An Instance of the Fingerpost, published in 1998, is a rather large work of historical fiction – 704 pages long! As I had this read aloud to me by my husband whenever we had some free time – which was not often – it took over a year to get through it – but it was totally worth… Read on
It’s eight thirty am, the drummers in full uniform march through the soldier’s camps drumming ‘call to arms’. A rapid brrrr…umph, brrrr…umph on their drums. This is closely followed by our Sargent shouting “Kings Guard, form up in fifteen minutes.” There follows a rapid dressing session. My husband is always late for parade sometimes even running to join the… Read on
Mothers and Midwives in the 17th Century by Kate Braithwaite Alice Wandesford was born in Yorkshire in 1627 and in 1651, aged twenty-four, she married William Thornton of East Newton. Alice was soon pregnant and carried the child to term, but it died within half an hour of birth. Her second child, Betty, survived almost being ‘overlaid’ –… Read on
The Institution of Marriage in 17th Century England By Deborah Swift My new book, A Plague on Mr Pepys, has at its heart a marriage. During my research for the book I had to look into attitudes to marriage in the 17th Century, and how these attitudes might affect my characters, Bess and Will Bagwell, when their marriage… Read on
A Glorious Poison: The Deadly Toxins of Palace Life by Eleanor Herman, exclusively on The Seventeenth Century Lady. The royal lifestyle of yesteryear used to make me swoon. I imagined myself living in a gilded palace, wearing gorgeous gowns, and dancing with Baroque studs at candlelight balls. I thought of the past as a time of romance, grandeur,… Read on
The Scottish Coronation of King Charles II by Cryssa Bazos There is an iconic painting of Charles II, commemorating his coronation in 1661 at Westminster, following the Restoration of the monarchy. An ermine robe is draped over his shoulders, he holds the orb and sceptre in each hand, and the English crown rests firmly on his head. But… Read on
Londoners and the Great Fire by Jacob F. Field Pepys and his buried parmesan, Charles II and the Duke of York directing the fire-fighting efforts, Lord Mayor Bludworth saying (allegedly) saying ‘Pish! A woman might piss it out!’, Wren’s grand plans for a rebuilt metropolis, and Thomas Farriner’s bakery in Pudding Lane: the main stories of the Great… Read on
In writing The Coffin Path, a ghost story set on the Yorkshire Moors sometime after the English Civil War, I read accounts of as many 17th-century hauntings as I could find. The most striking thing I noticed is how the elements of a good ghost story have remained relatively unchanged over the centuries. Belief in ghosts, or in… Read on