s demise in November 1558, nor her succession by another woman. At least Elizabeth was a Protestant, Knox conceded, and promised his support if she acknowledged that God had allowed her to reign as a special case to restore the true Protestant faith. This arrogance combined with his misogynistic comments greatly offended the young queen who refused his request to return to England. I fear that my First Blast hath blown from me all my friends in England, Knox complained.

It must have stuck in his craw to hear that his bitter rival, Canon Cox had officiated at Elizabeth’s coronation. It needed no gift of prophecy to see that ‘bells and smells’ were turning the queen’s head.

His austere Calvinist Presbyterianism may not have been to Elizabeth’s taste, but Knox still exerted influence amongst rebels in the Anglican church who, sensing ‘creeping papistry’, were unwilling to submit to her seemingly trivial demands. Those who refused to use Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer or wear vestments were mockingly called ‘Puritans’ or ‘precisians’ and went on to form a dissident arm of the Church of England.

Knox in Scotland 

Outlawed in England, Knox returned to his homeland to lead the Lords of the Congregation in deposing the Catholic regent Mary of Guise and establishing Protestantism as the official religion of Scotland. With the regent’s sudden death, victory seemed assured and, in 1560, Knox set about producing The First Book of Discipline, his manifesto for a Christian commonwealth with education for all children, more universities, and a system of poor relief. However, because the nobility refused to hand over the rich benefices they’d purloined from the Roman Catholic Church, his visionary, democratic ideas were never put into practice during his lifetime. 

Statue of Knox the teacher, outside Knox Academy by John Denham, Wikipedia

The Protestant honeymoon period was cut short with the arrival of the charismatic young widow, Mary Queen of Scots, to claim her throne. And so began a bitter battle of wills between the minister and the monarch for the hearts and minds of the Scots. Many of the lords, embarrassed by his constant attacks on Mary, dropped their support for Knox and baulked at the idea of deposing their anointed queen. Nor did they dare execute Knox for his treacherous sermons for fear of making a martyr of him.

Knox reproving Mary Queen of Scots by David Wilkie

In the end it was not the revolutionary democrat Knox but her sister queen, Elizabeth Tudor, who signed Mary’s death warrant, on the advice of her powerful minister. By removing this threat to his mistress’s throne, William Cecil had one of his wishes granted and then in 1603 another one. The accession of James VI of Scots as James I of England signalled the Union of Crowns under a Protestant monarch, laying the foundation for the Union of Parliaments and the establishment of the United Kingdom in 1707. This dramatic change in the troubled relationship between the auld enemies, England and Scotland, it could be argued, was in no small measure a result of John Knox.

Meanwhile, after a tumultuous life, Knox died peacefully in his bed and was buried in the churchyard outside St Giles Cathedral Edinburgh where lot No. 23 in the car park marks the spot. Ironically, Knox the great iconoclast who ordered the destruction of graven images, is forever set in stone. How long in this iconoclastic age will the statue in New College depicting the preacher in full flow remain standing?

John Knox in New College, from Wikipedia

Praise for The Last Blast of the Trumpet

‘Macpherson has done for Knox what Hilary Mantel did for Cromwell.’

Scottish Field

‘This richly realized portrait of a complex man in extraordinary times is historical fiction at its finest.’

Linda Porter, author of Crown of Thistles; Katherine the Queen, Royal Renegades; Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II

‘Marie Macpherson has once again given us a cavalcade of flesh and blood characters living the early days of the Scottish Reformation in a complex tale told with economy and wit.’

S.G. MacLean, author of The Seeker Series and Alexander Seaton mysteries

Marie Macpherson

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About the Author

Scottish writer Marie Macpherson grew up in Musselburgh on the site of the Battle of Pinkie and within sight of Fa’side Castle where tales and legends haunted her imagination. She left the Honest Toun to study Russian at Strathclyde University and spent a year in the former Soviet Union to research her PhD thesis on the 19th century Russian writer Mikhail Lermontov, said to be descended from the Scottish poet and seer, Thomas the Rhymer. Though travelled widely, teaching languages and literature from Madrid to Moscow, she has never lost her enthusiasm for the rich history and culture of her native Scotland. Writing historical fiction combines her academic’s love of research with a passion for storytelling. Exploring the personal relationships and often hidden motivations of historical characters drives her curiosity. Find out more at Marie's website https://mariemacpherson.wordpress.com/  and find her on Facebook and Twitter @Scotscriever