When Nancy Northcott is here it's usually to talk about someone else's book in one of her reviews. But today, Nancy joins us to talk about one of her books! She recently visited England and is here today to take us on a visual journey of the places her characters might have visited in the 17th century. Welcome back, Nancy!
Nancy
Northcott’s childhood ambition was to grow up and become Wonder Woman. Around fourth grade, she realized it was too
late to acquire Amazon genes, but she still loved comic books, science fiction,
fantasy, history, and romance.
She has
written freelance articles and taught at the college level. Her most popular course was on science
fiction, fantasy, and society. She has also given presentations on the Wars
of the Roses and Richard III to university classes studying Shakespeare’s play
about that king. Reviewers have described her books as melding fantasy,
romance, and suspense. Library Journal
gave her debut novel, Renegade, a
starred review, calling it “genre fiction at its best.”
In addition
to the historical fantasy Boar King’s Honor trilogy, Nancy writes the Light
Mage Wars paranormal romances, the Lethal Webs romantic spy adventures, and the
Outcast Station science fiction mysteries.
Married since
1987, Nancy and her husband have one son, a bossy dog, and a house full of books.
Nancy’s
Social Media links;
Twitter: @NancyNorthcott
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Touring the 17th Century
with Nancy Northcott
Some of you may have seen this book before. Falstaff Books reissued it this past month, in Kindle, paperback, and (major thrill!) hardcover editions.
The Boar King’s Honor Trilogy
A wizard’s misplaced trust
A king wrongly blamed for murder
A bloodline cursed until they clear the king’s name
Book 1: The Herald of Day
In 17th-century England, witchcraft is a hanging offense. Tavern maid Miranda Willoughby hides her magical gifts until terrifying visions compel her to seek the aid of a stranger, Richard Mainwaring, to interpret them. A powerful wizard, he sees her summons as a chance for redemption. He bears a curse because an ancestor unwittingly helped murder the two royal children known as the Princes in the Tower, and her message uses symbols related to those murders.
Miranda’s visions reveal that someone has altered history, spreading famine, plague, and tyranny across the land. The quest to restore the timeline takes her and Richard from the glittering court of Charles II to a shadowy realm between life and death, where they must battle the most powerful wizard in generations with the fate of all England at stake.
I
like to walk the ground my characters walk. Sometimes that’s not possible.
Outcast Station doesn’t exist, and I have yet to explore the hidden depths of
the Okefenokee Swamp. Where the place isn’t real or has vanished or just isn’t
accessible, of course, there’s always imagination to fill the gaps. But being
there is a real treat.
Lucky
for me, bits of 17th-century England, the setting for The Herald of Day, remain. I set out to
find as many as I could, and I had more luck than I expected.
The
book opens in Dover. The hero and heroine, Richard and Miranda, have an
important conversation on the headland of Dover Castle, near the an ancient
church and the shell of the Roman lighthouse. The church, St. Mary in Castro,
was built in the 11th century AD and is thought to have replaced an
even older church. Of course, it has undergone substantial restoration through
the centuries.
When
Richard and Miranda stood on the headland, however, the buildings would have
been much as they are now.
There
are indications of a Bronze Age hillfort around the area where the church and
the lighthouse stand. Saxon churches often supplanted places of pagan worship,
so it wasn’t a stretch to say the headland had been a sacred spot in King
Arthur’s Day.
From
Dover, Richard and Miranda travel to London.
In 1674, when the book is set, the only bridge across the Thames was
London Bridge, which was narrow, crowded, and lined with houses. Fires often
broke out on the bridge. So did quarrels among those traversing it. The
southern end was adorned by the severed heads of those executed for treason. It
was a far cry from London Bridge today.
When
Miranda and Richard reach the bridge, soldiers are limiting the number of people
who can go through at any time because of a recent fire. The traffic backs up
into Borough High Street and the yard of St. Savior’s Church, which is
Southwark Cathedral today.
Although
it doesn’t show here, the road now is far above the churchyard. That’s because
old London Bridge was level with the original roadway and the churchyard. When the bridge was replaced, it was built
higher and with bigger arches underneath so ships could sail past it.
Not
far from London Bridge stands the George Inn, the last of the galleried
coaching inns that once lined Borough High Street. There has been an inn on
this site since the 15th century. The current building dates to the
late 17th century. Charles Dickens was a frequent visitor. A couple
of friends and I had lunch there and enjoyed gawking at our surroundings while
we ate.
Chaucer’s
Canterbury pilgrims set off from another such inn nearby, the Tabard. A window
in Southwark Cathedral commemorates the story.
The
house where Miranda and Richard live, at #36 Bishopsgate, is entirely
imaginary. It sits on the site of Crosby Place, medieval home of a wealthy
London merchant. When Richard III was Duke of Gloucester, he rented Crosby Place
as his London base. Putting Richard Mainwaring, the hero, there, was a nod to
King Richard. The Herald of Day is
the first book in a trilogy, The Boar King’s Honor, about his reputation.
The
only surviving part of Crosby Place is the great hall, with its glorious
hammerbeam roof. It was moved to Chelsea in 1910 and is now in private hands,
alas.
In
the 17th century, Westminster was the seat of government, but the
City of London was, as it is now, the seat of business and finance. In The Herald of Day, Richard and his
friend Jeremy ride from Lambeth Palace, in Westminster, into the City of London
on an urgent errand. Lambeth Palace, of course, is still there and still the
residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as it was then.
There
was a gate into the City of London at the junction of Fleet Street and the
Strand as early as 1293. By the time of The
Herald of Day, the gateway was a magnificent structure designed by Sir
Christopher Wren. Statues of James I, Anne of Denmark, Charles I, and Charles
II adorn it. Richard and Jeremy ride through this gateway.
In
the 19th century, the street needed widening. The gateway was preserved and eventually was re-erected
in Paternoster Square, near St. Paul’s Cathedral. The photos above were taken
there. A gryphon statue in the street median replaced it at its old site (note
HM Queen Victoria in the base).
Miranda
and Richard attend a ball at Whitehall Palace, where they have an unpleasant
confrontation. All that remains of the palace now, at least as far as public
accessibility goes, is the Banqueting House. Here are a view of it from the
rear, one of the interior, and one of the beautiful ceiling.
Toward
the end of the book, there’s a running battle from the Palace of Whitehall,
which burned in the late 1600s, down to Westminster Abbey.
The
characters race full tilt past St. Margaret’s Church (just visible at the left
edge of the photo) and into the west door of the Abbey, shown here.
I’ll
never be able to walk the streets of 17th-century London, but the
sites I visited gave me a taste of that city. I had a blast visiting them. I hope
you enjoy the photos.
What
place in what era would you visit if you could? Would you want to live there or
only visit?
