Tudors Vs Stuarts, with Elizabeth St John & Janet Wertman

Well here's a bit of fun. I've read two each of the novels by these brilliant authors and can highly recommend them all. But here's the burning question: Which are best, Tudors or Stuarts?

I asked Janet and Elizabeth to slug it out:

AW: Can you sum up in a sentence (or two) why you are drawn to the era?

JW: As a reader and writer, I am captivated by the stories. Huge reversals – people soaring high then brought low and (usually) executed (Wolsey, Anne Boleyn, Cromwell, Norfolk, Margaret Pole, both Seymour brothers, Northumberland, Essex….) And symmetry in the smallest details and the biggest arcs: Catherine of Aragon spent seven years waiting for Henry to make her his bride, then seven years waiting for him to fall out of love with Anne Boleyn; Anne Boleyn used the promise of a son from a God-approved marriage to unseat Catherine, then was unseated herself by Jane Seymour using the same playbook; Henry falsely accused one wife of adultery, then had her cousin actually do the deed; Thomas Cromwell turned the attainder procedure into an easy way to bring down pretty much anyone – then was felled himself by that same method. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

ESJ: The era chose me. I’ve always loved researching my ancestors, and I was quite happily digging around in Medieval and Tudor times. And then I discovered the English Civil War diary of Lucy Hutchinson, daughter of Lucy St.John. I became hooked on the Stuarts and all that befell them.

AW: Following on from that, what drew you to your particular characters?

JW: Originally I chose the Seymours because they were central to the Tudor era – and therefore provide the ultimate vantage point from which to recount events. They also happen to have amazing stories of their own.

Jane Seymour was in the middle of Anne Boleyn’s fall – the seminal event of Henry’s reign; hers is a story about morality. Edward Seymour was front and center during the second triad of Henry’s wives; his story is about power. And Edward Tudor…the poor boy king who had to execute two uncles… his is a story of betrayal.

ESJ: The story of my family was intriguing – especially when I found the memoirs of the first early modern women diarist that directly spoke of my ancestress. Then to find that Lucy St.John lived in the Tower of London for 13 years, had a secret lover, and raised two children who fought on opposing sides of the Civil War was a story that had to be told. Add to that a wicked stepmother and a hateful sister who was the grandmother of THE Barbara Villiers, mistress to Charles II, and I knew I could keep myself – and readers – entertained for years.

My characters lived on the edge of court life. As I researched the lives of James I, Charles I and Charles II, as well as Oliver Cromwell and nobility and generals, these personalities came alive. Their experiences presented a parallel in so many struggles for power and political freedom we are experiencing today. Many times, in reading letters and diary entries, especially of the emerging women’s voices, the distance between the centuries disappeared.

AW: You both live some distance from your locations - does that present additional research challenges, and if so, how do you get round those?

JW: Thank heavens for the internet! There are so many primary resources available – state papers through British History Online, chronicles and histories, letter collections – not to mention the other wildly cool stuff out there (Ordinances of the Royal Household, Cobbett’s State Trials, The Good Housewife’s Jewel, Privy Purses expenses, Anne Askew’s examinations…I keep a list of my favorites and send it to people when they subscribe to my blog). My latest obsession is The Private Life of an Elizabethan Lady: The Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby (1599-1605).

Still, there are some serious limitations to these resources – they don’t really give the true feel of the place. Like when characters were inside a castle, looking out, what did they see? That’s not the kind of thing you can get from photos – photographers aim at the castles, not away. For that, I am profoundly grateful for the trips I have taken to England and Scotland, visiting castles and churches, walking the streets and the countryside, looking out over the Solent and sniffing the sea air….Those details make all the difference.

ESJ: I’m really fortunate that my family lives in England, and I have the opportunity to spend a lot of my time there. So, whether researching the archives at Lydiard House, the setting for my stories, or exploring locations such as the Tower of London or Nottingham Castle, I always combine research with family time. Fortunately, they are all as equally historically obsessed as I am, so they never need a reason to pile in the car and go “St.John-hunting”, explore a castle ruin or crawl around on their hands and knees deciphering ancient gravestones. 

For the time I need to read primary documents and accounts, I access digital records by the National Archives, and British-History Online, as well as the History of Parliament. I use their document ordering services for copies of original wills, letters and court hearings. And then the Bodleian has a wonderful online library. Oh, and the Calendar of State Papers…and on, and on down the rabbit holes!

AW: What would you say was the most far-reaching event of the Tudor/Stuart period, and why?

JW: Anne Boleyn’s refusal to become Henry’s mistress – one of the seminal events of the Early Modern Era. It was wild enough for a maid of honor to refuse a king, but that simple “no” toppled an entrenched power structure, leading to a new church, a new way of governing, and a new morality. It created the world as we know it.

ESJ: Probably the English Civil Wars, for the complete shift in transitioning power to the people and challenging the previous divine right to rule, initiating an open debate about personal and religious freedoms, limiting the power of the monarchy, creating liberty of the press, and forming the foundation for ideas that developed the American political and constitutional thought.

AW: In a sentence, (or two!) why is your period the best?

JW: I always go back to the stories – there are just so many of them, and more specifically so many that we all know. I see a parallel here with the Beatles: they put out so many songs, and almost any person you ask can actually sing along to more than forty of them (seriously – try it). What other period/band could you say that about?

ESJ: Fabulous clothes, brilliant thinking and the epic struggle between the Cavaliers ("Wrong but Wromantic") and Roundheads ( "Right but Repulsive") (thanks to 1066 and All That).

AW:Finally - and on a lighter note - who has the best costumes, and why?

JW: Tudors! They just feel more accessible: you can look at the pictures and understand all the elements that go into the outfits, the layers that create the looks. And you can actually imagine yourself wearing them as you go through life – which is hard to say that about the farthingales and ruffs that came later (admittedly even during the Elizabethan era). Plus, as a woman with short hair I adore the headgear – the gable hoods and French hoods! The thought of having to create elaborate “dos” every day just makes me roll my eyes…

ESJ: Really? Men in tights with codpieces, or a dashing Cavalier. Is there a competition?

 

Thank you so much Ladies! I shall remain totally impartial but I think you both stated your case really well.

Find out more about these wonderful authors:

http://www.elizabethjstjohn.com/

https://janetwertman.com/

Anglo-Saxon Historical Fiction, with Millie Thom & Theresa Tomlinson

I've read two of Theresa's novels and two and a half of Millie's. It occurred to me recently that novels about Anglo-Saxon England can almost be of completely different genres. Sons of Kings is a saga, telling Eadwulf's story, while the Fridgyth stories are more like murder-mysteries. Allow these wonderful authors to explain:

AW:You both have fictional people as your main characters. Does this make it easier, or harder, when plotting a story against a backdrop of real historical events?

MT: I must admit, I don’t find keeping Eadwulf’s story within the framework of King Alfred’s, unduly difficult. I do have to make sure their timelines are coordinated, but my principal fictional character, Eadwulf, lives with Danes who actually feature in Alfred’s story anyway, and are mentioned in ‘Asser’s Life of King Alfred’ and the ‘Anglo Saxon Chronicle’, as well as in numerous other reference books and online sites. I searched through many such texts in the hope of finding less well-known events that the Danes of that period were involved in – like Bjorn and Hastein’s sacking of Paris in Book 1 and their great ‘Mediterranean adventure’ in Book 2. Some of these incidents and events have become much better known in recent years, thanks to various documentaries and TV series like ‘Vikings’, which include incidents such as the death of Ragnar Lothbrok and the blood eagle ritual. I tend to fit wholly fictional events into gaps in the historical timeline, during which nothing major is happening. By the middle of Book 3, Alfred’s and Eadwulf’s stories are closely linked anyway.

TT: I think the answer is a bit of both! 
For many years I thought that somebody ought to write a historical novel with the exciting time period and dramatic setting of Hild’s double monastery at Whitby – I also assumed that the writer should be a historian, who’d studied the period in detail. Initially I felt daunted by the prospect of describing such iconic characters as Abbess Hild, Caedmon, and Princess Aelfleda. Time went by and it didn’t happen – though Melvyn Bragg touched on the subject with Credo. Eventually I decided to have a go at writing a Young Adult mystery/adventure using this setting – this seemed to be a less formidable prospect. Inventing a fictional character, Wulfrun the weaver’s daughter as my main character brought a sense of freedom, but once started on the project I realised that if my protagonist was to be surrounded by those well-known historical figures, I should try to set my story in a specific time frame. This made it necessary to study and check out both the local history and the wider Anglo-Saxon period in detail, hopefully making my invented storyline believable and realistic. Random House Children’s Books eventually published Wolf Girl - my first Anglo-Saxon setting.

AW: When you wrote the first book, did you already know that it would form part of a series? How did you go about deciding whether the story would become part of a longer collection and how easy do you find it to write the end of each book, knowing another will follow on?

MT: Now, this is a question and a half for me! I am now writing the fourth and final book of the Sons of Kings series, which is quite laughable when I think that I set out to cover the whole of King Alfred’s life in a single book. As I delved into research with relish, it very soon became obvious to me that a single book was out of the question. And that was before I decided to include a second protagonist. Once I got carried away with Eadwulf’s story, I soon realised I needed a trilogy. Then, lo and behold, I was writing the second half of Book 3 before I knew for certain that I wasn’t going to finish the story in that book, either! So, a four-book series it will be.

As for the ending of each book, I like to leave some indication that the story is ongoing, without making it into a blatant cliff hanger – which I know some readers really detest. I’d like to think that the endings of my three books leave readers speculating as to what could happen next, without leaving them unhappy that the story abruptly ended in mid-crisis, or feeling they’ve been tricked into reading the next book! I’d like to believe that any of my three Sons of Kings books so far can be read as ‘one-offs’. However, having said that, the character development throughout the series is ongoing, and reading Book 2 alone, for example, would mean readers meet the two protagonists as young men without knowing what they went through as boys – or how they changed, particularly Eadwulf. I imagine the same could be said about all book series which involve the same characters. 

TT: My original plan was to write a Young Adult trilogy, but when Wolf Girl was published it didn’t sell very widely and the publishers didn’t feel confident enough to take on another Anglo-Saxon setting. I was left with a half written sequel, a head full of ideas, a large library of Anglo-Saxon history books and growing interest in the period. I had for a while been thinking of trying an adult historical novel, particularly as I was finding that I wanted to focus more on older characters, as I too was growing old. When I re-read Wolf Girl, a secondary character, Fridgyth the herb-wife seemed to step forward and tell me that she’d been waiting patiently for me to notice her properly. She again fitted the bill as a fictional character, but one who could be there at the centre of the story and interacting with real historical events and people. So, I took up my original ideas for a second and third story and used them with the herb-wife as my protagonist, also moving the story onto a more adult level. A Swarming of Bees was eventually followed by Queen of a Distant Hive.

Now that I’m working on a fourth story I’m finding it quite difficult, as this wasn’t part of my original plan, however readers are asking for another book and I love stepping back into Fridgyth’s world - so I’m attempting to do it. The way to move forward seems to be to study what happened next historically both locally and in the wider world of that time and try to see where my herb-wife could have another adventure. I haven’t totally got things worked out yet, but real events around the death of King Oswy- and Queen Eanfleda’s move to Whitby seem to be offering scope and Fridgyth will get the opportunity to travel a little more. I haven’t really worried too much about finishing a book off, with another sequel in mind – I’m just happy to find a satisfactory ending and grateful that another story is completed.

AW: Millie, what drew you to the Anglo-Saxon period?

MT: I do love the Anglo-Saxon period, Annie. It’s a turbulent and violent period of history, but it is also a very long period of cultural, religious and political importance and change – as your fabulous book, ‘Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom’ so brilliantly describes, and more! (AW: Blushes!) The years I cover in my books are set at the very beginnings of the unification of the kingdoms that leads to the development of England, and I’ve tried to show that throughout the series. But I have to admit, it was not the period that inspired me to write my Sons of Kings books, but Alfred himself. 

I first became interested in Alfred when we lived in Wantage for six years in the 1970s. Alfred was reputedly born in the town (in Berkshire until 1974, and in Oxfordshire after the county boundaries changed at that time) and there’s one of the two most famous statues of him in the Market Place there. The other one is in Winchester, which became Alfred’s

‘capital’.

I’ve loved writing my books about Alfred and Eadwulf, but now I’m looking forward to a new challenge, I’m a history lover in general, and often become engrossed in other periods. 

I have a number of ideas for my next full novel, and none of them involve Anglo-Saxon times. My next book will definitely be historical, and I’m presently wavering between Roman Britain and the 1950s. So, you can see how wide a range that is! 

AW: And Theresa, what drew you to the period?

TT: As children growing up in the Whitby area, we were told that the large numbers of ammonite fossils found along the coast were once poisonous snakes that had been turned into stone by the magic of Saint Hilda. This saint always sounded a little more interesting than other rather pious religious women of the past. Later, as an adult, I learnt that she had ruled over a large monastery of monks as well as nuns, this seemed to suggest that she had been a very powerful person indeed. I began to study the history of her time in more detail and found the sparse information known about Caedmon and Princess Aelfleda fascinating too. When excavations at Street House, by archaeologist Steve Sherlock, uncovered a mysterious Anglo-Saxon cemetery with high status graves and gold and garnet jewellery, very close to where I’d lived as a child, I was completely hooked.

AW: Both of you also write in other genres/periods. How easy is it to swap from one to the other? Do you have a favourite?

MT: I realise I’ve answered some of this question in my previous answer, but I’ll add that there are many periods of history I’m interested in, and not only British history. I used to think I only really liked ancient history – Greeks and Romans fascinated me – but I know now that many periods can fire my imagination. Delving into research is part of the fun of writing a book to me, so I’ll happily ‘get stuck in’ to whichever period I choose to write next time. 

As for different genres, I also write flash fiction and I love it! My short book ‘A Dash of Flash’ is a collection of 85 pieces ranging from 100 to 1,000 words. I enjoy the challenge of writing a story with a beginning, middle and end in so few words. But in all honesty, writing a novel is so much more satisfying and I get a real buzz when I actually reach the end.

TT: I like working on two books at the same time. I have found that it works well to be writing a young adult, or adult historical novel, alongside a much shorter time-slip story, usually aimed at primary school children. Inevitably I get stuck – or a bit worn out with one project and find it a relief to set it aside for a while and turn my attention to the other story. It seems that by taking the pressure off for a while and focussing on something else, solutions miraculously emerge to sticky problems. 

I really can’t say that I have an absolutely favourite time period, but as well as the Anglo-Saxons, I have developed a special interest in the Victorian period and also in the history of steel.

Fascination with the beautiful Victorian and Edwardian photographs of fisher people by Frank Meadow Sutcliffe led to an interest in Victorian Whitby and its many industries. Until I was eleven, I lived next door to the gates of Skinningrove Steelworks in Cleveland. The dust and noise, the sights and sounds of the men walking into work every morning has always stayed with me. At a later date I lived in both Rotherham and then Sheffield, so the history of steel has become a regular theme that I’ve used especially for time-slip stories for younger children. Meet Me by the Steelmen, now published by Award Publications, is often used in schools in the South Yorkshire area and Forged in Steel, a sequel, is due to be published in Spring 2020.

AW: Thank you both for telling us about your books and writing processes. Readers who wish to discover more can do so here:

https://milliethom.com/

https://www.theresatomlinson.com/