Write Like a Pro

Some days I think I'd rather walk into a room full of professors and defend my dissertation a second time than sit down in front of the blank computer screen and start a new chapter of my novel. Well okay, maybe not, but when I'm faced with a blinking cursor and no idea on earth what to do with the next 3500 words -- never mind the 80,000 following those -- just about any activity from ironing undershirts to scrubbing toilets to extracting clover, leaf by leaf, from the front lawn appears infinitely more appealing.One of my favorite methods of procrastination involves reading books on craft or creativity,for I can convince myself with little effort that I'm "working," learning skills and tricks that will render that first key-stroke all the easier the next time I do sit down to write. Yesterday, I didn't have to hoodwink myself to justify my dilatory reading, for I devoured a book that has the power to change my (writing) life if I take its message to heart. A short but powerful reflection on resisting creative endeavor, screenwriter and novelist Steven Pressfield's The War of Art (Grand Central 2003) was worth every minute it kept me from producing pages of my own.

The War of Art is divided into three sections. In the first, "Resistance: Defining the Enemy," Pressfield examines the characteristics and operations of Resistance, which he defines as the force that separates the life we live from the unlived life within us. Self-generated, Resistance keeps us from following the calling or action that we must follow before all others; it prevents us from doing the work -- be it artistic, charitable, scientific, spiritual or entreprenurial -- through which we will produce the unique and priceless gift we were put on earth to give. "The more important a call or action to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it" (12). Think of Resistance as "self-sabotage" and it is easy to identify the many forms it takes: procrastination, obsessions, self-dramatization, hypochondria, victimhood. Pressfield boils Resistance down to its essence: fear. Fear, however, serves a useful purpose, for "it tells us what we have to do" (40). The extent of our fear indicates the importance of our task: "The more scared we are of a work or a calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it" (40). If a project meant nothing to us and was unimportant to the growth of our soul, we would feel no Resistance towards it.

Yet how does the writer/scientist/entrepreneur over come the fear that paralyzes her? By "Turning Pro," as Book Two explains. Becoming a professional, Pressfield reveals, means nothing more (and nothing less) than sitting down despite one's fear and doing one's work. The professional shows up every day, no matter what, and stays at the job until the whistle blows. She's committed over the long haul, masters the job's techniques, and doesn't over-identify with the work (69-70). The professional acts in the face of fear, unlike the amateur, who believes she has to first overcome her fear before she can do her job: "The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.... [H]e forces himself forward in spite of his terror. He knows that once he gets out into the action, his fear will recede and he'll be okay" (79). As for rejection and criticism? The professional refuses to take it personally, for doing so only reinforces Resistance. Resistance is the enemy, not editors and critics; the professional does not allow external criticism fortify her internal foe (88). In contrasting the traits and habits of the amateur with those of the professional, Pressfield encourages the reader to take charge of her situation and implement the changes that will advance her from one state to the other.

The final section of the book, "Beyond Resistance: Higher Realm," situates Pressfield's thoughts on Resistance and professionalism into a spiritual framework. He assures us that when we create, we are in touch with our truest selves and the divine and well along the path to discovering our purpose in life. "We come into the world with a specific, personal destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become" (146). If we refuse to do this job, we hurt more than ourselves, for we deny others the very thing we were given unique talents to achieve. Far from a selfish act, creative work becomes a gift to the world (165), one that needs to be undertaken with dedication, persistence and love.

Both practical and philosophical, The War of Art is one of the most inspiring books I've read, one that I'm sure I will be turning to often for encouragement. I recommend it to anyone who finds themselves blocked in their creative endeavors or searching to reconcile work with life's larger questions. And although I hate the word, I have to use it in this case: Pressfield's work is empowering for anyone who suspects fear is preventing her from realizing her potential. I'll leave you with this:

Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance.

This second, we can sit down and work. (22)

That blinking cursor doesn't seem so scary anymore.

[Many thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler at Conversion Diary for bringing this book to my attention.]

Royal Treatment

Tradition holds that Catherine de Medici introduced the fork to France; could it be that François I introduced yoghurt? From an article in yesterday's Guardian on the history of the curdled delight:

photo credit

"[I]t took a long time for yoghurt to become a staple. In 1542, François I lay mopish and squitty with diarrhoea, depression or both. The French king heard that his ally Suleyman the Magnificent in Constantinople had a remarkable Jewish doctor who reportedly cured anything with a miracle tonic made from the milk of his sheep. François sent for the medic, who trudged across Europe with his flock over several weeks to reach Paris. A course of sheep's yoghurt was prescribed, and the king was cured. All the sheep died, sadly, and the doctor headed home despite François pleading for him to stay."

What, the milk from French sheep wouldn't cut it? In any case, the good doctor's journey gives new meaning to the term "house call"!

Winner: FOR THE KING

The winner of Catherine Delors's

FOR THE KING

is

Debbie from Deb's Desk

Congratulations!

Debbie, please send your mailing address to

juliannedouglas05 [at] sbcglobal [dot] net.

Thanks to everyone for entering the drawing.

Enjoy this marvelous read, then help spread the word!

Sixteenth Century Quote of the Week

"Every man who tells a tale usually taints it with his own invention, either through malice or vanity, and always moreso rather than less."

Mateo Alemán (1547-1614), Spanish novelist

Guzmán de Alfarache (1599 and 1604), picaresque novel

King Arthur's Conference Room

Have archaeologists located the site of King Arthur's round table? Fascinating conjecture that the table was not a piece of furniture but an amphitheater where 1000 followers of the king could gather.

Tea and Pastry with Catherine Delors

Yesterday saw the release of Catherine Delors's second novel, FOR THE KING (Dutton). To celebrate the release, Catherine has stopped by to answer a few questions about the book, herself, and writing in general.

1. The historical note at the end of the book describes the fascinating life of the historical Joseph-Pierre Picot de Limoëlan, who later became a Catholic priest. Did Limoëlan ever publicly express regret for his part in the rue Nicaise attack? Did the Sisters of the Visitation in Georgetown, with whom he ministered, know his true identity and the story of his past?

To my knowledge, Limoëlan never publicly expressed regret over the part he played in the Rue Nicaise attack. He moved shortly afterwards to the United States, where the event may not have caused as much of a shock as in Europe. As for the sisters of the Visitation in Georgetown, it seems highly unlikely that they were ignorant of his past. They knew, but they believed in redemption, one of the tenets of the Catholic faith. As I write in my historical note, I am convinced that Limoëlan’s belated repentance and conversion were sincere.

2. The resistance of the Chouans to the republic and to Napoleon is a chapter of French history little familiar to American readers. Were the Chouans a force to be reckoned with or a mere annoyance? How close did they come to reinstating the king?

The Chouans were a major political and military force. On Rue Nicaise they came only a few seconds away from blowing up Napoléon. Had his coachman been less alert that night, they would have assassinated him right then and there, years before he crowned himself Emperor.

It may not be generally known, but in the spring of 1815, the Chouan insurgency had been revived. A full French division was again busy battling them in the Western provinces, instead of being under Napoléon’s command at Waterloo, hundreds of miles away. The French forces were outnumbered almost two to one on that battlefield, so you could say the Chouans changed the fate of Europe that day. Ultimately they were instrumental in the defeat and ouster of Napoléon.

3. How did you become interested in the rue Nicaise attack?

The 9/11 attacks prompted me to revisit the Rue Nicaise plot. The number of casualties is without common measure, of course, but it was the same callous disregard for human life, the same blind hatred, all in the name of a superior “cause.”

4. Your secondary characters, such as the Secretary General Piis, and even characters who figure only momentarily in the novel, like Pulchérie Fontaine, seem as real and three-dimensional as your main characters. Do you do a lot of work developing your characters before you begin writing? What, in your mind, is the "secret" to creating believable characters?

Thanks, Julianne! For historical characters, I do my biographical research beforehand. I love to work with lesser known figures like Piis, where there is little more than a sketch of the real person. Then, as I write, they come to life by themselves, and sometimes they quite surprise me. For purely fictional characters like Roch, I have no idea of what they will become when I begin writing. That’s the magic of the novel: characters are pretty much autonomous from the author.

5. How has your training as an attorney influenced your writing style and/or habits?

In many ways. For instance, in FOR THE KING, it was fascinating to follow the sweeping legal changes that followed the Rue Nicaise attack, and to deconstruct the many outrageous miscarriages of justice that ensued.

6. What advice to you have for aspiring authors? What do you see as the future of historical fiction?

My advice to aspiring authors? Brace yourself! This is not a business for the faint of heart. Publication is only one step on a long, long road… The future of historical fiction? I wish I knew the answer, with the business of publishing at large very much in flux. Frankly I don’t think anyone can answer the question at this point.

7. Which of each of the two choices best describes you? Comment as you see fit.

-- tea or coffee? I am a self-confessed tea addict. I like coffee, but the feeling is not mutual.
-- mountains or seashore? I love both! My mixed Auvergne and Normand ancestries, I suppose…
-- morning or evening? Evening.
-- soccer or tennis? I usually prefer soccer, but after the performance of the French team at the World Cup… enough said.
-- kir or pastis? Kir.
-- designer boutique or bargain basement? With your permission, Julianne, I will stick with the bargain basement until FOR THE KING hits the NYT list.
-- millefeuille or bagel? Millefeuille, hands down.
-- Balzac or Hugo? Balzac, a childhood –and lifelong- love. I read EUGENIE GRANDET dozens of times, always with a renewed sense of wonder.
-- longhand or computer? I am dyslexic, which makes it very difficult for me to handwrite. Computers are a blessing for people like me.
-- carriage or horseback? Horseback. More flexibility!

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Catherine has surrendered all her secrets, but the characters in FOR THE KING are much harder nuts to crack. See if you can figure out what they're hiding before Roch solves the case. Enter the drawing to win a copy of Catherine's fabulous book or pick one up one at your local bookstore.

Thanks for playing, Catherine!

Review and Giveaway: FOR THE KING by Catherine Delors

In the aftermath of 9/11, talk of sleeper cells and suicide bombers has become daily fare in the news media, making it all too easy to assume terror attacks are events particular to twenty-first century life. However, London's failed Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and Chicago's 1886 Haymarket Square bombing are but two incidents historians could cite to disprove this assumption. A conspicuous third would be the Christmas Eve bombing in 1800 on the rue Nicaise in Paris -- the subject of historical novelist Catherine Delors's riveting new novel, FOR THE KING (Dutton, July 8).

Six years after the end of the Reign of Terror that culminated the French Revolution, Napoleon has overthrown the constitutional government and installed himself as First Consul. This power grab pleases neither the radical Jacobins, whose egalitarian philosophy fueled the Revolution, nor the royalist Chouans, who want to reinstate the monarchy and recenter the country on its Catholic foundations. So when an "infernal machine" hidden in a cart explodes along Napoleon's route to the Opera, sparing the Consul but killing twenty-two bystanders, maiming fifty-six and destroying the forty-odd houses that line the street, either group could conceivably be responsible. Convinced the Jacobins organized the attack, Napoléon orders over one hundred of them arrested, including the outspoken but harmless aged father of the city's Chief Inspector, Roch Miquel. The powerful Minister of Police, Fouché, blames not the Jacobins but the Royalists. Roch's self-serving mentor grants the young inspector one month to prove him right, ensuring Roch's assiduity in cracking the case by threatening to deport Old Miquel to Guiana. In a race to save his father, Roch quickly links two suspects proposed by Fouché to the crime, but the suspects' whereabouts -- as well as the identity of a mysterious third man, mastermind of the attack -- prove frustratingly difficult to determine.

FOR THE KING is a thriller, not a mystery, for unlike Roch, the reader knows from the outset who orchestrated the crime: Joseph de Limoëlan, a member of the royalist insurgency, aided by two accomplices, the men fingered by Fouché. Delors paints a fascinating portrait of Limoëlan, a nobleman whose father and kin were guillotined during the Revolution and whose anger and hatred allows him to disregard the suffering he causes in his quest for revenge. In contrast, Roch, a parvenu struggling to establish himself in the new republic, displays an honor and integrity his father ingrained in him despite years of poverty and wandering. In committing the crime, Limoëlan fights for his father in a figurative sense; pressed to prosecute it, Roch fights for his in a literal one. Antagonist and protagonist are further linked through the protean Fouché, father to nothing but his own interests, and the beautiful, secretive Blanche Coudert, trapped in marriage with a man old enough to be her father. Place all this in the context of a country that has just executed its king and whose inhabitants now consider themselves "children of the fatherland" (enfants de la patrie, according to La Marseillaise) and FOR THE KING becomes a rich exploration of identity, loyalty and the dynamic tension between past and future in the creation of self and nation.

Delors, an attorney, spent many hours researching the rue Nicaise attack in the archives of the Ministry and Prefecture of Police Paris and it shows. Her meticulous research allows her to reconstruct with convincing verisimilitude what has been called the first modern police investigation. Even readers who do not usually choose thrillers or mysteries (like myself) will find themselves fascinated as the investigation unfolds and Roch pieces clues together. The realities of life in the early nineteenth century become achingly real as Roch struggles to solve a crime without the benefits of modern forensic technology. Victims die of their wounds before they can be interviewed; witnesses stand in line for hours at the police station for the chance to tell their tales; blacksmiths are forced to examine the putrifying carcass of the wagon horse in the hope that one of them will recognize the animal and identify its owner. Police procedure aside, Delors, without ever resorting to didactic exposition, manages to make sense of the confusing political factionalism that both inspires the crime and determines the course of the investigation. In so doing, she opens up an era of French history little familiar to modern American readers.

Detailing the attack from the perspectives of both perpetrators and police gains Delors entry to all corners of early nineteenth century society, from Napoleon's elegant drawing room to the cramped offices of minor functionaries, from the noisy, wine-stained taverns of the working class to the damp, infested prison cells of the condemned. With a sharp eye for detail and a keen ability to depict nuances of convention and behavior, Delors resurrects the gritty, turbulent, and often dangerous Paris of the common man at a time when egalitarian ideals are struggling to survive. Her characters, even minor ones, are fully fleshed beings with quirks, habits, and histories of their own. Fictional characters prove indistinguishable from historical ones, interacting as equals in the interstices of the historical record where the novelist gives her imagination free rein.

FOR THE KING is quite different from Delors's first acclaimed novel, MISTRESS OF THE REVOLUTION (Dutton 2008), and in my opinion, ultimately more satisfying. Roch comes to recognize and appreciate the love of a devoted woman in the course of the novel, but readers looking solely for romantic adventure will be disappointed. Delors shatters readers' expectations as thoroughly as the infernal machine blows a gaping hole in the Parisian street. Bucking current trends in historical fiction, she abandons the frolics and foibles of the royalty to offer an intelligent and compelling depiction of common people struggling to make sense of an uncertain new world. A writer to watch, Catherine Delors continues to delight and surprise. I, for one, can't wait to see what she offers us next.

********

Catherine has provided a copy of FOR THE KING to be awarded to one lucky reader. If you're looking for a compelling summer read, leave a comment with your email address by 10 pm PST Sunday, July 18. US and Canadian readers only, please. Winner's name will be drawn at random and posted by noon on July 19.

Check back tomorrow for an interview with Catherine. In the meantime, be sure to visit her website and her always informative and entertaining blog, Versailles and More.

Sixteenth Century Quote of the Week

"Souvent femme varie;

Bien fol qui s'y fie."

"Women are fickle;

Crazy is he who trusts them."

Attributed to François I (1494-1547), King of France

Carved into a window pane in his chamber at Chambord

Fashion Blog

For anyone interested in fashion as art, a new blog, Alexander's Eyes, is the place to be. Yes, the author is someone near and dear to me, but the content is interesting and the photos, um, eye-catching (check out the post about World Cup soccer models). There's even some sixteenth century influence here. Let's keep her writing, okay?

Winner of CATHERINE DE MEDICI

The winner of C.W. Gortner's

THE CONFESSIONS OF CATHERINE DE MEDICI

is

Marta Hoelscher

Congratulations!

Marta, please send an email to juliannedouglas05 [at] sbcglobal [dot] net with your snail mail address and I'll have the book sent out to you.

Thanks to everyone for entering the drawing!

Sixteenth Century Quote of the Week

"L'on ne peut gouverner les enfants d'aujourdhui."

"You can't govern the children of today."

Robert Garnier (1544-1590), French playwright

Bradamante (1582), ActII, sc. 1

16th Century Needlework

Check out the needlework in this sixteenth-century portrait featured on the blog Needleprint. The intricacy of the work is astounding! I can only imagine the hours that went into embroidering the piece, as well as the patience of the portraitist in reproducing it.

The Needleprint blog has many interesting posts on early modern textiles. There are wonderful articles on seventeenth century embroidered gloves, textile and embroidered book bindings from time of Henry VIII, and fourteenth-century Florentine quilts. It's easy to lose yourself exploring and examining the photographs.

Sixteenth century blackwork

Mary Sharratt: The Crucible of Faith, Part 2

Here is the second half of Mary Sharratt's guest post on resistance to the Reformation in northern England:

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The Crucible of Faith: Reformation and Resistance in Northern England

by Mary Sharratt

[Mary Tudor's] successor was her half-sister, Elizabeth I, whose private religious convictions remain nebulous. Publicly Elizabeth had little choice but to embrace the Protestant cause. As Anne Boleyn’s daughter, the Catholic Church regarded her as illegitimate and this would have left her unfit for the throne, since her father’s many illegitimate sons would have taken precedence. A female monarch who elected not to marry and produce an heir of her own religion, Elizabeth relied on support from hardline Protestants whose views may have been far more extreme than her own. Still, at the beginning of her reign, Elizabeth appeared to tolerate Catholics as long as they attended Anglican services and kept a low profile. However, her stance became increasingly aggressive in reaction to a series of Catholic plots to dispose, and even assassinate her, and place her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, on the throne.

The Northern Rebellion of 1569, the first of several such plots, left law-abiding English Catholics in a very difficult place, especially after Pope Pius V issued his 1570 Papal Bull, which excommunicated Elizabeth and proclaimed that it was her Catholic subjects’ duty to overthrow her. The pope’s uncompromising stance made English Catholics traitors to the crown by default. Far more politically astute than her half-sister, Elizabeth used this Papal Bull as an excuse to end her policy of religious toleration. She told her subjects that they must choose between her and this foreigner. By the 1570s, being Catholic was regarded as traitorous and subversive, whether one took part in plots or not.

By the 1580s it became treason to convert to Catholicism. Recusants who refused to attend Protestant services were fined £20, a fortune in that era. It was treason for Jesuits or seminary priests to enter the country—those who knowingly provided them shelter were also guilty of treason. Those convicted of treason were punished by hanging, then being cut down and disemboweled while still alive. In some cases the beating heart was ripped out of the body. By 1593, recusants were restricted to staying within five miles of their homes.

Fearful of a Spanish invasion with local Catholic support, Elizabeth’s government kept close watch of recusant nobility, especially in the North. Lord Burghley’s Map of Lancashire depicts a bird’s eye view of all the gentry estates in the county. The properties owned by recusant families are marked with a cross. The unmarked estates belong to trusted Anglican gentry. Also marked are the beacons where loyal Anglicans could raise the alarm should there be a Catholic uprising.

This was the era of the English martyrs, such as Margaret Clitherow of York, born in 1556. After her family adopted Protestantism, she converted back to Catholicism and offered her home as a secret refuge for traveling priests. Arrested in 1586 on suspicion of harboring priests, she faced trial at the York Assizes where she refused to plead, probably fearing that her young children would be asked to testify and tortured. Margaret received the standard punishment for those who refused to plead—she was crushed to death beneath a door weighted by heavy stones. She died on Good Friday, 1586. In 1970, she was canonized as a saint.

There has been some speculation as to whether William Shakespeare, who may have lived in Hoghton Tower in Lancashire with the recusant de Hoghton family during his “lost years,” was a secret Catholic. We do know that his father was Catholic, as a testament of faith was discovered hidden in his house.

Mary Stuart’s son, James I, separated from his mother and reared as a stern Protestant, ascended to the English throne in 1603. He brought an even harsher set of laws to all Catholics. Convicted recusants who refused to receive Anglican communion were fined and their property was taken from them. They were barred from public office, had no recourse to courts of laws, and if one owed money to a Catholic, one wasn’t obliged to pay it back. Catholic resentment of James I culminated in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

By the time of the English Civil War, 65% of Royalist families in Lancashire were still Catholic. The Restoration brought no relief. In 1678, recusants were barred from Parliament, and in 1692, they incurred double land tax. In 1699, they were barred from purchasing or inheriting land.

The tide only began to turn toward the close of the 18^th century. The First Catholic Relief Act of 1778 permitted Catholics to own land. The Second Relief Act of 1791allowed Catholic clergy to legally exercise ministry. For the first time since Mary Tudor’s downfall, Catholics in England were allowed public worship under license.

The new Catholic churches built at this time were designed to resemble barns and thus remain as unobtrusive as possible, as not to attract too much attention. One such “barn church” still exists today, the Church of Saint Peter and Paul in Ribchester. The crosses were only added in the 19^th century and the stained glass more recently still. When first constructed, the building was meant to look secular and the Mass was conducted behind closed shutters.

The Emancipation Act of 1829 finally allowed people of the Catholic faith to hold public office and to sit in Parliament. English Catholics owe their thanks to Irishman Daniel O’Connell, who was responsible for pushing this law through in order to prevent a violent uprising in his own country.

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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 .

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 .

"Hot Summer Read" For Sure!

Today my author friend Catherine Delors's new novel, FOR THE KING, was named a "hot summer read" by Kristin Contino of the Philadelphia Examiner. I heartily concur--Catherine's gripping new book, which will be released on July 8, is even better than her first critically-acclaimed novel, MISTRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. Be sure to look for it in stores on the 8th, or pre-order a copy so you can start your summer off with a bang (hmm, was that a firecracker or a carriage exploding on a busy Parisian street?). I'll post a review on release day, along with a special interview with Catherine.