|
Edward Charles Novels in History |
|
About Edward Charles |
|
How it all began
I didn’t set out to write my first novel, In the Shadow of Lady Jane, but like so many interesting things in life, it all started with a chance remark.
My wife and I had recently moved to the area and were visiting Shute House in East Devon for the first time. In the course of the tour, the guide from the National Trust said “The house used to belong to the Grey family –Lord Henry Grey was the Marquess of Dorset in the 1550s – and it is said that Lady Jane Grey once visited the house, although exactly when, no-one is sure.”
That started me thinking and I set about reading the three biographies of Lady Jane Grey available at the time, and a dozen or so history books of the period, to see whether such a visit might have been possible. Within a few months my computer had a time line of her life, where she was and what she did, who she met and so on.
It became clear that the only time she could have visited Shute house was in early April 1551. The rest of her life was pretty well mapped out.
“Suppose” I asked myself, “a local lad had met the Grey sisters during that visit, had somehow become involved with them, and finally become part of their household. What might have happened to him?”
Local history books provided a John Stocker, farming across the valley at the time. He had a son, also called John, who was already committed to his farm; so I invented a second son, called Richard Stocker.
The Stocker family had a neighbour at Blamphayne, the next farm, by the name of Dr Thomas Marwood.
Dr Marwood was born in 1512, travelled to Padua to study medicine and practiced in Honiton until well into his eighties. In 1592 he was reputedly invited to London to cure the Earl of Essex, a feat which earned him great wealth. He married three times, the third time at the age of 96. He built a house in Honiton, which was only demolished during the construction of the railway in 1846. However, Marwood House, the house he built for his son, still stands today, at the end of Honiton High Street. When a character like that muscles his way into your story, you simply move over and make room.
The rest sort of grew... |
|
|
|
Edward Charles is published by Macmillan New Writing |
