Over at the Historical Hearts I am blogging about one of the most interesting characters from the English Civil War, Cromwell's Secretary of State and master of spies, John Thurloe. Those who have read my books will have met Mr. Secretary Thurloe as he appears in both books.

Enjoy Cromwell's Master of Spies

I am thrilled to announce that GATHER THE BONES, the book I have been loosely describing as "Downton Abbey with ghosts" (I will come up with a better description!), has been bought by Lyrical Press and will be published as an ebook in the mid year.

Watch this space!

A very excited...
Alison xxx 

In keeping with the season I am writing about the banning of Christmas during Cromwell's interregnum and the Man who Saved Christmas - William Winstanley. Visit me at Historical Hearts 

HEADS UP – HISTORICAL HEARTS LAUNCH PARTY

Historical Hearts, a group of Australian historical romance authors,is holding a week long Launch Party from Monday 12th until Friday 16th September, 2011. Our authors will talk about their writing, the historical eras they love best, and have give-aways for commenters.There will be discussions, prizes and fun times for readers and writers alike.

An event you’ll not want to miss!

 I’ll be there on our first day, so please drop by and leave a comment or answer a question.

Spring is in the air and I am spring cleaning! So far I today I have cleaned the oven, launched a new book and revamped my website.

In September I will be part of an exciting new grop blog -- Historical Hearts -- which launches on September 14 and in the interests of maintaining my sanity and the best use of my time, I am moving my personal blog over to this site. Past posts will still be able to accessed over at the blogspot but all future blogging will be done from here.

Now, I'm off to look at bathroom fittings...Oh, the glamorous life of a writer!

PS the book I have launched is a collection of my short stories TOWER OF TALES. You can find more information about it on my home page 

I don't know why such great tomes are written about the English Civil War when it can be easily explained in less than two minutes. Enjoy!

What do a 1970s folk rock group and Charlotte de Trémoile, the Countess of Derby have in common? 

I am showing my age when I say that I was a great fan of Steeleye Span in my youth and by dint of the wonders of the internet, I was drawn back to them recently by this song, BABYLON, which narrates the story of gallant defence of the Lathom House by the indominatable Countess.

James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby was a King’s man.  The seat of the Earl was divided between the Isle of Man and Lathom House in Lancashire and in the early days of the war, Lancashire was predominantly royalist. While the Fairfaxs battled for the Parliament in Yorkshire, Derby maintained a firm hold in his home county until late in 1643 when he  left Lancashire to put down a rebellion on the Isle of Man. In his absence Parliamentary forces gained an upper hand in Lancashire and Lady Charlotte found herself compelled to make concessions to Parliament, giving up the entire estate for Parliament’s use.

She and her two daughters were allowed to remain in the house and were careful not to provoke the enemy forces. Early in 1644, she received secret word that a parliamentary force was marching against the house. Local feeling rose against the occupants of Lathom House with a preacher at Wigan taking as his text  Jeremiah 50:14 “Put yourselves in array against Babylon, all ye that bend the bow, shoot at her, spare no arrows; for she hath sinned against the Lord.”


On Tuesday 27th February, Sir Thomas Fairfax began negotiations with Lady Charlotte for the surrender of Lathom House, imperiously demanding that Sir Thomas should wait on her, rather than she on him.  Lady Charlotte played for time and in answer to Sir Thomas’ demand, she replied “…(she) much wondered that Sir Thomas Fairfax would require her to give up her Lord’s house without any offence on her part done to the Parliament…” The honourable Sir Thomas negotiated with the Lady for some time before she openly rejected all his terms and the Parliamentarians began to move on the house.

 Nearly three thousand parliamentarians sat down before Lathom House but the capture of the old fortress was no easy proposition.  Behind its thick walls the indomitable Countess and her 300 strong garrison had ample supplies to last a long siege.  For two months, the parliamentarians suffered harrying raids engineered by the wily Captain Farmer and the predations of the Lady’s accurate sharp shooters. Artillery brought to bear on the house had some impact but not sufficient to breach its defences. Throughout the siege, Lady Charlotte asserted herself as the Commander of her garrison, personally supervising every detail. Not surprisingly contemporaty commentators remarked she had proved herself a better soldier than her husband.

By the end of March, Fairfax had been recalled to Yorkshire leaving a frustrated Colonel Rigby in command. Rigby’s efforts at cajoling the Lady into surrender received the following response. “…Tell that insolent rebel, hee shall neither have persons, goods, nor house: when our strength and provision is spent, we shall find a fire more mercyfull than Rigby…”

At the end of May, word reached the defenders that Prince Rupert was on the march to the relief of Lathom and on 27th May, Rigby took his men to interecept the royalists and the siege of Lathom House was over.  Amazingly only 6 of the defenders had been killed over the length of the siege.

 At the end of the siege, Lady Charlotte took her daughters and retired to her husband’s estates on the Isle of Man. Unfortunately in June 1644 the northern royalists were comprehensively defeated at Marston Moor and by the end of December, Lathom House eventually fell to the parliamentarians and was completely destroyed.

 The Earl of Derby was captured after the Battle of Worcester in September 1651 and Lady Charlotte died in 1664 at the age of 65. 

Women have always followed armies and their lives and stories are inextricably woven with those of the men.  For the whores, it provided a guaranteed source of clientele and until Florence Nightingale and the establishment of professional medical and nursing corps, the wives and mistresses of soldiers and officers followed the drums and between bringing up their children, performed the duties of laundry maid and nurse.  And then there were those like “Jo” in Kim’s book who joined up to fight.

Why did they do it? For some it became an economic necessity, a way of ensuring a semi-regular form of income and even a pension for their families should they be killed rather than remain at home in poverty to become a charge on the parish and eke out their lives in a workhouse.  Then there were those who were simply following their heart either accompanying or searching for their husbands or lovers. There are those like a certain Joan of Arc who had a higher purpose!

The English Civil war was no exception.  Women played an enormous role in the defence of their homes and their towns and in the ranks of both royalist and roundhead there are cases of women standing shoulder to shoulder with men in the ranks. Unfortunately actual details of these women is hard to come by and one has to rely on contemporary ballads such as “The Gallant She –Souldier” of 1655 or “The Valiant Vergin” to gain some insight into the lives of these women. Disguise in the bulky clothes of the period would not have been hard and the sanitary conditions of the day would not have invited much speculation about the sex of their fellow soldier.

Some of the recorded cases of these “she soldiers” include a newspaper report of July 1642 (before the real fighting of the war began) of a young girl disguising herself to be near her lover and in November 1645 Major-General Poyntz of the New Model Army reports capturing a female corporal among the royalist prisoners. One of the best records concerns Anne Dymocke, who came from yeoman stock in Lincolnshire. In 1655, she disguised herself as a man in order to remain with her lover, John Evison. The match had been disallowed by her family so they ran off together and she and John posed as brothers for the next 2 years, travelling the countryside. Following John’s death in 1657, she enlisted as a soldier in the Army using John’s name and her disguise was only uncovered in Ayr in Scotland. Contemporary reports have only the highest regard for her “modesty”.

Although she doesn’t belong to the period of the English Civil War, perhaps the best known seventeenth century “she soldier” is Mrs. Christian Davies, known as Kit Cavanagh  or Mother Ross  . She was the subject of a biography by Daniel Defoe “The Life and Adventures of Mrs. Christian Davies, commonly called Mother Ross…Taken from her own mouth when a Pensioner of Chelsea Hospital”.   

Born in Ireland 1667, Kit was, by her own account, something of a tomboy.  However she married Richard Walsh and the two ran a pub together until, in 1691, Richard suddenly disappeared, apparently by force or choice, into the army. Kit left her pub and her children, disguised herself as a man by cutting her hair, wearing her husband’s clothes and padding her Waistcoat “to preserve my Breasts from hurt” and joined the English Army. There she served as an infantryman and fought at the battle of Landen. Despite being wounded and captured by the French, she maintained her disguise and was exchanged without either side knowing her true gender. Following a duel (over a woman!) in which she killed her protagonist, “Mr. Welsh” was discharged from the Army but promptly re-enlisted as a dragoon and continued a sterling military career. Despite being wounded and having a prostitute claim that “he” was the father of her child, her gender went undetected.  Her guile at concealing her disguise, even extended to a novel way of urinating standing up! After thirteen years she finally found her husband – with another woman! He agreed to keep her secret and she went back to soldiering.  At the battle of Ramillies in 1706 she was wounded again and this time her sex was discovered. So highly was she regarded that the Army continued to pay her and she took on the role as a “sutler”.  After the death of her husband (she spent two days turning over the bodies of the fallen at the battle of Malplaquet in order to bury him) she married two more times and saw out her life as a Chelsea Pensioner. She was buried with full military honours.

I suppose I feel some affinity with these gallant warrior women as I served in the military forces for nearly twenty years, admittedly in a peace time army.  It could not have been an easy life for them, but in some ways, compared to the hardships they faced if they remained at hearth and home, at least dressed as men, they were independent mistresses of their own destiny.

Thank you to everyone who entered my website contest and congratulations to June and Dana on being the lucky winners.

March 6-12 is "Read and EBook week" and to celebrate you will find my ebooks on sale HERE at 50% off the normal price. 

Thank you for visiting my "new look" website.

If you would like to leave a comment below, on 6 March, I will draw names and two lucky recipients will each receive a copy of one of my ebooks (of their choice). Don't forget to leave an email address where I can contact you!

Look forward to hearing from you,

Alison xxx