Joint Interview: Sharon Bennett Connolly

Yesterday my book, Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England, was published by Pen & Sword Books. But it wasn't the only one they published yesterday. I'm delighted that Sharon Bennett Connolly's Ladies of Magna Carta was also released and we decided to interview each other, using the same questions. You'll find my answers on her BLOG. Meanwhile, here are Sharon's:

Welcome to the blog Sharon. Firstly, what motivated you to write the book?

I love writing and I love history. The 13th century and, in particular, the reign of King John, is a fascinating era. It is also a time when women stand out as being strong and influential on events. In my first book, Heroines of the Medieval World, I had included the stories of Nicholaa de la Haye and Matilda de Braose, both remarkable, independent women. Nicholaa successfully defended Lincoln Castle in no less than 3 sieges, the last against a joint army of English rebel barons and invading French.  Matilda had also held a castle under siege, but is remembered more as King John’s victim, starved to death in her cell, having chewed on her dead son’s cheek to survive just that bit longer – no one said medieval history was not gruesome! The lives of these two women deserved to be told. And as I looked into the era, the more remarkable women I found.

Runnymede, where Magna Carta was sealed
Photo: Jayne Smith

There are several women whose stories deserved telling, such as the Scottish princesses who were hostages of King John and John’s own wives and daughters. William Marshal was also a big part of the Magna Carta story, and the lives of his five daughters, who married some of the greatest barons of the age, were revealing – several found themselves married to men on the opposing side of the political spectrum to their father. 

I wanted to know how these women reacted to the events that was going on around them, how much influence – or not – they had on their men and history. And I wanted to tell their stories.

What were the research challenges?

As you know, Annie, it’s very hard to get much information on women in medieval history. Most of the chronicles talk about the men and only mention women in passing. So, you have to learn to read between the lines, work out, from the little information you have, where the women would have been and what they would have been up to. 

The 1215 Magna Carta (British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts)

Another challenge is that a lot of the chronicles are written in Latin – and I don’t read Latin. At least, I didn’t think I did. I am fluent in French, which seems to give me enough understanding of Latin to be able to summarise the texts, but not enough to do a thorough translation. And Google translate seems to have less understanding of Latin than I do.

On the plus side, research has never been easier. With the internet, even 1,000-year-old chronicles are at your fingertips. And the greats, such as Orderic Vitalis and William of Malmesbury, are there to be read, from the comfort of your own laptop.


Do you have a particular favourite amongst the women you’ve written about?

I found all the women in the book fascinating. I loved the image of family in the stories of William Marshal’s daughters, how they were asked to sing at his bedside when the great knight was dying. I found Isabelle d’Angoulême particularly vexing. I wanted to feel sorry for her, married before she was even a teenager and thrust into King John’s bed and English politics. But then, she deserted her own children almost as soon as their father was buried, starting a new life and family in France, and only calling on her son, Henry III, when she wanted something. It was hard to feel any sympathy for her in the end!

Carving of Nicolaa de Haye at Lincoln
Castle - Sharon's own photo

My favourite is Nicholaa de la Haye. I have been researching her for about five years now. She is an incredible woman who managed to successfully defend Lincoln Castle against no less than three sieges; in the first one her attacks gave up and went home, in the second, she paid them to go away and in the third, the great William Marshal rode to her relief. 

Nicholaa was the first ever female sheriff in England and a staunch supporter of King John. And yet, four days after the 1217 Battle of Lincoln, which was the culmination of a six-week siege of the castle, she was relieved of her position as castellan of Lincoln Castle in favour of King Henry III’s uncle, William Longspee. 

I’m not sure what the men expected of a woman who had already proven that she would not surrender, but she rode straight to the ten-year-old king and asked for her castle back – and got it. 

Can you tell us briefly about your other books?

Ladies of Magna Carta: Women of Influence in Thirteenth Century England is my third book. My first was Heroines of the Medieval World, which was a series of short biographies of some of the most remarkable medieval women, from queens to nuns and from warriors to mistresses. My second, Silk and the Sword: the Women of the Norman Conquest, was a study of the events of 1066, and the years either side, focusing on the women of the era.

What’s next?

I am working on my next book at the moment – it is due into the publishers at the end of the month. It is a biography of the Warenne earls of Surrey, from the Norman Conquest to the last earl’s death in 1347. The family were one of the most prominent in medieval England, marrying into the royal families of England, France and Scotland. They had extensive lands stretching from the south coast to West Yorkshire and were participants in most of the major events of medieval England, from the Conquest itself to the Magna Carta and the Scottish Wars of Independence. As with all medieval lords, their story is replete with high drama, politics and a little love.

Thanks so much for chatting today! Where can people find you on Social Media and where can they buy your books? 

Blog, Facebook, Twitter: @Thehistorybits
Amazon UK
Amazon US

Huge congratulations to Sharon - watch out for my review of her wonderful book, coming soon!

Characters and their occupations - 12 authors introduce

Today is traditionally 'Labour Day' in the UK. I asked 11 other authors to introduce one of their characters and their occupation. I hope you take instantly to this varied group and all the buy links are there if you want to read further. (If? Of course you do! 😉)

Pauline Barclay
Hello, I’m Dor, I’ve been asked what my occupation is, my girl says I’m a scrubber, she’s a cheeky mare! Ok, I’m a cleaner and have four jobs that have me rolling my sleeves up! Not glamorous, but it pays the bills, just! One of my cleans is an office, you wouldn’t believe how office folk leave the place, and the little bleeders like their morning joke! I’ll be putting my coat as there’re strolling in. “Lucky you, we’re starting and you’re off to put your feet up.’ I won’t say what I’d like to reply, but with three other places to muck out, it ain't polite! They might all look down their beaks at me, but at the end of the day I was the one who wiped the smile from their faces because sometimes it happens!


The Birthday Card
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Twitter: @paulinembarclay
Instagram @paulinebarclay

Cryssa Bazos
Elizabeth Seton comes from a long line of herbalists and has a talent for the healing arts. Ever since she was a little girl in Weymouth, she planned to follow in her mother’s footsteps and continue to care for the sick who came to their door. Until civil war reared its ugly head and a community was left divided. With her family destroyed, Elizabeth uproots herself to live with her widowed aunt, a healer in her own community. Under the guidance of her aunt, Elizabeth once more explores her art by creating simple syrups, tinctures, salves, and purges. Snakeweed for the ague, willow bark for pain, king’s claver for consumption, and take care not to trod on moonwort lest your horse cast a shoe. The tools of her trade, mortar and pestle, scales and stills, transform herbs and roots into medicine, while her aunt’s receipt book captures generations of experience. 

Traitor’s Knot buy link
Website: https://cryssabazos.com
Twitter (@CryssaBazos)
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Anna Belfrage
Name: Adam de Guirande, protagonist of In The Shadow of the Storm. Occupation: Knight. Excels at the broadsword, is more than capable with a lance but will admit to being less of an expert with bow and arrow—he has archers to handle such. Recently wed to a lady who is not quite what she seems to be and is finding married life comes with numerous challenges, one of which is having a new person wiggle her way into his heart. Will do anything for his lord and master, Roger Mortimer, which does not necessarily endear him to King Edward II who considers Mortimer a rebel and his greatest enemy. But knights as loyal and honourable as Adam are hard to come by so hanging him may be a waste. Or maybe not—after all, WHO is he loyal to? That perfidious Mortimer or his king? 
Find out more about Anna on her website, check out her Amazon page and connect on FB and Twitter.

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Kathryn Gauci 
Sophia Laskaris is a couturier in Constantinople during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Born into a family of professional embroiderers, she is a woman who is not only creative, but has a head for business too. Her grandmother, Dimitra, one of the first embroiderers to gain the patronage of the Sultan’s family and who took her business to great heights throughout the empire, was the guiding light in her life. Sophia opened up her couture house, La Maison du L’Orient, in Pera, the fashionable European district in the city, at a time when European fashion was becoming popular, but she continued to create designs based on the oriental look and was admired by Parisian designers such as Paul Poiret. She was highly educated, speaking several languages, and politically astute. With the outbreak of the Balkan Wars in 1912 and WWI, she used her work to not only aid Turks in distress, but to gather information for the Greeks who were seeking independence. When the situation deteriorated, she was forced to flee Turkey and reinvent herself as a seamstress in Athens. After the Germans occupied Greece, she drew on her previous background to aid the Resistance.

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Susan Grossey
My narrator Sam Plank’s occupation – that of magistrates’ constable – is central to his life and to my books.  Magistrates’ constables existed for only a short period of policing history: they were used in London during the two decades or so after the Bow Street Runners and before the Metropolitan Police, which was the 1810s and 1820s.  At that time there was little concept of investigation of crime, and none at all of detection.  If you were the victim of a crime and had some idea who had done it, you took your complaint to the local magistrate.  If he thought your claim had merit, he would task one of his constables with executing a warrant to bring the accused in for questioning.  Of course, “my” Sam is much more curious than that and makes a great deal more of his role, taking a particular interest in financial crimes…

Website 
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I tweet as @ConstablePlank
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Helen Hollick
I was elected King of England in January 1066. It was an honour I did not want, but who else is there able to protect this noble land from those who want to steal our wealth and the Crown for their own?
King Edward died without a son, the only other of royal blood is but a boy with no experience of battle or government. To be King I must ally with the Northern Earls, so I must take their sister to be my Queen. She is a comely lass, but I have a handfasted wife, my beloved Edyth, mother of my children. So, I set her aside for the good of England, for stability and prosperity. Hah! Being King is a privilege you say?  I swear it is not. But I will do my duty and all I can to protect you, my people from the  threatening tyranny of Normandy. Or die trying.

you tube trailer:
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Charlene Newcomb 
I thank Mistress Annie from Westminster’s kitchens who invited me here today. I met her when nobles gathered to crown the new king. I was wearing my fancy clothes—stolen, of course—pretending to be a page. Mistress Annie knows I’m a thief living on the streets, sleeping in the eaves of St. Paul’s or here at Westminster many a night, but she doesn’t fault me. She feeds me and my friend now and again, best chicken in garlic and onion sauce served alongside the best gossip. We hear the king, the one called Lionheart, is gathering an army for a pilgrimage to Outremer. Streets of London or camp follower—not much different. Being good with dice, I can win a coin or two. We might pick up some work. I can brush down a palfrey, and Little John is handy with needle and thread. And if we cannot work, there’ll be pockets-a-plenty to pick. 
—meet young Allan and Little John in Men of the Cross


Find Char’s books on Amazon & connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Amy Maroney
Artist, healer: Miramonde de Oto was a woman of many skills. Raised in a convent in the medieval Pyrenees, she learned healing remedies from the “mountain folk” and worked during her adolescence in the convent’s infirmary. In her childhood, she used bits of charcoal to draw on the marble step of an old well. When she learned to write, she was tasked with copying and illuminating manuscripts in the convent’s library. Eventually she graduated to painting portraits, thanks to an exceptional art teacher. It wasn’t until catastrophe struck the convent that Miramonde would go on to use her talents in the wider world—and unlike most women artists of her time, she even got paid for it. 

The Girl from Oto is available on Amazon UK and Amazon US
Get a free prequel novella to The Girl from Oto and find Amy’s Blog here. Connect with her on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook

Alison Morton 
Jobs for the girls? Aurelia Mitela has always known she would serve her country in some way; she’s a bone-and-blood Roma Novan, member of a leading family with military commanders, diplomats and councillors among her ancestors. She becomes all three eventually, through AURELIA, NEXUS, INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, but is locked in bitter opposition with her lifelong enemy. Passionate and complex, she will do anything to protect both her daughter and her lover, but despite her innate strength she is crippled by self-doubt.

Soldering requires hard physical and mental training which needs persistence and a love of the life of camaraderie, tough decisions and quick and cool judgement in trying circumstances. In a softer way, so does a diplomat’s life! But being a councillor to a weak ruler requires the toughness of mind and an ability to suppress frustration, something that Aurelia doesn’t always achieve...


Amazon author page  
Buying link
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Website link to Aurelia specifically

Elizabeth St John 
Nan Wilmot
aka Anne St.John Lee Wilmot
The Countess of Rochester

Job Title: 
Spymistress to Charles II

Qualifications: 
Ambitious multi-talented outgoing individual with wide-ranging contacts across both Parliamentarian and Royalist departments. Highly skilled in project management, sales, marketing and procurement. Exceptionally discreet, trustworthy and decorous.  Fluent in English and French, with proven communication skills, especially in translations and multi-media. Experienced in multiple coding languages. Good social skills, conversant with inter-departmental protocols and processes and an ability to integrate smoothly within existing teams. Successful problem-solver, works well under stress. A valuable addition to any organization. 

Remuneration: 
Land, rents, livestock, jewelry, titles, perquisites, patronage, manors, arranged marriages, gold.
References: 
Charles II, Oliver Cromwell

Buy at
Amazon and Here
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Marian Thorpe 
Sorley (Lord Somhairle of Gundarstorp, to give him his full name) is a scáeli, in the language of Linrathe.
I adapted scáeli from scéalaí, Irish for storyteller. Like the skalds of Scandinavia and the bards of Celtic Britain, Sorley is a historian, a genealogist, a musician and a teacher. He and other scáeli’en hold the collective knowledge of their people. He studied long and hard to reach this position, learning songs and stories since childhood, followed by five years of study under a senior scáeli, then years of wandering, collecting songs and stories to add to his collection. Finally, he sat a formal exam of set pieces plus his own compositions, and built his own ladhar (a lyre) as well. Scáeli’en may wander for years, be attached to a noble house, or be appointed to a Ti’ach, a college, as Sorley is at the end of the series.

Buy Empire's Reckoning
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Annie Whitehead
Æthelflæd - known to her family as Teasel - has quite an important job. She’s not only the daughter of Alfred the Great, she’s also destined to become ruler of an Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Not her father’s realm, but the neighbouring kingdom of Mercia. These two kingdoms are the only ones left in England still holding out against the Danish ‘Vikings’. Despite all expectations, Æthelflæd becomes a queen in all but name. And there’s the rub. Her job is that of queen, but she doesn’t have the official title. She has to learn to live with a husband for whom she doesn’t initially care, discover how to win over the people of Mercia, and, oh yes, protect Mercia not only from the ‘Vikings’, but, ultimately, her own brother. And all this without an official job contract.

Buy To Be A Queen
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