Review: THE BLUE by Nancy Bilyeau

Nancy Bilyeau's latest historical mystery, THE BLUE (Endeavor Quill, December 3), offers readers refreshingly different fare: a foray into the fascinating world of eighteenth century porcelain production and its obsessive quest for beauty.

Genevieve Planché, the English-born daughter of French Huguenots, has artistic talent but lacks the training necessary to become a history painter. Such training--as potential mentors repeat whenever she approaches them--exceeds the capabilities of women. Chafing under societal restrictions that limit her to painting flowers on silk, Geneviève hardly hesitates when Sir Gabriel Courtenay, a mysterious nobleman with curious connections, offers to send her to Venice to study art. The price? The secret formula for a vibrant new blue reportedly under development at the Derby Porcelain Works, England's premier porcelain manufactory. Derby is banking on the new blue pigment to lift their product and reputation above the exquisite porcelain of Sèvres, France. Courtenay's offer entices Genevieve to accept a position as a decorator at Derby, and with few scruples, she sets about learning the secret of the new blue. Losing her heart to the brilliant young chemist working on the formula only complicates matters, and soon Genevieve finds herself embroiled in a dangerous plot that crosses borders and redefines loyalties and liberty.

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THE BLUE's particular strength lies in its convincing evocation of the porcelain phenomenon of the mid-18th century as the basis for dynamic intrigue. Bilyeau skillfully works her extensive research on the history and techniques of porcelain production into Genevieve's education, first at the hand of Sir Gabriel and later on-site at the Derby and Sèvres manufactories. Benefitting from Genevieve's lessons, the reader learns fascinating facts about the origins of porcelain and its development into a luxury commodity. With a good portion of the novel's action set in the manufactories themselves, the reader witnesesses not only the conditions and methods of production, but the severe safeguards companies employed in order to protect their commercial advantage. Bilyeau's mastery of her subject allows her to weave an intricate, compelling plot that hinges on industrial espionage without ignoring broader social issues. Her characters' obsessions and the risks they take to satisfy them capture the contemporary craze for expensive goods during an era of economic uncertainty. The question of the injustice of the rich spending hundreds of pounds on a painted plate while the poor starve gives Genevieve's personal strugges a gravitas that the character herself is quick to recognize.

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For Genevieve never hesitates to take a vocal stand against oppression, be it religious, economic, or social, and her dedication to her ideals entails significant personal sacrifice. As a Huguenot, she carries a deep antipathy to France's Catholic king, whose persecution of her co-religionists forced them to flee their homeland. Her outrage against this injustice endangers her mission and future when her search for the blue leads her to Sèvres. As a working class artisan, Genevieve sides with her radical fiancé Denis, who instigates violent uprisings among the Spitalfields silkworkers to demand better working conditions. Her relationship with Denis turns her into an outcast in the Spitalfields community and costs her her job as a silk painter. As a female artist, Genevieve argues against the proprieties and prejudices that deny talented women necessary training. Disdaining decoration, she aspires to paint the realities of street and workplace as an impetus for reform. Her exclusion by the male artistic establishment leaves her no option but to embark on a morally questionable mission, one that she does not hesitate to embrace in order to pursue her vocation. With insight and finesse, Bilyeau creates in Genevieve Planché a protagonist readers won't soon forget: a spirited, determined woman willing to confront injustice head-on in her fight for a better world.

Fans of Nancy Bilyeau's Tudor trilogy (THE CROWN, THE CHALICE, and THE TAPESTRY) will not be disappointed with her latest endeavor. Thought-provoking at times and entertaining throughout, THE BLUE deserves a spot at the top of every historical fiction lover's To-Be-Read pile.

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Nancy Bilyeau has worked on the staffs of InStyle, DuJour, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Good Housekeeping. She is currently the deputy editor of the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at City University of New York and a regular contributor to Town & Country, Purist, and The Vintage News.

A native of the Midwest, she earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan. THE CROWN, her fist novel and an Oprah pick, was published in 2012; the sequel, THE CHALICE, followed in 2013. The third in the trilogy, THE TAPESTRY, was published by Touchstone in 2015. Her fourth novel, THE BLUE, will be publishing on December 3, 2018.

Nancey lives in New York City with her husband and two children.

Visit Nancy's website or follow her on Twitter under the handle @tudorscribe.

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Ten signed copies of THE BLUE are currently up for grabs in a Goodreads giveaway ending December 1, 2018. Click here to enter.

Review: THE TAPESTRY by Nancy Bilyeau

Ever since her Dominican priory was closed by order of Henry VIII, Joanna Stafford has tried to live a quiet life weaving tapestries in the small town of Dartford. Yet fate refuses to allow her respite. In Nancy Bilyeau’s THE TAPESTRY (Touchstone, 2015), the third and final installment of a three-book series that includes THE CROWN (2012) and THE CHALICE (2013), King Henry summons Joanna to court to discuss a tapestry commission. Reluctant to serve a king she has twice tried to dethrone, yet desperate for an income that will allow her to raise her young nephew, Joanna obeys. Minutes after her arrival at Whitehall, a mysterious man attempts to murder her. Thrust into a web of international intrigue that pits her against an array of new and former nemeses, Joanna must rely on wits, courage and integrity to her protect herself and her friend Catherine Howard, the king’s latest favorite, from forces determined to alter England’s unprecedented course.

THE TAPESTRY vividly captures the unsettled, suspicious atmosphere of mid-sixteenth century England. The country is in a state of constant turmoil as it struggles to embrace the changes wrought by King Henry’s whims. In this new world where a common upstart like Thomas Cromwell can gain an earldom—and the king’s confidence—noblemen fret over the security of their positions; courtiers jockey for favor; ambitious wives and wards seek to catch the king’s roving eye. As defrocked priests and nuns struggle to support themselves outside the dismantled walls of their monasteries, the clerical hierarchy barter their souls for benefices. Rich and poor alike guard their tongues as opportunists seek to profit through denunciation. Against this backdrop of festering mistrust, putrid as King Henry’s infected leg, Bilyeau weaves an intricate plot that meshes the international the national, the personal with the political, the secular with the religious. As much as Joanna longs to escape the court and its machinations, her protective concern for Catherine’s fate compels her to stay. She soon uncovers a mysterious “covenant” dedicated to toppling Cromwell so as to restore the Catholic faith in England. The occult nature of this covenant and its effects reinforces the authenticity of the setting, for sixteenth-century culture professed a deep and abiding interest in the dark arts. Joanna’s unquestioning acceptance of the power of the covenant and her quest to locate an arcane text that might undo its effects prove her to be a true daughter of her time.

Rare is the Tudor novel that ventures beyond the confines of England; THE TAPESTRY opens vistas well beyond the usual realm of Tudor fiction. Imperial agents who, in THE CHALICE, coerce Joanna to cooperate in an attempt to assassinate the king, continue to dog her steps at the English court, complicating lives and politics. German artist Hans Holbein offers a continental perspective on events and becomes Joanna’s trusted friend and adviser. In a surprising development, Joanna exploits her appointment as Tapestry Mistress to quit England in search of her former fiancé, Edmund Sommerville. After brief stays in Paris and Flanders, she journeys deep into Germany, a dangerous region suffering from famine and revolt. The adventures that befall her there introduce the reader to aspects of Renaissance history not normally explored in historical fiction (the Diet of Regensburg, anyone?) and add an intriguing flavor to an already singular story.

But it is Joanna herself, more than the story’s rich setting or deft plot, who entrances the reader. Beset by troubles and surrounded by unscrupulous schemers, Joanna never compromises her integrity. Though she  mourns her lost life as a nun and resents her uncertain future, she refuses to despair. Loyal and courageous, she fights to protect Catherine from exploitation; generous and determined, she prays with the condemned as they lay their heads on the block. Though clever enough to outwit spies and assassins, Joanna cannot understand her own heart. Torn between her love for the absent Edmund, whom she almost married, and an undeniable attraction to constable Geoffrey Scoville, her constant shadow, she reveals a touching vulnerability and a confusion that only slowly, painfully, clears. It is Joanna’s admirable humanness that has turned so many of the trilogy’s readers into devoted fans.

In THE TAPESTRY, Nancy Bilyeau brings the adventures of her spirited heroine to a triumphant close. Mystery and romance, research and imagination, realism and magic combine in perfect proportion, immersing the reader in the past, enthralling her in the present, and leaving her in hope that Bilyeau will resurrect her intrepid ex-nun in the not-too-distant future.

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Nancy Bilyeau has worked on the staffs of InStyle, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Ladies Home Journal. She is currently the executive editor of DuJour magazine. Her screenplays have placed in several prominent industry competitions. Two scripts reached the semi-finalist round of the Nicholl Fellowships of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Her screenplay “Zenobia” placed with the American Zoetrope competition, and “Loving Marys” reached the finalist stage of Scriptapalooza. A native of the Midwest, she earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. THE CROWN, her first novel, was published in 2012; the sequel, THE CHALICE, followed in 2013. THE TAPESTRY will be released in March 2015.

Nancy lives in New York City with her husband and two children. Stay in touch with her on Twitter at @tudorscribe. For more information or to sign up for Nancy’s Newsletter please visit her official website.
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For a list of Nancy's other stops on this blog tour, please visit the Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tour website.
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To enter to win one of three signed hardcover copies of THE TAPESTRY, please complete the giveaway form at https://gleam.io/iyF4a/the-tapestry

RULES

Giveaway starts on March 16th at 12:01am EST and ends at 11:59pm EST on April 3rd.
Giveaway is open to residents in North American and the UK.
You must be 18 or older to enter.
Winners will be chosen via GLEAM on April 4th and notified via email.
Winners have 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.
Please email Amy @ hfvirtualbooktours@gmail.com with any questions.

Author Interview: Patricia Bracewell, SHADOW ON THE CROWN

Today I welcome author Patricia Bracewell to discuss her debut novel, SHADOW ON THE CROWN, coming from Viking/Penguin on February 7. SHADOW ON THE CROWN is the first in a trilogy of novels about Emma of Normandy, whose marriage in 1002 to an English king set in motion events that would culminate in the Norman Conquest of 1066. Publishers Weekly calls it "an enthralling debut," and having read an advanced copy, I can assure you that it is all that and more!

1.  SHADOW ON THE CROWN is based on real events recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. How much did you know about eleventh-century England prior to undertaking this novel? Why does this period appeal to you?

I knew very little about eleventh century England until I started my research. I’d taken a course in British History in college, so I had a vague knowledge of pre-Conquest England but not specifically the details of that eleventh century world. In my literature classes I had studied some of the better known Anglo-Saxon poetry – Beowulf, for example, and The Wanderer, which has always been one of my favorite poems. But I’d been drawn more to the stories of Arthur and the historical era associated with his legend. The century before the Conquest, and the events that led to it, were a mystery to me, and I suppose that mystery was what intrigued me about the period as much as anything else.

2. What was it about Emma of Normandy that inspired you to write about her? 

The more I learned about Emma, the more I realized how significant a role she must have played in the events that occurred in England in the early eleventh century, and how perilous, at times, her position must have been. The bare fact that she was married to two different kings of England and that those two men were mortal enemies is pretty stunning. She must have faced enormous difficulties – physical, emotional, political. The more I learned about her, the more astonished I was that today she is virtually unknown. I wanted to change that.
3. How do you maintain a balance between history and fiction in your books? What principles guide you as you write?

I suppose the image in my mind is of a tree with a trunk and naked limbs. That’s the history. In writing the story, I’m drawing leaves on that tree – filling in the blank spaces, imagining the events, the conversations and the intentions that nobody bothered to write down. Sometimes I come up with questions about historical events that are really very difficult to answer, and I have to make certain that the answers I come up with fit the story and fit the history as well, at least as far as we know it. My guiding principle is to not change the facts that are known, but I may interpret events in a way that adds to the dramatic action. In the end, I am a storyteller, not a historian.

4. Can you give an example of how you re-interpreted an event? 

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that a certain high ranking nobleman committed a traitorous act. As a result, his son was brutally punished, yet the ealdorman remained on the king’s council with no loss of stature or power. This didn’t make any sense to me, and I decided that there must be more to the story than the annals were telling us. So I made up a back story that put the treachery on the shoulders of the son rather than the father. Is that what really happened? I don’t know, but it works much better in my story.

5. What was something you learned about eleventh-century Europe that surprised you? 

I was surprised by the distances that people and goods traveled. It’s common to think that someone born in a village in England would never stray more than ten miles from home, and that’s very likely how it was for most people. But goods, silk for example, made their way to England from Constantinople. Furs from the north and spices from the south were traded in London, Paris, Rouen and Aachen. Men appointed to the archbishopric of York or Canterbury traditionally journeyed to Rome to receive confirmation of their office from the Pope. In 1027 a king of England made that trip, and he was one among many pilgrims, men and women alike, who went to Rome or to other pilgrimage sites like Santiago de Compostela in Spain or Lough Derg in Ireland. The journeys would have been difficult and hazardous, and may have taken months, but the elite, the clergy and the traders made them. And the Vikings, of course, went everywhere. 

6. What is your favorite scene in the novel? Which scene was the hardest to write? 

My favorite scene is probably the Prologue. It was one of the last scenes that I wrote and was not even part of the original manuscript. It came to me at one sitting – one of those writing moments when you almost feel as if Someone Else has taken control. The hardest scene to write was one that takes place in a tunnel and is seen through the eyes of a viewpoint character who suffers from claustrophobia. I wanted to make it terrifying reading without making it over-the-top melodramatic. Readers will have to tell me if I succeeded.

7. What has been the most difficult part of your journey to publication? The most exhilarating? 

The hardest times were the moments when the writing was going badly or I had received another rejection letter, and I asked myself if I wasn’t merely wasting my time – even wasting my life. Perhaps my time would be better spent volunteering in an after-school reading program or going back into the classroom. My friends, especially my writer friends, helped me through those rough spots. The most exhilarating moments were my visits last fall to New York and London to meet with my agent and my editors. Their enthusiasm for the book was overwhelming.

8. What do you hope readers take away from reading SHADOW ON THE CROWN? 

First of all, I hope that they will fall in love with Emma of Normandy, as I have, and that they will recognize her as a strong female character in a brutal world and in a particularly brutal time. I also hope that they will recognize that England’s history extends back before the Norman Conquest, and that what happened prior to 1066 is every bit as fascinating as what came after. Finally, I hope that they will want to read the next two books in the trilogy and learn more about the characters who have become so much a part of my life.

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Be sure to return on February 7 to read my review of SHADOW ON THE CROWN. In the meantime, visit Patricia's website and view photo galleries of the locations she visited while researching the novel. She recounts her travels and shares fascinating tidbits about life in eleventh century England on her blog.

Interview with Author Karen Harper

Today, author Karen Harper discusses her latest novel, MISTRESS OF MOURNING (New American Library).

Q:  Welcome, Karen. Can you tell us a bit about your new novel?

A. I've always wondered about the first Tudors—King Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York, the dynasty’s founders.  But my fascination with Henry VIII and the later Queen Elizabeth Tudor always kept me researching and writing in that later Tudor era for my novels. MISTRESS OF MOURNING has two heroines—Queen Elizabeth of York (mother of Henry VIII) and Varina Westcott, a merchant-era wax chandler.  These women bond during the time Varina is hired to carve death effigies for two of the queen’s children lost in childhood.  Varina too has lost a son and when Arthur, Prince of Wales, dies under mysterious circumstances while on his honeymoon with his bride Catherine of Aragon, the queen asks Varina to discover whether Arthur was murdered.  The novel also probes the murders of the queen’s two brothers, the Princes in the Tower.

Q:  So MISTRESS OF MOURNING  is murder mystery (three murders of young princes) within a historical novel.  Why did you decide to write a mystery instead of a “straight” historical as you have with your earlier books like MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE and THE QUEEN’S GOVERNESS?

A:  The era and the plot just ran smack into these murders, all of which are yet debated today?  Who murdered the Princes in the Tower is still argued today.  Many blame King Richard III, but there is another possible royal villain too.  (Yes, that’s a teaser.)  Later, in the Reign of King Charles II, in July of 1674, during some rebuilding in the White Tower, the bones of two children were found in an elm chest that was covered by rubble at a depth of about ten feet.  This was under a staircase that led to the king’s lodging.  At King Charles’s request, the bones were interred in a white marble urn designed by Sir Christopher Wren and placed in the Henry VII chapel at Westminster Abbey, close to the tomb of their sister.  But who murdered them?  There are several ‘persons of interest.’

As for Arthur Tudor’s demise, that is yet being investigated.  Ground-probing radar has been used to pinpoint his final resting place beneath the limestone floor of Worcester Cathedral.  Professor John Hunter of Birmingham University has worked on the investigation, although so far the current queen has not given her permission for the exhumation of Arthur’s body to perform toxicology tests.  Of course, if Arthur had not died, Henry VIII would never have been king.  If the Princes in the Tower had not died, perhaps the Tudors would never have come to the throne at all.

Q:  So tell us more about the amateur sleuth for the novel, Varina Westcott.

A:  I found it fascinating that chandlers (candle makers) also produced waxen death shrouds as well as funeral candles in the Medieval and Tudor eras.  Best of all for this story, because their shops made these waxen wraps for noble and royal corpses, chandler often worked as undertakers.  So it made sense that Varina could be sent to Ludlow Castle in Wales where Arthur died to over see his preparations for burial—but also to learn if he was poisoned. 

Coat of arms, Wax Chandlers Guild

Another fascinating thing about Varina is that she has inherited her father’s talent of being able to carve death masks.  Royalty and some elite of that day wanted effigies atop their coffins for the funeral processions, and the effigies had carved faces of how they looked in life.  Funeral candles were also a huge business.  Even the poor saved for years to buy votive candles for their funerals—the more candles, the quicker they believed they got out of purgatory.

Q:  Does this novel include a love story as did your earlier Renaissance era books?

A:  Actually, there are two romances in MISTRESS OF MOURNING.  The marriage between Henry VII and Elizabeth of York has been much debated since he was a rather austere character, yet they seemed to have a strong, loving marriage.  I give the reader a glimpse into that and show how it effected their children, especially Henry VIII who is only ten when the novel begins.  Varina falls in love with Nicholas Sutton, an ambitious courtier who is assigned to guard her, then helps her solve the murders.  In a way all good writing is suspense writing (What will happen next?), but writing a murder mystery really allowed me to increase the tension and danger.

Q:  Any interesting trivia you picked up in your research this time—things you didn’t know?

A:  One thing is that the title The War of the Roses did not come into existence until 1762.  It was a term coined in David Hume’s book History of England, so I reluctantly avoided using it in the novel.  The upheaval that put the Tudors on the throne was really a civil war.

Also, this is hardly trivia, but I had no idea that the status of few women who owned their own shops was so low at this time.  Varina only runs her chandlery because her husband died and left it to her.  Unless a father, brother or husband deeded a shop to a woman, she could not own it.  If she remarried, control of her business, finances and any minor children came under the new husband’s aegis.  Also, women like Varina were not admitted to the powerful merchant guilds of the city—hers would have been The Worshipful Company of Wax Chandlers.  Her shop could only be included through her brother-in-law, who worked for her, becoming a guild member.  (The one exception to this no-women-in-the-guilds rule was the broiders—embroiders—guild.)

Q:  So does Catherine of Aragon play a part in this book?

A:  She does indeed, and it is so interesting to see her as a pretty, appealing young woman instead of the sad figure we usually see in the Anne Boleyn-era novels.  I was interested to learn from the research that whether or not the weak, sometimes sickly Prince Arthur bedded her or not was a hot debate even at that time.  Of course, during Henry VIII’s later attempt to divorce her, that question was of key concern.

Q:  Part of this story takes place in Wales.  What was that like in the early Tudor era?

A:  It was still a place of legends, tribal chiefs and superstitions—and I took advantage of all that.  The area around Ludlow Castle is fens and bogs, deep forests.  I was even able to write a was-she-or-was-she not witch character.  The Welsh of that day believed their early hero Owen Glendower was coming back to throw the English out.  What a scary, great setting for a mystery, not that London of that day didn’t work well too.

Q:  I see the book has two different titles.  How did that come about?

A:  The book is titled MISTRESS OF MOURNING by my US publisher Penguin USA and THE QUEEN’S CONFIDANTE by my British publisher Random House UK.  The books have quite different covers too.  I think the UK releases of my historicals, which are making the bestseller lists there, are boosted by having the word queen in the title during this Jubilee Year and the royal wedding year previously.  I’m really looking forward to attending the Historical Novel Society Conference in London this autumn.  Any excuse to get to England for more research!  And it sounds like a great gathering of authors and readers.  Thanks for the interview and happy reading!

Learn more about Karen Harper's novels at her website.

MISTRESS OF MOURNING by Karen Harper

Lovers of historical mystery can find Karen Harper's MISTRESS OF MOURNING (New American Library) in bookstores today. From the press release:

"Varina Wescott, a young widow and candle maker, agrees to perform a clandestine service for Queen Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII in London in 1501. Elizabeth wants Varina and royal aid Nicolas Sutton to travel to the Welsh wilderness to investigate the death of the queen's eldest child, Prince Arthur. Soon the duo discovers one unsettling clue after another and they fear the conspiracy they're confronting is more treacherous than the queen imagined."

A heroine who carves wax figures of the dead and investigates the murders of three young princes...how could you resist?

Be sure to return on Thursday when Ms. Harper will discuss her novel and the research behind it.

Learn more about Karen Harper and her novels, both historical and contemporary, at her website.

Guest Post by Mary Sharratt: Reformation and Resistance in Northern England

Author Mary Sharratt has provided a wonderful two-part guest post on resistance to the Reformation in Northern England. Her articles explain the cultural, political and religious backdrop against which the events of her gripping novel, DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), unfold. Today's portion discusses the years of Henry VIII's reign and the reigns of his son Edward VI and daughter Mary Tudor; tomorrow, the focus falls on Elizabeth I and beyond. Many thanks to Mary for her immensely informative posts!

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The Crucible of Faith: Reformation and Resistance in Northern England

by Mary Sharratt

[This essay is gleaned from a course I took in July 2009 at the University of Lancaster—A Crucible of Faith: the Religious Heritage of North West England. My instructors for the parts of the course dealing with the English Reformation and its aftermath were Adrian Braddon, Dr. Lisa Curry, and Jim Wadman.]

The English Reformation continues to hold an enduring fascination for a modern audience. Hilary Mantel’s Booker Award-winning masterpiece, Wolf Hall, puts forward a traditionalist view that the Reformation heralded an era of enlightenment and progress, in which humanists and forward-thinkers left the ignorance and superstition of the late medieval era behind. However, the reality is much more tangled than Mantel’s excellent fiction would have us believe.

Most of what we were taught about the English Reformation twenty to thirty years ago has been completely turned on its head. Eamon Duffy’s 1992 book, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580, laid out the thesis that the English clung to their traditional religion and were very reluctant to embrace the reformed faith. By now Duffy’s views have become mainstream.

Nowhere was this truer than in the Northwest of England, which is still the most Catholic region of England—Catholics comprise about 26% of the population compared to 8% in the rest of the country. About half of Liverpool is Catholic and about a quarter to a third of the residents of Preston. There are also rural villages such as Hurst Green, Crosby, and Ribchester that support both Catholic and Anglican churches. The high percentages are due in part to immigration from Ireland and Poland, but also to the survival and revival of Catholicism within the region, largely owing to the resistance of the gentry. Many important landowning families such as the Towneleys, Southworths, and Shuttleworths remained Catholic, despite Elizabeth I’s religious conformity laws.

Why were so many in Northwest England so reluctant to embrace the Reformation? Not only were they a long way from the power center in London, they were a very long way from Rome. Whereas the Catholic establishment in Italy during the Reformation period was rife with corruption, there is no evidence of major corruption or scandal in the English Catholic Church at this time. People wanted reform with a small “r” and it was happening. Henry VIII’s Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, was closing down monasteries that seemed unproductive and changing them into schools and colleges for laymen. Wolsey also reduced the power of the Church courts. Yet even after Henry VIII sacked Wolsey, stripped him of his bishopric, and appointed himself head of the Church of England, the majority of people, especially in the North, did not want radical religious change thrust upon them.

This became starkly clear during the Pilgrimage of Grace, an uprising of 400,000 armed men in the North who gathered under the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ to oppose Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. They very nearly won! Henry had no standing army. 400,000 was an incredible number when the entire English population at this time was around 2.2 million. But the Catholic nobility in the North intervened and, anxious of opposing the King, negotiated a truce. If they hadn’t, Henry’s reforms couldn’t have gone through. The closing of the monasteries was disastrous for the poor, who had relied on the now outlawed religious orders for charity and medical care. Apart from leaving the poor in the lurch, however, Henry’s reforms didn’t penetrate everyday religion so drastically. Most holidays were still celebrated and the churches retained their saints’ altars and religious images.

The real English Reformation didn’t begin until the reign of Edward VI, Henry VIII’s son and heir. Edward attacked the entire cultural framework of traditional English life. In his banning of the saints’ days and his orders for the destruction of religious statues, rood screens, stained glass, and holy shrines, Edward cut deeply into the lives of his people, destroying the ancient rhythms of the liturgical year and their round of village festivals. Church walls, traditionally covered in religious images to communicate the mysteries of faith to a largely illiterate population, were whitewashed over.

The picture below, of St. Wilfrid’s Church in Ribchester, shows the pre-Reformation fresco discovered beneath the whitewashing. The stained glass is modern.

Most people sincerely welcomed Mary Tudor’s arrival on the throne. Although she couldn’t undo the dissolution of the monasteries, she restored the Mass and the holidays, which provided much-needed recreation for hardworking commoners. When Mary fell from grace it wasn’t because of her religion but because of her unpopular marriage to the Spanish king which inspired fears that the English were to become a Spanish colony. Today “Bloody” Mary is most commonly remembered for burning nearly three hundred Protestant dissenters, Archbishop Cramner among them. She committed these atrocities against the advice of both her husband and her priest-confessor, who were worried that she was becoming a dangerous fanatic.

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Mary Sharratt’s acclaimed new novel, Daughters of the Witching Hill, is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. To learn more about Mary and the true history of the Pendle Witches and their connection to pre-Reformation beliefs, visit her website: www.marysharratt.com .