What duties fall to an occupying force when the conflict is over? A while ago, I looked through The Occupation of the Rhineland, 1918-1929 by Sir James E. Edmonds and found the detailed occupation policy issued by General Sir H. Plumer. Herbert Charles Onslow Plumer had commanded the British Second Army during WWI and was the first commander of the British Army of the Rhine. Plumer’s policy covers topics from alcohol to public meetings, identity cards to night piquets.

I’ve included a few extracts but note that every topic included several other rules and restrictions:

• IDENTITY CARDS Every inhabitant over 12 years of age must be in possession of an identity card, bearing his address, photograph and signature, and the signature and stamp of the appropriate civil official.
• DWELLING HOUSES No person may change his residence without permission from the British military authorities.
• CIRCULATION Circulation of hackers, musicians, pedlars, beggars and other itinerant persons is forbidden.
• PASSES Persons failing to return passes on expiration to the civil authorities will be punished.
• PRESS No pamphlet or leaflet may be printed of distributed.
• ALCOHOL The sale or gift of drink other than wine or beer either to any member of the British Army or to civilians is forbidden except by written order of the British military authorities.
• PUBLIC MEETINGS All assembling in crowds is forbidden.
• ARMS AND AMMUNITION The carrying of arms and ammunition of any kind is forbidden.
• TELEPHONES The use of telephones is forbidden, except with the permission of the British military authorities.
• CARRIER PIGEONS The use of carrier pigeons is forbidden.
• PHOTOGRAPHY Civilians are forbidden to carry photographic apparatus out of doors.
• NIGHT PIQUETS In every village and town units are to detail piquets at night to patrol and ensure that the regulations regarding lights, circulation, etc. are carried out.

At the end of this policy, Plumer included the following order.

All persons of the male sex will show proper respect for British officers and at the playing of the British National Anthem by raising their hats, in the case of persons in uniform by saluting.

Very serious business, occupying the countries that tried to destroy you.

Nonetheless, here are a few snippets that caught my eye concerning the WWII experience.

We used to roll bandages for the Red Cross. The women felt that this was an outing. You got together and you rolled bandages and you had a cup of coffee and a chat.

My grandmother used to do this sort of work during WWII. She also bundled packages to be sent off to soldiers and Christmas gifts of food and treats as you can see in this photo.

And we knit, we knit mitts. You had to learn to leave a hole in the front. You knit a flap that pulled off, so they could get their fingers out, I suppose for loading the guns.

The juxtaposition of the domestic act of knitting with the loading of guns is striking.

Stockings were very hard to get. You had to line up to buy them. Sometimes one and a half hours. Often the store would run out.

No doubt we’ve all heard stories of women painting a line down the back of their leg in order to pretend they had stockings on.

I also found newspaper ads:

Your aid is vital! Save metal, rags, paper, bones, rubber, glass. They are used in war supplies.

A rubber cleanup will speed victory! Patriotic Salvage Corps Rubber Drive, May 1st to 31st.

The list of rubber items included old tires, inner tubes, rubber boots, sink mats, kneeling pads, rubber gloves, rubber toys. Puts today’s recycling efforts in perspective, doesn’t it?

Time became a tangible dimension and I found various sites with WWI timelines. At least that gave me a sense of major battles and the struggles face by Britain, France and their allies to counter the Central Powers.

• Firstworldwar.com offers a year by year look at major actions with the option to click on any single action to explore further. You can burrow deeper for a look by year and date or choose a given day – for example, June 14, 1915 – to find what if anything occurred that day.
• A timeline of 1914 events from the June assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to Christmas day.
• British timeline of events illustrating four phases of the war: first encounters and digging in, entrenched siege warfare, second phase of siege warfare with Britain in a lead role, a return to open warfare with Germany unable to hold on.

The build-up to war and reasons for its outbreak were relevant to understanding alliances that had formed prior to the war’s outbreak, political circumstances of the primary players, the Balkan powder keg and so on.

• The July Crisis tracks significant events by country and by topics such as Naval Arms Race, First & Second Moroccan Crises, Entente & Central Powers, and Assassination of Franz Ferdinand. I read this document several times while writing scenes for Lies Told in Silence. By the way, the home site (last updated in 2006) includes timelines for many early twentieth century events and topics.
• I read an outline of Germany and the Next War by Friedrich von Bernhari posted on Proejct Gutenberg to try to understand the German perspective for WWI.
• An excerpt from Sidney Bradshaw Fay’s The Origins of the World War describes in detail The Haldane Mission which was an effort to quell the friction between Great Britain and Germany in 1912. This excerpt considers many major political and military players of the time and the issues involved particularly over naval power.

Maps were another crucial dimension to understanding the war. I found a map of the Balkans prior to WWI, one showing Europe in 1914, a map of the planned German advance for 1914, maps of major battles, maps of trench lines at various points in time (see example below) and so on.

Edward Jamieson, the main male character of Unravelled, is in the Signal Corps and hence I needed to understand that world. What on earth did signallers do to help the war effort? Again, I found a range of sources online including pictures and found several references to the actions of signallers during battle and battle preparation in Pierre Berton’s book about Vimy. I also had access to my grandfather’s scrapbooks and although there was little about WWI signals, he had kept several items from WWII that helped me understand this crucial communications role.

• A Canadian site dedicated to RC Sigs (Royal Canadian Signal Corps) provided historical background and an article about signals in WWI.
• At the Military Research Centre in Ottawa, I found a book titled The Canadian Signal Service and read all about their role in WWI.
• Pictures helped to explain the context of signallers at work: a signaller on the phone, a signaller climbing a telephone pole (notice the officer in uniform watching these men at work), signallers taking wire across a stream are merely a few I found. I also took my own picture of a salvaged signallers desk in a small museum in Northern France.

Research can be a never-ending task. I’ll write another post with more about using photos, information gleaned from memoirs and diaries, women in WWI, and trips to a few museums.

I am delighted to welcome Ben Kane on the same day as his latest novel HANNIBAL: FIELDS OF BLOOD is being published. Set in Roman times, Ben’s novels are known for their dramatic action, realistic battle scenes and suspenseful plot turns. 

Novelist is a far cry from veterinary science. What prompted the change and why do you choose to write novels set in ancient times?    Complete and utter desperation about being a vet. It’s a strange thing, because most people think that being a vet is the best job in the world. Well, it’s not, and once you’ve had a bellyful of late nights and weekends on call for no extra pay, it’s hard to know what to do with oneself. I naively decided to write bestselling novels! I decided to set them in ancient times because I have long been fascinated by those periods in history.

What ingredients do you think make for a top historical fiction author?    Gosh, I feel a bit embarrassed being asked that! An absolute focus on the end target would be one. Attention to detail. The ability to learn from others and from one’s mistakes would be others.

Have other writers of historical fiction influenced you and, if so, how have they influenced you?    Rosemary Sutcliff, for her iconic children’s novel, The Eagle of the Ninth. She awoke in me a love of Roman times, and of Hadrian’s Wall. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, for his little known novels, Sir Nigel and The White Company. Those two books transported me to the 1300s, but they didn’t just do that. I loved them so much that I really wanted to read more about soldiers in other times and places.

Do you have a particular approach to research and writing?    Yes. Before I start a new book, or a new series, I spend a long time researching the time period, and writing the plot outlines of each book. When I’m done, I start writing, but textbooks are never far from my keyboard, and I refer to them regularly. Sometimes a bit too regularly!

How difficult is researching times like ancient Rome and the time of Hannibal?    To some extent, it’s very difficult. Understandably, far less material survives from ancient times than it does from say, World War One. Also, what survives cannot be relied upon in the way more recent news reports can. (Clearly, even modern news agencies have agendas, but 2,000 years ago, they were far more partisan.) It’s also very frustrating that no Carthaginian records survive. In other words, the victors (the Romans) wrote the history of the Punic Wars, and we have no other material to work on. All this being said, these massive gaps in our knowledge allow an author huge amounts of freedom!

You’ve created the Forgotten Legion trilogy, two books about Spartacus and now two books about Hannibal. How do you balance these different series?    I wrote the Forgotten Legion trilogy first, so to some extent it was done and dusted before I began another series. I then decided to break up the Hannibal series by writing the two Spartacus books before I’d written the second Hannibal novel. This annoyed a few readers, I know, but it wasn’t meant to do this, and it felt like something I had to do. It’s been a good experience, and it will therefore be a tendency that I follow. After the third Hannibal novel, I’m going to write a book called Crécy, set during the Hundred Years’ War.

What advantages do you think come from writing a series? Any disadvantages?    It’s much easier to write a series of books about the same characters than it is to start a whole new novel with a brand new set of people and/or a different time period.

What brand are you trying to create for yourself?    That of an author who writes incredibly exciting, page-turning, blockbuster novels about people and soldiers in ancient times.

What do you do to connect with readers?    I have a website, where I blog infrequently and people comment. The traffic there seems to have moved to Twitter and Facebook, where I am very active. I also reply to the many emails that I receive. You can find me at: www.facebook.com/benkaneauthors ; @BenKaneAuthor and ben@benkane.net

What do you know about your readers?    That they’re great people whose custom allows me to lead the career I love, and that they are interesting and fun to interact with, via email and social media. They’re from all walks of life, and from all over the world from the UK and Ireland to the USA, South Africa, Australasia and South America.

What data do you collect about your readers?    When people check out my website, they are asked if they’d like to register. If they do, their email address goes onto my list for sending out my regular newsletters which include competitions and book giveaways.

What strategies guide your writing career?    Phew. Things are very different now to when I started writing, and even from a year ago. Success breeds success, and it also breeds more things to do that aren’t writing. I now have to leave at least a day to a day and a half a week just to do housekeeping and reply to emails.

What would you do differently if you were starting again?    I don’t know that I would change anything. My path to becoming a full-time writer has been an amazing one, and although it’s been hard, I have loved it.

Do you have any advice for writers of historical fiction?    Read lots of historical fiction – as much as you can. Learn from every book that you read.

What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?    That in 1992, as a veterinary surgeon ― having walked on an unapproved crossing (minor road) into the Irish Republic, late at night, to do a calving ― I was pursued upon my return to Northern Ireland by a car full of armed police, and soldiers.

Many thanks for appearing on A Writer of History, Ben. I’m intrigued that of all the writers I’ve interviewed, you are one of the only ones who has articulated a brand for your work. I’m sure readers will be interested to know that you are going to write about the Hundred Years’ War – quite the change of venue and time period.

Hannibal: Fields of Blood by Ben Kane is out NOW in all good bookshops or here: www.bit.ly/BenKaneBooks

Hannibal: Patrol, an accompanying digital short story is available here: www.bit.ly/BenKanePatrol

Scandalously, Ella married her uncle – not a blood uncle but an uncle by marriage. To escape the gossip of a small English town, she and her husband left England and settled in Florida. After her husband died, she made a little money working in a dental office. Eventually, my grandfather purchased a home that Ella lived in year-round while my grandparents came for the winter.

Ella behaved like a spoiled child when she lived with Grandma and Grandpa. She threw tantrums and often accused my grandmother of being mean to her. I think my grandmother would have referred to this situation as one of life’s little crosses she had to bear.

Here’s an excerpt where she explains buying the diary:

I finally managed to buy this book for my Diary. It needn’t be kept a secret, but I would prefer to. I feel the need of a little privacy and it is a scarce article in this house. Les, I know, likes some time to ponder over his affairs. He has no difficulty – just retires to the den and becomes absorbed in his papers. No one disturbs him. I have some conspiring to do before I can arrange my little sessions. Writing letters is, of course, a legitimate exercise, and can be indulged in regularly as long as it can be managed under a running commentary on the news, some scandal, or any other items uppermost in Ella’s mind at that time. It would be difficult to explain why I am writing in a book and of what use to waste time on it and so I shall write in secret, if possible. Probably is a waste of time, and surely is of no use to anyone but me – and so I shall continue.

Just a little insight into my grandmother’s character.

When war began, he was attached to the 14th battalion with the rank of Major. He was well over 50 years and had never been to war before. The Great War as I Saw it spans the entire war, although the chapter that interested me most was Scott’s recounting of Vimy Ridge.

Here’s the opening paragraph from Chapter 1, How I Got Into the War:

It happened on this wise. It was on the evening of the 31st of July, 1914, that I went down to a newspaper office in Quebec to stand amid the crowd and watch the bulletins which were posted up every now and then, and to hear the news of the war. One after another the reports were given, and at last there flashed upon the board the words, “General Hughes offers a force of twenty thousand men to England in case war is declared against Germany.” I turned to a friend and said, “That means that I have got to go to the war.” Cold shivers went up and down my spine as I thought of it, and my friend replied, “Of course it does not mean that you should go. You have a parish and duties at home.” I said, “No. I am a Chaplain of the 8th Royal Rifles. I must volunteer, and if I am accepted, I will go.” It was a queer sensation, because I had never been to war before and I did not know how I should be able to stand the shell fire. I had read in books of people whose minds were keen and brave, but whose hind legs persisted in running away under the sound of guns. Now I knew that an ordinary officer on running away under fire would get the sympathy of a large number of people, who would say, “The poor fellow has got shell shock,” and they would make allowance for him. But if a chaplain ran away, about six hundred men would say at once, “We have no more use for religion.” So it was with very mingled feelings that I contemplated an expedition to the battle-fields of France, and I trusted that the difficulties of Europe would be settled without our intervention.

Scott records what happened from that day to the end of the war in clear, highly readable prose. He was wounded at Canal du Nord towards the end of September 1918 and was recovering in England when war ended that November. After four years and seven months he returned to Canada.

I went back to the gangway for a last farewell. In one way I knew it must be a last farewell, for though some of us will meet again as individuals it will be under altered conditions. Never again but in dreams will one see the great battalions marching on the battle-ploughed roads of France and Flanders. Never again will one see them pouring single file into the muddy front trenches. All that is over. Along the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific, among our cities, by the shores of lakes and rivers and in the vast expanse of prairies and mountain passes the warrior hosts have melted away. But there on the vessel that day the fighting men had come home in all their strength and comradeship. I stood on the gangway full of conflicting emotions.

The men called out “Speech,” “Speech,” as they used often to do, half in jest and half in earnest, when we met in concert tents and estaminets in France.

I told them what they had done for Canada and what Canada owed them and how proud I was to have been with them. I asked them to continue to play the game out here as they had played it in France. Then, telling them to remove their caps, as this was our last church parade, I pronounced the Benediction, said, “Good-bye, boys”, and turned homewards.

Now, doesn’t that make you emotional, just a tiny bit.

In a nutshell:

• I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Vince Vawter’s young adult novel – perhaps I should read Harry Potter after all? The hero, a boy who stutters, encounters an intriguing and life-changing group of characters and learns from each of them.
• Fay Weldon’s novel, a turn of the century upstairs-downstairs story (apparently it’s the first of a series) was too thin and fluffy for my taste.
• Motherland which begins with the Dieppe raid in 1942, had more depth, more twists and turns and, of course, I’m a sucker for WWI and WWII stories. Two caveats – in my opinion, Nicholson could omit the prologue and epilogue (they detract from the plot) as well as a contrived section set in India as Mountbatten helps transition that country to independence.

If you enjoy historical fiction, visit the Historical Novel Society website. It’s full of interesting articles and more than 6500 online reviews.

The other day, I told her about a scene I’d written where a young New Zealander named Jack who had been training in Canada to be a pilot, leaves for England. In my story, Emily (modelled after my mother) and Ann (modelled after my grandmother) take Jack (based on a real Kiwi named Jack) to the train station.

Mom corrected me. “My mother didn’t go with me to the station, my brother did.” But in my case, I need the fictional version for other purposes. Here’s the scene:

In October, Jack finished his training and returned to Toronto for a few days leave before going overseas. On the day of departure, Ann and Emily saw him off, walking through the great hall of Union Station, heels clicking on the flecked marble floor. Jack was in uniform, a duffel bag over his right shoulder and a smaller bag in his left hand. Emily’s arm was linked with his. Once in England Jack would begin flying for real; in all likelihood, he would soon be dropping bombs on enemy targets.

The station echoed with footsteps and conversation. Loudspeakers proclaimed the departures of each train with a swoop of place names—North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Fort William, Port Arthur, Brandon, Winnipeg—conjuring images of stations large and small, where anguished parents met polished caskets and women waved lovers good-bye, where bewildered children watched fathers in unfamiliar garb climb narrow, iron steps then lean from windows with mouths stretched in grotesque smiles.

The hall was crowded. Ann remained with Jack’s bags as he and Emily searched for information about his train to Halifax. She knew they were fond of one another; writing frequently while Jack was at flight school and spending hours together whenever he visited Toronto. She imagined they would find a quiet spot for a last embrace before joining her again.

My mother really was fond of that young Kiwi. But that story will have to wait for another day.

If you’ve read War Brides, you will already have some sense of Helen Bryan‘s wonderful storytelling skills. Her latest novel is The Sisterhood and I’m delighted that she’s on the blog today talking about her writing. I’m also pleased to announce a two book giveaway of The Sisterhood. To qualify, please leave a comment either here or on my Facebook page.

You’ve written two novels and one biography. What draws you to historical events as the backdrop for your writing?     Aside from the fact history is so interesting, and often a case of truth being much stranger than fiction, it is a rich seam of inspiration for a writer, from cataclysmic events to quirky nuggets of stories. At the same time, it never fails to surprise me how people of different periods are the same- what I call the “human constant” factor. For thousands of years circumstances, and societal and economic pressures have changed, but the human experience, the hopes and fears, search for love, the  biological imperative, the lure of riches and power, the hunger for a spiritual dimension, remain very much the same.  Historical fiction authors put convincing flesh on real historical bones- rather like necromancers I often think.

Context is everything, which is why research is so important. Bridget Jones may have the same desire for love and happiness as a fetching bodice-ripper heroine of the eighteenth century. However, unlike Bridget Jones with her job, flat, boyfriends and chardonnay-fuelled angst, the eighteenth woman’s choices were usually circumscribed by a limited education and material dependence on men. Whether of an independent turn of mind, or more likely, obliged by circumstances to support herself, her employment opportunities were mostly at the lower end of the pecking order – servant, governess or prostitute. Were she to find true love, marriage (and economic support) in the arms of a lusty hero, she better hope he hadn’t perfected those bodice-ripping skills that left her swooning in the brothels. Venereal disease was rife at all levels of society and its treatment -with mercury -was just as likely to lead to disfigurement and death.  Failing that, the heroine faced a very real risk of dying in childbirth. Historical fiction’s happy endings, in their context, are often more precarious than they first appear, with the Angel of Death hovering in the background.

You studied law and worked as a barrister. How do these experiences inform your writing? Are you now writing fulltime?     I write full time, but my background in law has proved invaluable. It teaches a writer to be observant and nit picking about research and period detail and to focus on what is relevant. Also, lawyers are in the persuasion business.  As anyone familiar with courtroom drama will appreciate, presenting a case in court, particularly to a jury, involves putting together a kind of narrative to make evidence and the applicable law fit together. The more entertaining and convincing the narrative, the better the lawyer’s client’s chances are. Writers have to be similarly persuasive.

My late father, also a lawyer, always advised younger colleagues “Know your case well, and then always go over it one more time to see what you’ve missed.”  I still adhere to this piece of advice, rewriting and re-rewriting until the publisher’s deadline forces my hand.

Do you have a particular approach to research and writing?    Research is the easy part. In the main, this consists of burying myself in the British Library, to read about whatever period I plan to write about, and making notes by hand. While I can’t imagine writing on anything but a word processor, handwriting research notes tends to fix information in my brain, and significantly, at this stage the landscape of the novel starts to take shape.

Another good thing about research is that it’s possible to do it almost indefinitely without actually writing anything, while looking impressively busy. However, research isn’t limited to books. Useful information for a writer can crop up anytime, anywhere- newspaper stories, a snatch of conversation overheard in the street, a color, the weather, a landscape, any small detail that will pull a reader into the story. In particular, I am always on red alert for names. Characters must have exactly the right name, and only then do they begin to be real for me.  That’s when I begin writing, fitting them into that landscape.

As for writing itself, the first rule for any writer is the same- show up at the desk. Then write. I prefer to write in my study and I absolutely must begin writing first thing in the morning, having reluctantly woken up with the help of strong coffee known in my family as “mum’s rocket fuel”.

Have other writers of historical fiction or historical non-fiction influenced you and, if so, how have they influenced you?    An early introduction to historical fiction has undoubtedly been my greatest single influence, kicking open as it did the doors of imagination. I grew up in an extended family, with grandparents with houses and attics full of books and many cousins, where a reading child was a quiet child who was not actively getting into trouble and therefore viewed as a Good Thing. Nobody would have been unduly concerned even had they noticed I had bloodthirsty tastes, eschewing fairies and Disney stories for a dusty set of Victorian children’s books by an English historian and educator named Henty, who clearly felt that there was no need to spare any punches when writing for children. There was a particularly gripping volume of his about the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, featuring a delightful family of aristocrats who met a gruesome end on the guillotine. The book gave me nightmares and might not pass the “responsible parent” test today, but Victorian parents- and mine -were made of sterner stuff. The important thing is, it really brought history and the people in it alive. And killed them of course.  I was hooked.

I was also a huge fan of classic comics.  A passing phase, but a usefully visual one, that introduced me to Don Quixote and Prince Valiant and Ivanhoe and from there it was but a short leap to Arthur Rackham’s beautiful illustrations in King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The image of a hand in a jeweled sleeve reaching out of the lake to catch Excalibur when Arthur threw it in was the most romantically dramatic image I had so far encountered. I went through a medieval phase, devouring  TH White’s “Once and Future King”, puzzling over the romantic entanglements of Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot and Morgan la Fey, before moving on to Anya Seton’s bodice-ripping “Katherine” and the Brontes. At fourteen I instinctively grasped that Heathcliffe was not the sort of person my mother would ever allow me to date, and was riveted by this first glimpse of a dark side that I could not yet comprehend.

Many years later history’s enchantments hold. In fiction, I am partial to Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Larry McMurtry, Charles Frazier, Mrs. Gaskell, Hilary Mantel and hundreds of others. In non fiction  Amanda Foreman’s satisfyingly lengthy and detailed “ World on Fire “the best book ever written on the American Civil War, and Giles Milton’s “Big Chief Elizabeth” pretty much brought life in my house to a standstill.  Happily, there’s always so much more!

How do you select new stories to tell?    Oddly, it often feels as if they select me. A story can begin anywhere- with a color, a time of day, a meal, a view, an event in history, the way a person walks, a character whose back-story I can immediately imagine. I tend to let my imagination roam. To non–authors this looks very much like staring aimlessly into space and doing nothing.

What ingredients do you think make for a successful historical fiction author? Do you deliberately plan for these ingredients in your writing?    A fairly obsessive and disciplined approach to research is necessary if historical fiction is to convince the reader. A writer must look at the world through a character’s eyes, and imagine “what happened next.”  I never exactly plan for this. If my stories are firmly rooted in the period they seem to develop their own dynamic. The only deliberate thing I do is concentrate on writing it.

What techniques do you employ to write productively?    Aside from  lots of coffee and beginning in the morning, I like to be left alone in my study, in what I call peace and quiet and my husband calls lockdown. I won’t answer the telephone or doorbell and turn ratty if someone breaks my train of thought. The bestselling author Nora Roberts famously told her family not to disturb her unless someone was bleeding or the house was on fire. She later amended this to arterial blood and actual flames. I would love a sofa cushion embroidered with her words.

What brand would you like to establish as a writer? How do you plan to reinforce that brand?    I never set out to establish any brand, save as a teller of stories. If I could chose a brand it would be something along the lines of “the thinking woman’s historical fiction” because I think it’s important to give the reader “value” in terms of something to think about when they finish the book.

What do you do to connect with readers?    Just write, mainly.  If someone reads it, that is a very real connection. In addition, I think it is terribly important never to underestimate your readers, so I try to write in such a way that readers feel that I am appealing to their intelligence and sensitivity. I don’t blog because I would be so carried away I would never get anything else done, but I do respond to all readers who contact me.

What do you know about your readers?    Generally, I would say they prize a good story, like a challenge, and expect solid historical detail. As you will know, many fans of historical fiction are already knowledgeable or keen to learn more about a period, so I’m always mindful that I need to  write for the informed reader.

What data do you collect about your readers?    There is no data as such, but I do learn from readers’ feedback. For example, one thing that has surprised me greatly is that at the end of what is already a long book, readers often want more! I tend leave a question or two hanging in the air, but now try to anticipate most if not all the “what happened next” demands and answer them. Another thing that impresses me is how thoughtful many responses are, in a way that goes beyond what I have written. For example, one woman left an online review of  “War Brides” that said it was frustrating to be left with unanswered questions about the eventual fate of characters when the book finished, but she supposed that was what happened in war time. And that had been exactly the point of ending the book the way I did.  She totally got it.

What strategies guide your writing career?    Really, the only strategy I have is to read as much as possible, do the research, stay observant and keep writing. And avoid running out of coffee.

What would you do differently if you were starting again?    Nothing.

Do you have any advice for writers of historical fiction?    Obviously, I am big on research, and research can be a helpful kick-start when the time comes to confront the blank page or computer screen and begin to weave a story. Never be afraid to try ideas- let your imagination rip. Don’t worry if your wonderful idea/prose/poetic description falls flat the first, second or twenty-fifth time.  Just rewrite it better, rewrite it differently or cut it. I usually have to rewrite most “good” ideas out of my system before making any progress, but cutting ruthlessly seems to create the necessary vacuum for something better. If you are lucky enough to have a good editor, ninety nine times out of a hundred you should follow his or her advice.

Is there a question you would like to answer that I haven’t asked?    I sometimes wonder for whom authors write. The obvious answers, of course, are publishers and readers, but writing is such an intense and solitary business that I have begun to think we write, ultimately, to satisfy something in ourselves.

Many thanks, Helen. I wish you great success with Sisterhood. I particularly like your point about ‘the human constant’ across the ages as well as the question you’ve ended with, for who do we writers write? I’ll have to ask that on Facebook and on Twitter and see what comes out!

THE SISTERHOOD

Menina Walker was a child of fortune. Rescued after a hurricane in South America, doomed to a life of poverty with a swallow medal as her only legacy, the orphaned toddler was adopted by an American family and taken to a new life. As a beautiful, intelligent woman of nineteen, she is in love, engaged, and excited about the future—until another traumatic event shatters her dreams. Menina flees to Spain to bury her misery in research for her college thesis about a sixteenth-century artist who signed his works with the image of a swallow—the same image as the one on Menina’s medal.

But a mugging strands Menina in a musty, isolated Spanish convent. Exploring her surroundings, she discovers the epic sagas of five orphan girls who were hidden from the Spanish Inquisition and received help escaping to the New World. Is Menina’s medal a link to them, or to her own past? Did coincidence lead her to the convent, or fate?

Both love story and historical thriller, The Sisterhood is an emotionally charged ride across continents and centuries.

I am delighted to have Anne Easter Smith guest post today. Anne is an award-winning historical novelist whose research and writing concentrates on England in the 15th century. Today, she’s talking about her research process and the women who surrounded Edward IV.

Thanks for hosting me today, Mary. I’ll begin by answering your question about my research process. It is rigorous! And it never ends!

Anne’s Research Process

First of all I get down on the floor with a big flip chart and make a graph with my main characters along the top and a monthly/yearly timeline down the side. Then I go to my favorite–and trusted–books on the period, turning to the index and finding my character (or her leading man, because as we know history is about men and written mostly by men!) I systematically go through every entry marking on my chart where she (or he) was at any specific time and what they were doing there. Once I have a goodly number of entries and have finished Part One of the book, I write down a list of all the places I have not been to and begin to plan The Research Trip. I need to walk the walk and see what my characters would have seen. Once I’m home again with a bag full of photos, brochures, maps and notes then I feel ready to start writing.

Edward IV’s Women

Now onto the meat of the matter. You asked me to write about Edward IV’s women. Perhaps we should explain that Edward is a major character in my new book Royal Mistress which tells the dramatic story of Edward’s favorite and final mistress, Jane Shore.

I know we are all mesmerized by Richard III at the moment, but as a king, his brother Edward IV was far more influential, being that he reigned for more than 20 years (give or take the 10 months he was in exile), while Richard reigned for only two.

So I set out to make Edward more prominent when I chose Jane Shore as my protagonist in Royal Mistress. Of course, he had appeared in three of my other four books, and I had formed a pretty good idea of who he was after all those years of researching the York family during the Wars of the Roses. It’s astonishing how much larger than life he became as I wrote about him. Had he lived today, he would probably have been a celebrated professional athlete or maybe a movie star–with the requisite trophy girlfriend on his arm.

He brought England out of a hundred plus years of war–first with France and then with his cousins, the Lancaster branch of the Plantagenets. I explain all this in Queen by Right (I hope!). Finally, in the 1470s and early ‘80s, England was able to concentrate on building up its economy at home, while the merchant class was thriving.

Trouble was, Edward was really better sitting on a horse and leading his men to battle than sitting on his throne leading politicians, and I think he got bored. By the time he was in his mid-thirties he was overweight and indolent. However, he never lost his lust for the opposite sex.

Although the names that have come down to us of his known mistresses number a mere five, Edward and his chamberlain were reputed to enjoy the pleasures of unsuitable young ladies on occasion during their forays into the city of London. Perhaps one of them gave birth to Grace, subject of my third book, The King’s Grace, a bastard of Edward’s whose mother has never been determined.

Sir George Buck, in his “History of the Life and Reign of Richard III” published in 1646 and who was the first historian to try and rectify the bad reputation the Tudors had foisted on Richard, mentions a little known first mistress of Edward, Catharine de Claringdon, but he is the only one who has.

However, the other four women are well documented. I shall skip over his queen, Elizabeth Woodville, as for most of Edward’s reign she was his acknowledged wife, although he did fall hook, line and sinker for her and thus marry her in secret to get her into bed, forgetting she was really not a suitable consort for the king of England.

So who were the three mistresses of whom Edward himself remarked that “one was the wiliest, another the merriest, and the third the holiest harlot in the land”? We are not sure which order the first two (and let’s throw Elizabeth Woodville in that timeline, too) came, but they were written about in 1460s, the early part of Edward’s reign.

We do know that Jane Shore was Edward’s last mistress, beginning in the mid 1470s and still in favor when he died, and the one Edward described as the “merriest.” Poor Eleanor Butler, nee Talbot, ended her life in a nunnery, which might suggest why Edward nicknamed her his “holiest” concubine.

By process of elimination, the “wiliest” must have been Elizabeth Lucy, nee Wayte, often called the elusive mistress. We think she was born in 1445, three years after Edward, and was the daughter of a landowning family from Hampshire. She became the wife of a knight named Lucy and was widowed young. She gave birth to two of Edward’s known bastards: Elizabeth, born circa 1463, who ended up marrying a Thomas Lumley; and Arthur “Wayte” in 1465 or 1467, who was finally recognized at court, surprisingly by King Henry VII, and rose to become Viscount Lisle. Why Elizabeth was wily, we aren’t sure, but she was never mentioned after 1467, giving rise to the supposition she may have died giving birth to Arthur.

The more interesting of the early mistresses is Lady Eleanor Butler, nee Talbot, daughter of the earl of Shrewsbury. This was no commoner, and her sister was the duchess of Norfolk, and both were known for their beauty. She married Sir Thomas Butler, heir to Lord Sudeley, at age fourteen or thereabouts, whose pedigree had connections to royalty. Sir Thomas died in 1461 leaving her childless and a wealthy widow. It was when she appealed the Crown’s confiscating her inheritance that she petitioned the lusty Edward in person and was soon being pursued by the handsome young king.

But did he or did he not promise her marriage in order to get her into his bed–commonly known as a pre-contract? That is the question that had enormous ramifications for Edward’s son and heir at the time of Edward’s death in 1483. Let me explain.

Today, there is nothing binding between a man and a woman promising to marry. We call it an engagement and it is usually the precursor to the actual binding of the couple in matrimony. In medieval times, the promise of marriage followed by intercourse was tantamount to a binding commitment or marriage and recognized by the church.

After Edward’s death, his brother Richard of Gloucester became Protector of his nephew, the boy king Edward V, who was awaiting his coronation. During those precarious weeks in May and June 1483, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, one Robert Stillington, stepped forward and declared he had been witness to a pre-contract between Edward and Eleanor BEFORE Edward secretly married Elizabeth Woodville, making Edward’s marriage with the queen bigamous and thus bastardizing all the offspring of that union.

Ah, you say, but Richard of Gloucester had designs on the throne and probably paid the bishop to come forward with this preposterous story. Why did he wait until Edward was dead to announce his information to the world? Why didn’t Eleanor Butler come forward at the time of Edward’s announcement of his marriage to Elizabeth in 1464; surely she had a better claim to that marriage certificate? We have to remember that this was in medieval times and women had no power, especially a woman like Eleanor who had no father or husband or brother to step forward for her. It would be her word against Edward’s and Edward was the king. What about the good Stillington? He knew how to feather his nest: Was it coincidence that at the beginning of the year of Edward and Eleanor’s pre-contract, Stillington held only a couple of minor ecclesiastical appointments and was keeper of the Privy Seal, but later that same year he was given a handsome annual salary, and when the marriage of Edward and Elizabeth was revealed, Stillington became Bishop of Bath and Wells. Hmmm, a possible reward for keeping his mouth shut?

When all hope was lost to Eleanor by the marriage of the king to Elizabeth, she retired to a convent and died there in 1468. Poor “jilted” Eleanor. Edward managed to ignore the whole episode until it came back to bite him in his posterior–posthumously.

Edward’s final–and he is said to have declared favorite–mistress was Jane Shore, the subject of Royal Mistress. But I don’t want to spoil the drama that was Jane Shore’s rise and fall. You’ll have to read Royal Mistress to discover that for yourself! All I will say is that she was witness to some of the most compelling events in 15th century English history, was the lover of three powerful men, and the unfortunate scapegoat of my favorite king, Richard III. Jane’s story has inspired plays, poems, ballads and prose down the centuries, and her nickname was always The Rose of London.

Such an interesting story, Anne. It is always fascinating to me how many mistresses kings and nobles had in long ago times and the intricacies of court life, illegitimate offspring, the machinations of the church and so on. I am delighted to host you on A Writer of History. I’m sure that some of the writers who read my blog will also be fascinated by your research approach!

Anne Easter Smith is the author of five novels about the York family during the Wars of the Roses. She is a native of England who has lived in the US for 45 years and now makes Newburyport, MA her home.