Christmas Giveaway!

It is Christmas! and I am happy to offer two paperback copies of Sisters of Arden, hot off the presses. All you need do is comment below on why you'd like to be one of the winners and your name will be entered into a draw. Please share on social media.

Arden Priory has remained unchanged for almost four hundred years. When a nameless child is abandoned at the gatehouse door, the nuns take her in and raise her as one of their own.

As Henry VIII’s second queen dies on the scaffold, the embittered King strikes out, and unprecedented change sweeps across the country. The bells of the great abbeys fall silent, the church and the very foundation of the realm begins to crack.

Determined to preserve their way of life, novitiate nuns Margery and Grace join a pilgrimage thirty thousand strong to lead the heretic king back to grace.

Sisters of Arden is a story of valour, virtue and veritas.

Excerpt from Sisters of Arden

1537 - Yorkshire

We run, heads down through the darkness, away from the cries of our dying friends and the sickening thud of their falling bodies.

Ducking through a garden gate, I cast about for a hay store or a tangle of bushes that might conceal us. Grabbing her wrist, I pull Frances into a briar patch, the thorns snagging and tearing at our robes and limbs. As we crouch in the dark, she trembles and wipes her wet cheeks on my sleeve. I can just distinguish her bone-white face and the stark terror in her eyes, and I am sickened with guilt that I have led her to this. Her life is now forfeit to my mistaken conviction that simple folk can make a difference.

I grope for God in the faithless void of my mind, begging that the king’s men grow tired of the hunt and ride away, back to their warm hearths, their laden tables, and their fragrant, sinful wives. Frances’ teeth begin to rattle, her breath faltering as her courage dwindles. I give her a gentle shake and put a warning finger against her lips, beseeching her to be silent, to be brave for just a little longer.

As the stealthy hooves draw closer to our hiding place, we hold our breath, sinking deeper into the undergrowth when he halts just a little way above our heads. The dank aroma of rotting vegetation rises; the tang of frost tickles my nose and pinches my toes. Frances trembles so violently it is indistinguishable from the juddering of my own body. I fumble for prayer, nausea washing over me as I fail to recall a single one.

 A creak of harness as the rider shifts in his saddle. I cannot see him but when the horse snorts, in my mind’s eye his breath mists the darkness, rising wraith-like in the night. I can feel the rake of the man’s gaze as he searches, seeking out our hiding place. My lungs strain fit to burst, my chest is aching, and I am ready to relinquish my freedom for just one blessed breath. The horse stirs, turns and moves away, and we fill our lungs with fresh damp air. We clutch hands as the vague hope of escape returns.

Then noise erupts with a harsh yelp. A hound is loosed and, with a furious growl, it crashes through the hedge. As I fall backward, I glimpse a lolling tongue, and yellow eyes stare briefly into mine; cold, murderous eyes. Frances’ scream shatters the night as the jaws clamp down upon her wrist.

“Let go! Let go!” I strike out with my bare feet, feeling the crack of bony ribs beneath a silken coat. The hound yelps but holds on fast, screaming aloud as I kick out again, hammering his head with my heels. The air fills with a confusion of hooves, screaming women, and triumphant male laughter as they lay hands upon us. As they drag me to my feet, Frances gives a loud unintelligible sound that breaks my heart.

“Please,” I beg, as my hands are wrenched behind me and roughly held. “We are nuns from Arden. My sister has done nothing. Take me, but … let Sister Frances go – she ... she doesn’t understand.”

A white dagger of agony flashes through my skull as my captor clouts me around the ear. My head rings and my vision blurs. Through a fog of pain, I realise they are hauling Frances from the ground, dragging us both rudely forward.

“Hold them,” the man on the horse orders, and their grip tightens as he slides from his saddle, hawks and spits on the ragged skirts of my habit before slowly unfurling a rope from his belt.

 The knots are tight about my wrists; my hands are numb. I cry out as the horse jolts forward and, tethered to the saddle, all we can do is follow him. Agonisingly, we retrace our route back the way we have come, through the hamlets and homesteads that earlier offered us shelter.

Our cause is lost. Our peaceful mission to bring England back to the true church has failed; doomed by the promises of a false king. In the lightening dawn, the slack-limbed, sightless bodies of those who aided us sway as we pass. The voiceless, lifeless men, women and children who dared to share our questioning of the king’s wisdom gape blindly at our passing.

 We will join them soon; our useless lives cut short, our fruitless existence ended in ignominy.

My throat grows tight. How have we come to this?

Paperback will be available on Amazon very soon. Also available on kindle

Merry Christmas Everybody!

mybook.to/sistersofarden
www.judithmarnopp.com
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Sisters of Arden - New Release

I am very happy to announce the publication of Sisters of Arden. There were times during this particularly trying year that I thought I'd never have it finished in time for Christmas but I have, and here it is. I hope you enjoy it.

Back cover blurb

Arden Priory has remained unchanged for almost four hundred years. When a nameless child is abandoned at the gatehouse door, the nuns take her in and raise her as one of their own.

As Henry VIII’s second queen dies on the scaffold, the embittered King strikes out, and unprecedented change sweeps across the country. The bells of the great abbeys fall silent, the church and the very foundation of the realm begins to crack.

Determined to preserve their way of life, novitiate nuns Margery and Grace join a pilgrimage thirty thousand strong to lead the heretic king back to grace.

Sisters of Arden is a story of valour, virtue and veritas.

An excerpt.

1537 - Yorkshire

We run, heads down through the darkness, away from the cries of our dying friends and the sickening thud of their falling bodies.

Ducking through a garden gate, I cast about for a hay store or a tangle of bushes that might conceal us. Grabbing her wrist, I pull Frances into a briar patch, the thorns snagging and tearing at our robes and limbs. As we crouch in the dark, she trembles and wipes her wet cheeks on my sleeve. I can just distinguish her bone-white face and the stark terror in her eyes, and I am sickened with guilt that I have led her to this. Her life is now forfeit to my mistaken conviction that simple folk can make a difference.

I grope for God in the faithless void of my mind, begging that the king’s men grow tired of the hunt and ride away, back to their warm hearths, their laden tables, and their fragrant, sinful wives. Frances’ teeth begin to rattle, her breath faltering as her courage dwindles. I give her a gentle shake and put a warning finger against her lips, beseeching her to be silent, to be brave for just a little longer.

As the stealthy hooves draw closer to our hiding place, we hold our breath, sinking deeper into the undergrowth when he halts just a little way above our heads. The dank aroma of rotting vegetation rises; the tang of frost tickles my nose and pinches my toes. Frances trembles so violently it is indistinguishable from the juddering of my own body. I fumble for prayer, nausea washing over me as I fail to recall a single one.

 A creak of harness as the rider shifts in his saddle. I cannot see him but when the horse snorts, in my mind’s eye his breath mists the darkness, rising wraith-like in the night. I can feel the rake of the man’s gaze as he searches, seeking out our hiding place. My lungs strain fit to burst, my chest is aching, and I am ready to relinquish my freedom for just one blessed breath. The horse stirs, turns and moves away, and we fill our lungs with fresh damp air. We clutch hands as the vague hope of escape returns.

Then noise erupts with a harsh yelp. A hound is loosed and, with a furious growl, it crashes through the hedge. As I fall backward, I glimpse a lolling tongue, and yellow eyes stare briefly into mine; cold, murderous eyes. Frances’ scream shatters the night as the jaws clamp down upon her wrist.

“Let go! Let go!” I strike out with my bare feet, feeling the crack of bony ribs beneath a silken coat. The hound yelps but holds on fast, screaming aloud as I kick out again, hammering his head with my heels. The air fills with a confusion of hooves, screaming women, and triumphant male laughter as they lay hands upon us. As they drag me to my feet, Frances gives a loud unintelligible sound that breaks my heart.

“Please,” I beg, as my hands are wrenched behind me and roughly held. “We are nuns from Arden. My sister has done nothing. Take me, but … let Sister Frances go – she ... she doesn’t understand.”

A white dagger of agony flashes through my skull as my captor clouts me around the ear. My head rings and my vision blurs. Through a fog of pain, I realise they are hauling Frances from the ground, dragging us both rudely forward.

“Hold them,” the man on the horse orders, and their grip tightens as he slides from his saddle, hawks and spits on the ragged skirts of my habit before slowly unfurling a rope from his belt.

 The knots are tight about my wrists; my hands are numb. I cry out as the horse jolts forward and, tethered to the saddle, all we can do is follow him. Agonisingly, we retrace our route back the way we have come, through the hamlets and homesteads that earlier offered us shelter.

Our cause is lost. Our peaceful mission to bring England back to the true church has failed; doomed by the promises of a false king. In the lightening dawn, the slack-limbed, sightless bodies of those who aided us sway as we pass. The voiceless, lifeless men, women and children who dared to share our questioning of the king’s wisdom gape blindly at our passing.

 We will join them soon; our useless lives cut short, our fruitless existence ended in ignominy.

My throat grows tight. How have we come to this?

Sisters of Arden is available for pre-order now and the paperback will follow soon. Click the link for more info: mybook.to/sistersofarden

All novels available in Paperback and Kindle.

The Beaufort Chronicle, A Song of Sixpence and The Kiss of the Concubine are available as audio books.

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Tudor England and a Tortured Writer

 

Nancy Bilyeau

 

My friend Sandy Morgan is one of the people I test things out on. She’s a fanatical reader of mysteries and thrillers, from P.D. James to Anne Perry. So while visiting her in late 2011, I showed her a draft of the jacket copy for my first novel, The Crown.

She was smiling as she read the jacket copy—good!—until she reached a certain sentence and then she frowned—bad!—and finally even recoiled. “You don’t have torture in your book, do you?” she asked, her eyes filled with concern.

My novels, The Crown, The Chalice, and The Tapestry, are set in England in the late 1530s and early 1540s, during the tumultuous time when Henry VIII broke from the Church of England because the Pope would not grant him a divorce. The protagonist of the books is Sister Joanna Stafford, who took novice vows at a Dominican priory in Kent.  This was a violent transition that led to rebellion (the Pilgrimage of Grace), executions for treason (Sir Thomas More and Cardinal John Fisher), martyrdoms (the Carthusian monks) and a diaspora of nuns, monks, and friars, forcibly ejected from their homes.

And yes, during this period in English history, there was torture, primarily inflicted within the thick walls of the Tower of London. Today’s visitors can see a curated room devoted to the fearsome rack and other devices. It’s quite clearly part of the draw of the Tower, a huge tourist attraction.

The records from history make grim, shocking reading. Before Henry VIII broke with Rome, he was one of the many people in England who respected and revered the Carthusian monks of The Charterhouse in London. This was a special place: the monks lived in small individual cells, rarely speaking, spending their days praying, meditating, and writing. Henry VIII was anxious to obtain the approval of the Carthusians to his religious revolution—that he, the monarch, would be the head of the Church of England and all must take a vow of obedience to his supremacy. But the Carthusians refused to take the vow, and, despite pressure, continued to refuse. In response, they were, in groups over a period of three years, hanged, drawn and quartered, or starved to death while chained to a pillar in the Tower of London. This is the reality of Henry Tudor, a far cry from the romantic bed hopper of popular culture.

My character, Joanna Stafford, is imprisoned in the Tower of London for several months in The Crown, suspected of treason and religious-driven rebellion—the very reasons that put prisoners in the hands of the torturer. So would I incorporate any scenes of it into my books, observed or endured? I struggled with this day and night.

What makes it even more challenging for me is that I personally can’t handle viewing torture and slasher gore in films. I thought that Casino Royale was ruined by Bond’s gratuitous torture. I’ve never seen any of the Saw, Friday the 13^th or Nightmare on Elm Street movies.

My books are thrillers but they are also historical fiction, based on years of research. I feel it is critically important not to romanticize the era. And so I did write a short scene, based on contemporary documents and completely driven by character, that includes torture observed in the Tower. And yet, when my friend Sandy looked at me so sadly, I asked my editor at Touchstone/Simon&Schuster to remove reference to it in the jacket copy. I didn’t want to scare off potential Sandy’s. When she eventually read the entire novel, she made no objection to that passage. It was part of the plot; it didn’t repel her.

But there’s another dimension: I blog quite a bit about the historical period in which I set my novels. One post for English Historical Fiction Authors, titled Little Ease: Torture and the Tudors, has more than 11,000 views as of this week. I am not sure what to make of this.  Will many readers actually be drawn to my book because of the violent underbelly of the glamorous Tudor age?  Should I have left that reference to torture on the jacket copy?

I continued to wrestle with these questions, of how much torture and violence to include in my novels. Sometimes I thought about the first novels set in Tudor England I ever read, The Concubine by Norah Lofts and The Sixth Wife, by Jean Plaidy. As much as I adored those writers, the motor of their plots was romantic, not political or theological. They weren’t writing thrillers, certainly. Yet their works were enduring classics.

Norah Lofts, Jean Plaidy and the other historical novelists I respect wrote in a different era, however. C.J. Sansom does not shy away from the violence of the Tudor era in his fine series of mysteries. And Hilary Mantel takes on the question of torture in Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. The fact that she focuses on Sir Thomas More’s torture of suspected evangelical heretics and completely omits Henry VIII’s sanction of the torture of the Catholics who opposed him—such as the Carthusian monks, who were hanged, drawn and quartered—has brought her criticism. 

In my second book, The Chalice, there are scenes of violence, as Joanna witnesses the victims to Henry VIII and Cromwell. However, most of the tension is psychological. And the book went on to win the Romantic Times Reviewers Award last year for Best Historical Mystery.

The Chalice was also given the “Soft-Boiled Egg” Award from NYC’s Mysterious Bookshop.  The bookshop’s definition: “These are the best in traditional, historical and romantic suspense titles.  Death, yes, but violence plays a very small part in these stories which concentrate more on the character development of those who solve the murders.”

Had I gone Soft-Boiled? Some people have asked if my novels could fit into the category of “cozy mystery,” a genre in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously. Despite my second book having won the RT award, there is no sex in my books, just a great deal of sexual tension. So yes to part of that description. But violence? I certainly don’t wallow in it. Still…there is nothing cozy about the rack, so I fear I may have to say no to inclusion.

In The Tapestry, Joanna Stafford is pulled into the court itself, reluctantly presenting herself to Henry VIII at Whitehall in April 1540. I very deliberately chose that month, for it is when Thomas Cromwell, Joanna’s nemesis, is made earl of Essex and the tensions among the power players at court reach critical boil. The factions are battling to the death. That summer Cromwell lost and was executed at the Tower of London in one of the most harrowing beheadings of the entire Tudor period. And a day later, six men of different religious faiths were executed.

I couldn’t shy away from the true events—they were crucial in the life of my main character. Yet I could not subject my readers to the full gruesomeness, either. 

I decided to portray those bloody days, as I had many others in the mid-16^th century, through the eyes of Joanna Stafford, to draw on her horror and fear but also her pity and ultimately her compassion.

I hope that these are the decisions that would make even my friend Sandy proud.

Nancy Bilyeau is the author of The Crown, The Chalice and The Tapestry. On March 24, 2015, The Tapestry was published in North America and the United Kingdom. For more information, go to www.nancybilyeau.com

America buy link: http://amzn.to/1FP4UoK

UK buy link: http://amzn.to/1EE811d

Margaret Beaufort - The King's Mother

Judith Arnopp

Henry Tudor Tower Pembroke Castle

During a recent visit to Pembroke castle I was struck by the warren of rooms where, so history tells us, the birth of Henry Tudor took place. A long, low dimly lit corridor leads to a circular chamber with a great fireplace and thick stone walls. The room was cold even in September and, even with the benefit of a large fire, tapestries and cushions to exclude drafts, I could imagine the unenviable discomfort of a child confronted with the terror of giving birth there on the bleakest of mid-winter nights.

28 January 1457 – Pembroke Castle

 A maid hurries along a dark passageway, the chilblains on her fingers smarting from the cold jug she carries. When she opens the door to the chamber, the draught hurtles along the frigid corridor behind her, lifts her petticoats and hastens her entry into the room. The door slams behind her, the torches flicker, plunging the company into gloom.

The ill-lit chamber stinks of sweat and wood smoke, lightened only by the fragrance of tangy aromatic herbs said to aid a birthing. As the maid approaches the bed and places the jug on a table, the girl on the mattress flings out a hand and grabs at the midwife’s arm.

The light from the fire accentuates her shadowed eyes, the drained white face. There is blood on her chin where she has bitten through her lip in her efforts to stem her screams.

“She is too young,” the maid whispers to the midwife. “She cannot survive.”

As the older woman stands up to press a hand to her aching back she casts a warning glare in the maid’s direction.

“Rubbish,” she says loudly for the benefit of the girl on the bed. “She is young and strong; I’ve seen weaker women than this survive it.”

Her words are for the benefit of the patient. The maid has assisted in many births and knows that this one has little chance of success. Lady Margaret is only just turned thirteen, she has the build of a child; her great pregnant belly is obscene against her stick thin limbs and undeveloped chest. If the mother survives the child won’t; and if the child does manage to breathe at all, it will undoubtedly be motherless.

The maid turns away and pours a cup of wine, leans over the bed to try to coax the girl to drink.

“Try just a sip, my lady. It will fortify you.”

The cup moves closer to Lady Margaret’s mouth but, before she can drink, another

Pembroke Castle photo- Judith Arnopp

spasm takes her. She grabs the maid’s wrist, making her drop the cup, slopping wine that soaks and spreads as fast as a plague across her shift.

Bulging eyes fix upon the maid, sweat emerges on the noble brow as her childish mouth opens in a grimace of furious pain. The maid tries not to mind the nails that bite like tiny knives into her skin.

“It’s all right, my lady. You are doing fine; women are built for childbirth.”

A turn of her head reveals the midwife burrowing beneath the girl’s shift, her deft hands palpating her great distended belly. At another assault Lady Margaret jerks up her knees and, with a twist of pity, the maid notices they are knobbly as a child’s and patterned with small blue bruises.

“That’s it, my lady, you can push now.” She speaks loudly, fighting to sound authoritative.

Margaret ducks her chin into her chest, the veins on her forehead standing out like blue rope as she grits her teeth and growls like a wild animal. The maid’s eyes sweep across the scene. Blood is smeared upon her ladyship’s thigh and there is more on the sheets, a steady flow puddling on to the floor.

From her seat between Lady Margaret’s knees the midwife runs her forearm across her brow, leaving a crimson streak. Her eyes meet the maid’s and with a brief shake of her head she admits the cause is lost.

The maid swallows, sends up a prayer before bending over her mistress again.

“Come on, my lady, you are a fighter. Fight now for your son.” She shifts on the mattress, looking up into Margaret’s face, forcing her to maintain eye contact. “I will tell you when; I will push with you.”

For another hour they battle on, only strength of will keeping Margaret from giving up, from letting go. Each time she begins to drift away she is dragged relentlessly back to the nightmare that her life has become. Pain washes in, receding too briefly before it floods back in again but then, just when she feels she can push no more, something shifts, and a light appears in her darkness.

“Get on the floor and squat.” At a signal from the midwife the maid thrusts her hands beneath Margaret’s armpits, supports her as she slides from the mattress to squat on the floor. When the next pain comes, oblivious of the blood and the birth fluid that soaks the rushes around her, Margaret bears down with what strength she has left.

This time something happens and with each effort her son makes progress, thrusting and slashing his way into the world.

©Juditharnopp2014

Pembroke Castle - photo-Judith Arnopp

***

Rowland Lockey [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Margaret Beaufort was just thirteen when she gave birth to her only child, Henry, later to become the father of the Royal Tudor dynasty. Margaret, a wealthy heiress and valuable asset to the Lancastrian cause, was married as an infant to John de la Pole. That marriage was dissolved and later, aged just twelve, she became the wife of the twenty two year old Edmund Tudor. When he succumbed to plague and died in Carmarthen just six months later, Margaret was already heavily pregnant.

In the middle ages it was normal for marriage to take place at a very young age but consummation did not usually take place until the wife was physically fully developed. Margaret’s body was underdeveloped even for a twelve year old and the immediate consummation caused some indignation among their contemporaries. Edmund’s eagerness to bed his wife was due, not to passion, but rather to his impatience to get his hands on her vast estates which would only be his on the birth of their first child.

Henry Tudor Michael Sittow (circa 1469-1525) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In her widowhood Margaret turned for support to Edmund’s brother, Jasper, and took up residence at Pembroke Castle where she gave birth to Henry. The physical damage caused by his birth made it impossible for Margaret to bear any further children but that did not stop her from marrying again. Margaret, despite setbacks, ultimately triumphed. Married four times for political gain she proved herself to be a wise and politically astute woman. She is often labelled as being overly pious and domineering but her devotion to her son is unquestioned.

Raglan Castle -photo Judith Arnopp

While York was in power Margaret and Henry were separated. While she, with little hope, doggedly and quietly worked on his behalf he spent his early years in the custody of Yorkist adherents, the Herberts at Raglan Castle.

Henry’s youth was spent in exile in the courts of Europe. But Margaret never lost hope and worked untiringly for her son’s cause; her determined and single mined battle for what she saw as Henry’s birth right can only be admired.

***

I am the author of seven historical novels, the three most recent being set in the Tudor period. Although the Tudor family have been written of time and time again I find them endlessly fascinating. I like to burrow beneath their ostentatious clothes and jewels to try to access the minds beneath – How did it feel? How did it smell? What did they think?

The Kiss of the Concubine US Link UK Link

 Intractable Heart US Link.

                                    UK Link

 The Winchester Goose US Link UK Link

 The Forest Dwellers US Link UK Link

 The Song of Heledd US Link UK Link

 Peaceweaver US Link UK Link

You can find more information on my webpage: www.juditharnopp.com

And my Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Judith-Arnopp/e/B003CGLWLA/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1411465196&sr=1-1