The Story Behind Charles Dickens' Writing of "A Christmas Carol"

This story was written for The Vintage News. Photos are courtesy of The Morgan Library. For more information on the wonderful exhibit at the Morgan Library on Charles Dickens, up this season until January 9, 2019, go here.

By Nancy Bilyeau

In the autumn of 1843, Charles Dickens was at something of a crossroads in his writing career. At the age of 31, he enjoyed literary fame due to the success of The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, but his latest novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, was not selling well in serialized form, and Dickens feared that his popularity was sinking.


He also had money problems. Dickens had a wife and four children to support; in late 1843 his wife, Catherine, was pregnant with their fifth. Dickens had just returned from a year-long trip to the United States that had been quite costly. His idea was to rent out the London home and for the family to retreat to the Continent for a year, but for that he needed funds.


So Charles Dickens needed a hit and quickly, but it's doubtful that in his most extreme fantasies, he could have foreseen the success and lasting cultural impact of A Christmas Carol.


At this time of year, attention often turns to Dickens's novel of Ebeneezer Scrooge, which gives us a superlative ghost story while introducing so many things that make up a "Merry Christmas." We enjoy the novel, the many film versions (while arguing over which actor is the best Scrooge), the new theatrical adaptations, even the cartoons.

"A Christmas Carol" original manuscript, purchased by J. P. Morgan in 1897.   Author: Courtesy of the Morgan Library

The original Dickens' manuscript is owned by the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City, one of its prized possessions, and from November 3, 2017, to January 14, 2018, the manuscript showing Dickens' own corrections is on display in the exhibition "Charles Dickens and the Spirit of Christmas."


Dickens was always preoccupied with the poor of England, especially in London and other cities. The country was going full tilt as an industrialized society, but that meant brutal working schedules for many, often 16 hours a day in the factories for six or seven days a week. "Child labor at the time was synonymous to slavery," wrote scholar Dr. Anindita Dutta. "Children were subject to inhuman torture, exploitation, and even death."

"A Christmas Carol" title page bearing Dickens' writing. Author: Courtesy of the Morgan Library

Some politicians, religious leaders, artists, and writers called for reform, but many others felt that there was no need to protect children from parents or guardians forcing them to work.

The year that Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, a newly married Victoria was on the throne, the Conservative Robert Peel was prime minister. The year before, 1842, an income tax was levied in England, for the first time in peace. There was a sense of turmoil in the country.


The 1834 New Poor Law had done much to criminalize poverty. Up to then, it had been up to the parishes to try to care for their poor as best they could. The new law said parishes must come together and create workhouses where aid would be provided. In the "workhouse," where families fallen on hard times were forced to live, conditions were kept as unpleasant as possible without actually killing people on order to make sure the message was clear. Inmates of the workhouse were fed three meals a day of thin gruel, with an onion twice a week and on Sundays perhaps a roll. When Ebeneezer demanded of those trying to collect money for the poor, "Are there no prisons, are there no workhouses?" and a man quietly answered that many would rather die than go there, he was speaking to an urgent social issue of the era.

Moreover, Dickens had experienced poverty firsthand. When he was 12, he was removed from school and sent to work at a blacking factory for at least 10 hours a day, six days a week. At the time, his father, John Dickens, was sentenced to Marshalsea Prison because he couldn't pay a debt of 40 pounds; his wife and children joined him there, while Charles lived alone in lodgings nearby, under pressure to help his father relieve the debt, which was the only way out of prison. The memories of this time scarred him for the rest of his life: "My whole nature was so penetrated with grief and humiliation."

The Ghost of Christmas Present. Author: Courtesy of the Morgan Library

By the time of the writing of A Christmas Carol, England was in the grip of "the hungry forties." Despite punitive measures—or perhaps because of them—there was rising unemployment and malnutrition in 1840s England.

In September 1843, Dickens visited the Samuel Starey's Field Land Ragged School, where the most deprived children of London's slums were taught lessons. He was disturbed by what he saw, and decided to tackle the gross unfairness of London society, its greed and callousness, in his book. "He had an idea of the state as a bad and neglectful parent of the poor," wrote Michael Slater in his biography Charles Dickens.

Dickens' portrait by Jeremiah Gurney. Author: Courtesy of the Morgan Library

Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in six weeks, writing intensely from about 9 AM to 2 PM every day, followed by long, brainstorming walks, as far as 20 miles. He penned it in black ink, with a goose quill. There was no outline, no first drafts. He wrote the novel in one sustained effort, making numerous corrections in the margins.


Perhaps because he was on a fierce deadline, Dickens took much from his own history to create the characters. Many believe that Bob Cratchit and his large family trembling on the brink of ruin was based on Dickens' own father, the hapless clerk John Dickens. "He had begun, from the time of writing A Christmas Carol onwards, to draw on his own early life for fictional purposes at a much deeper level than before," said biographer Michael Slater. "It comes closer here to the factual sufferings of his childhood than ever before."


When finished, A Christmas Carol was 68 pages long, what would now be called novella length. Incredibly, he conveyed it to a publisher on December 2nd and it was available for the reading public to purchase on December 19th.

Ghost of Christmas Present illustration. Author: Courtesy of the Morgan Library

The book met with universal delight, and sold 6,000 copies in five days. By Christmas Eve it was sold out and new printings ordered. Dickens was very pleased by the reviews—“a most prodigious success, the greatest, I think, I have ever achieved”—but upset that initially, the book did not fulfill his goal of making him a lot of money.


Dickens himself was responsible, for he had taken control of the printing details, and he insisted on expensive production, with salmon-colored cloths and finely detailed colored etchings, but a relatively low price of five shillings. This meant a very narrow margin of profit. After deducting all of his expenses, Dickens made a grand total of 137 pounds from A Christmas Carol in its first round of publication.


"What a wonderful thing it is, that such a great success should occasion me such intolerable anxiety and disappointment!" he wrote of his sales.

Charles Dickens did come around to believing that his creation of A Christmas Carol was well worth his time. Most immediately, it initiated the lucrative series of Christmas books that he wrote over the next few year. The Chimes (1844), The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man (1848) are all on display at the Morgan Library and Museum, along with the first one, the book that has never gone out of print: A Christmas Carol.

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of the 18th century-set novel 'The Blue,' published on Dec. 3, 2018, in the US, the UK, Australia and Canada. The protagonist is a Huguenot artist living in Spitalfields who becomes a spy in a porcelain factory. Publishers Weekly said, "Historical fans will be well satisfied."

Steve McQueen, Anyone?

I've always been fascinated by Steven McQueen--and I feel it's safe to say I'm not alone--but when I researched this story on him for The Vintage News, I learned about his ambition, his competitiveness, his troubled childhood, and his talent.

Steven McQueen, the Icon Who Started Out As a Scene Stealer

Ever since his death in 1980s at the age of 50, Steve McQueen’s reputation as the King of Cool has grown and grown. Black-and-white photos of McQueen’s lean, weather-beaten face squinting into the sun compete with vivid color images of him straddling a motorcycle or climbing out of a race car, his eyes startling blue. Then there are the photos of McQueen with his arm around his second wife, Ali Macgraw, the patrician brunette beauty fresh off Love Story who he stole from her Hollywood husband, Robert Evans, while she was his co-star in The Getaway.

An essential aspect of a cool persona is a temperament that is laid-back and confident. In the photos, it’s as if McQueen were saying, “I don’t have to work to get these acting parts or awards or million-dollar fees, or these race cars, or even these beautiful women, they just come to me without effort.”

But what is being lost in the iconography of Steven McQueen is how badly he wanted certain things, none more so than a film career in the late 1950s. There wasn’t much of anything he wouldn’t do to get it. The Magnificent Seven, released in 1960, is the story of McQueen’s reality. The King of Cool did more than break a sweat to get cast in and film this movie–he had a series of meltdowns.

To read the whole story, go here.

A Debut Thriller That is Literary, Edgy, and Fun

The Kindle Scout competition is an amazon program that gives book contracts to promising writers who post a cover and first chapter on the site. One book that won this year's Kindle Scout is The Gods Who Walk Among Us, written by Max Eastern. He loves noir and suspense fiction, and writes about his heroes Eric Ambler, Len Deighton, and Raymond Chandler on his website. This novel is his debut.

The eye-catching cover was designed by artist Stephanie Jones, who has worked for
Elle, DuJour, and Yahoo. Her website is here.

Amazon is discounting the price of the ebook to 99 cents until Dec. 16th, and I urge everyone who likes modern mysteries to check it out.

Here are a few reviews from talented authors:


"Fun, funny, twisted and surprising, this is a gritty and salicious New York City version of Raymond Chandler, and it's just what we needed here. I happen to really enjoy hard boiled noir and this was all that and the biscuits, too. If you dig the gossip pages, detective mysteries, and smart one-liners, then this is a book for you. Highly recommended." -- screenwriter and novelist Joshua James, author of Pound of Flesh


“I found a great new to me author in Max Eastern. I love how he brought his characters to life and made the situations in this novel seem as though they were happening in front of me.”–Terrie Farley Moran, national bestselling author of the Read Em and Eat Em mysteries.

“Max Eastern’s debut is witty, clever, and superbly executed, and I could not get enough of Adam Azoulay, the down on his luck failing lawyer turned paparazzi. If you want a fun ride and read, look no further than The Gods Who Walk Among Us.” — Robert K. Lewis, author of Critical Damage, finalist for 2015 Shamus Award.

To order the book, go here.

Medmenham Abbey: Medieval Monks, a Georgian Hedonist--and "Downton Abbey"

By Nancy Bilyeau

I've written about abbeys both beautiful and sacred, with ivy-covered crumbling walls and skeletal spires. "In lone magnificence a ruin stands" is a line contained in The Ruins of Netley Abbey, by 18th century poet George Keate. The monasteries have been places of sacrifice and study, of drama and struggle, of sad abandonment.

But the story of Medmenham Abbey is, safe to say, this abbey is in a category all its own.



Painting of Medmenham Abbey, as seen from the Thames

History does not record a single event of interest that took place within the abbey walls while Cistercian monks actually inhabited Medmenham between 1207 and 1536. It's what happened to a woman around the time of its founding and to a man two hundred years afters its dissolution that spark interest--and, in the case of what happened in the 18th century, an infamy that reverberates today.

THE FOUNDING: The person responsible for the abbey's existence was Isabel de Bolebec, a woman of strength who was determined to have a say in her own life. This was no small feat in the early 13th century, especially for an heiress.

The de Bolebecs were a family that possessed extensive land at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, mostly in Buckinghamshire. Isabel was the daughter and co-heiress of Hugh de Bolebec--builder of a stone castle with a moat--and is believed to have been born shortly before his death in 1165. Her first husband was Henry de Nonant, Lord of Totnes; they had no children together.

The mound is all that remains of
Bolebec Castle, destroyed by Oliver Cromwell

At some point Isabel granted lands to the abbey of Woburn, an existing house of Cistercian monks, and they decided to expand, using those lands. Medmenham Manor had belonged to her father, and she decided to bestow the land between the manor and the Thames to the Cistericians. She was clearly a pious woman who believed in religious patronage--she is best known for being a major benefactress of the Dominican order in England. In 1204 a colony of Cistercians began to live in the newly constructed abbey on the Thames.

King John, who controlled
heiresses and widows' lives

In 1206, Isabel's husband died, and she took the not-unusal step of petitioning King John for the right to not be married again or, if she did, to choose the man herself. She was about 40 years of age. Nearly all marriages of heiresses were arranged, with their fortunes as rich prizes for the king to bestow on men who he wished to favor. Some of these marriages were unhappy, even traumatic. Henry I is known to have charged rich widows for the privilege of remaining single. Sometimes the women had to pay the king in order for him to release back to them their own inheritances!

Isabel paid King John three hundred marks and three palfreys (horses) for the right to marry the man of her choice. He was Robert de Vere, a man her own age from a family as old and prestigious as the de Bolebec's. They had a son right away, naming him Hugh, and in 1214 her husband inherited from his brother the earldom of Oxford. The de Vere's managed to hold onto the the title of Earl of Oxford until 1703, all of them  descended from Isabel. Many of her descendants also carried her family's title--either Baron, Viscount or Lord Bolebec.

Isabel's descendant: The controversial Elizabethan nobleman
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of  Oxford and Viscount Bolebec

On June 15, 1215, when King John signed the Magna Carta, Isobel's husband, the Earl of Oxford, was one of 25 barons elected to guarantee its observance. Clauses seven and eight protected widows, by forbidding forced marriages at the command of the king and exempting them from having to pay for their own inheritances and dower. Those reforms must have had special meaning for the Earl of Oxford.  He died six years later; Isabel purchased the wardship of their son and the two of them went on a pilgrimage "beyond the seas."

Isabel died in 1245, around 80 years of age. When the Dominican friars of Oxford needed a larger priory in the 1230's, she and the bishop of Carlisle bought land south of Oxford and contributed most of the funds. She is buried in that church.


THE DISSOLUTION: When Henry VIII broke with Rome and began to dissolve the monasteries, the smaller ones were broken up first. Medmenham Abbey definitely fell under that category. In July 1536, the abbot and only one monk lived there--when they were evicted and pensioned off, the abbot received a pension of 10 marks. The Valor Ecclesiasticus put the abbey, the small village lying a quarter-mile away and the parish church at an estimated combined value of 20 pounds, 6 shillings.

An even graver tragedy struck at nearby Medmenham Manor. It had come into the possession of the Pole family, cousins to Henry VIII due to the bloodline of its matriarch, Margaret Plantagenet, daughter of the Duke of Clarence. In a fit of paranoia that those who possessed royal blood could try to overthrow him, the king lashed out at the Poles in the late 1530s. Margaret's son Henry Pole, Lord Montagu, who owned the manor, was beheaded for treason on Tower Hill, and his manor was claimed by the crown.

As for the abbey itself, Henry VIII granted the stone buildings and land to Thomas and Robert More; it passed to the Duffield family  in the late 16th century. Two centuries later, Francis Duffield leased the abbey to one Sir Francis Dashwood. It was then that everything changed.

THE INFAMY: Sir Francis Dashwood was born in London in 1708, the only child of a baronet who made a fortune in trade with Turkey. Sir Francis inherited his estates, title and money at the age of 15. He went on the Grand Tour of Europe in high style. Gossip circulated that along with a passion for art and literature, the young baronet formed a fondness for brothels.

By the age of 18, Dashwood was a prominent member of the Dilletanti Society, devoted to celebrating the values of ancient Rome and Greece. He spent a great deal of money turning his father's country estate, West Wycombe Park, into an Italianate villa that eventually became known as one of the most beautiful houses in England.

West Wycombe Park today

 He was obsessed with private societies, and in 1752 he formed what he dubbed the Brotherhood of St. Francis of Wycombe with likeminded friends such as the Earl of Sandwich. He soon decided a discreet location was needed, and Dashwood poured money into Medmenham Abbey, which was near West Wycombe Park. The abbey was easy to reach by boat from London.

The 13th century ruin was renovated to resemble a Gothic structure with this theme written in stained glass at the entrance: Do What Thou Will. Dashwood and his friends came up with a new name for themselves: the Monks of Medmenham. It was later that their most famous name sprang up: the Hellfire Club. Among its rumored members: the Earl of Bute, Frederick Prince of Wales, the Duke of Queensbury and even, as a visitor, Benjamin Frankin.

Sir Francis Dashwood, painted by Hogarth

What transpired inside the onetime abbey of Cistercians? Did the "monks" merely read poems and get drunk? Or were these gatherings blasphemous and pornographic, with Georgian aristocrats performing anti-Christian rituals and entertaining prostitutes dressed as nuns? Another theory was that the debauchery was a guise for political discussions, since many were members of the government opposition. Although a well-known hater of the Catholic Church, Sir Francis was dogged by suspicion of being a secret Jacobite.

London gossiped about little else but the secret society until the scandal overwhelmed the Medmenham community. Although Dashwood employed many people in the area, he must not have been popular after he and the Earl of Sandwich released a monkey into the parish church during services, and watched the worshippers flee, screaming. Dashwood took the Hellfire Club underground--literally. He moved the gatherings out of the abbey and into a series of tunnels he'd had carved out of the chalk and flint of West Wycombe Hill. The reports of the members' misdeeds grew even more shocking there. Amazingly, Dashwood, who inherited the title 15th Baron Le Dispenser, served in Parliament and rose to Chancellor of the Exchequer although, as was agreed upon by all: "Of financial knowledge he did not possess the rudiments."

Dashwood's "Hellfire Club" caves are today a tourist attraction

The Duffield family took back the abbey and sold it to the Chief Justice of Chester. It is unknown what the new owner did to Dashwood's Gothic creation. In 1898 the abbey was "restored" by a Mr. Hudson, and in the early part of the 20th century was owned by an army colonel. It is now the site of a prosperous waterfront property in private hands. Nothing of the abbey remains.

The Hellfire Club permeated the culture, popping up in new forms all over England and Ireland, and references can be found in novels, films, and songs. Often there is a whiff of blasphemy, of dark doings taking place in an abbey ruin. It didn't help that Alistair Crowley, the notorious occultist, adapted the Hellfire Club's "Do What Thou Wilt" to be a personal motto.

Diana Rigg in an Avengers episode
revolving around a 1960s Hellfire Club

THE FILM SET: But it is Sir Francis Dashwood's undeniable taste that brings the story from hell back to a bit of heaven. West Wycombe Park, his estate, is owned by the National Trust, although the present head of the Dashwood family lives in part of it with his family. The interiors are used by many film and TV companies today, including Downton Abbey's. When fans look upon the aristocratic rooms inhabited by the show's characters, they are catching a glimpse of the man who shocked Georgian society to the core.



Aunt Rosamund's London drawing room is actually the interior of West Wycombe Park

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of an award-winning trilogy of historical novels set in Tudor England: The Crown, The Chalice, and The Tapestry, published in North America, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Russia, and six other foreign countries. Her historical thriller set in the art and porcelain worlds of the 18th century, The Blue, will be published in late 2018.

The Chalice is being discounted by the publisher to .99. Go here for more information.

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In my series, I've written about other monastic ruins with fascinating histories.

Such as....

Rufford Abbey: Errant monks and the life of Arbella Stuart. Read here.

The Haunting Power of Whitby Abbey. Read here.

Tintern Abbey, a Treasure of Wales. Read here.

Searching for London's Blackfriars. Read here:

Cyber Sale on Tudor novel THE CHALICE

The publisher has discounted the ebook of THE CHALICE to 99 cents on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I'm pretty sure this is the cheapest it's ever been!

The Chalice is the second book in my trilogy set in the reign of Henry VIII. You don't need to have  read the first book, The Crown, to follow what is happening. It can stand alone. My main character, Joanna Stafford, is a Dominican novice whose way of life has been destroyed by Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. In The Chalice, Joanna risks everything to defy the most powerful authorities, fulfill a prophecy, and preserve the future of Christendom.

I'll share two reviews.

Parade magazine: "English history buffs and mystery fans alike will revel in Nancy Bilyeau's richly detailed novel."

The Romantic Times Book Reviews gave The Chalice the prize of Best Historical Mystery of the Year, and I went to New Orleans for the first time in my life to accept the award. It was a blast!

From the RT "Top Pick" review: 

"This novel is riveting, and provides fascinating insight into the lives of displaced nuns and priests during the tumultuous Tudor period. Bilyeau creates fully realized characters, with complex actions and emotions, driving the machinations of these historic personages...."

To read the full review, go here.

And to order from Amazon, go here. Barnes & Noble link is here.

News: A Publisher Bought My 4th Novel, THE BLUE

I have some tremendous news. I’ve written a fourth historical thriller and I have a new publisher for it. With this novel, I’m jumping to another century, one I’ve long been fascinated by … the 18th! With THE BLUE, the question becomes: What would you do for the most beautiful color in the world?

With this novel, the world of Hogarth replaces that of Holbein in my fiction!

The year is 1758, and a headstrong woman artist, 24-year-old Genevieve Planche, is caught up in a high-stakes competition to discover the ultimate color that threatens to become as deadly as it is lucrative. The story sweeps readers from the worlds of the silk-weaving Huguenot refugees of London’s Spitalfields and the luxury-obsessed drawing rooms of Grosvenor Square to the secretive porcelain factory of Derby and, finally, magnificent Sevres Porcelain, in the shadow of Versailles. And running through it all: the captivating history and dangerous allure of the color blue.

The publisher is Endeavour Press, which will be putting out the book in print and digital formats, in the UK and the United States. Endeavour is committed to historical fiction as well as all kinds of literature, and the imprint publishing my novel, Endeavour Ink, is going forward with authors such as Beryl Kingston, Michael Jecks, and Imogen Robertson. You can read a story on the publisher here.

Interview with Alison Weir on "Queens of the Conquest: England's Medieval Queens"

By Nancy Bilyeau

Alison Weir's new book of nonfiction, Queens of the Conquest: England's Medieval Queens, is nothing short of sensational. I've been a steady reader of Alison's since I devoured The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and while she has written essential books on the Tudors, I love it when she writes about people who lived even earlier, from The Princes in the Tower to The Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Kathryn Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster.

Alison has traveled even further back in time to write Queens of the Conquest. I knew little about Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror; Matilda of Scotland, wife of Henry I; Adeliza of Louvain, the second wife of Henry I; Mathilda of Boulogne, wife of King Stephen; and Empress Maud, England's first female ruler. Now, thanks to this meticulously researched and engrossing book, I feel as if they are flesh-and-blood, very distinct women.

I had to know more about how she pulled this off, and I reached out to Alison with some questions, which she graciously answered for me amid her book tour.


You wrote an excellent biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, "Queens of the Conquest," which ends with the reign of Eleanor and her husband, Henry II. When you were writing about Eleanor, did you think of taking a closer look at the earlier queens someday or did the idea come much more recently?

Alison Weir: Back in the 1970s, having written the original version of my book The Six Wives of Henry VIII, I researched all the medieval queens of England, with a view--somewhat ambitious, perhaps!--to becoming the new Agnes Strickland! In 1991, when The Six Wives of Henry VIII was finally published, a reader wrote urging me to write about Eleanor of Aquitaine. I got out the research and realised I had enough for a biography, but it took me years to persuade my publishers to commission it. I have long wanted to publish my research on the other medieval queens--some of it has appeared in my biographies of Isabella of France and Elizabeth of York, and in my books on the Wars of the Roses--and I'm delighted to have been commissioned to write four books on the subject. I need that scope to do it properly. It was originally going to be one book, but you can't do justice to the subject in a single volume.


I was thrilled by how much you were able to relay about the queens' lives in order to tell their stories, there was a wealth of rich detail. I was under the impression that there wasn't a great deal of original material on these women, and yet it's possible that that is a false assumption of mine? Is there more in contemporary documents about these queens than is commonly understood?


AW: The sources are patchy. There's very little on Adeliza of Louvain, for example, and a lot on the Empress Matilda. In places, I found I was trying to weave fragments of information into a cohesive text; and in others I was able to write a sweeping narrative. Fortunately, there are excellent chronicles for the period, and a surprising number of letters written by the queens.


The life of Matilda of Flanders, the wife of William the Conqueror, was fascinating. She was quite strong--do you think another common assumption is that these queens were submissive and very much in their husband's shadow?


AW: Yes, I do. I was startled to find that the Norman queens were regarded as 'sharers in the royal dominion', and almost as queens regnant. They exercised real power, compared to later queens. I am fascinated by the development of English queenship, and that is an over-arching theme in the book.


I found the life of Matilda of Scotland very moving. The political situation was such that she had to hide in a convent for protection, but that really haunted her during her whole life--that she was a nun who broke her vows to marry, which was just not true. Were you sympathetic to her?

AW: I admire her as another tough lady of integrity who knew her own mind and had great abilities - more than we are aware of. I think posterity was unfair to her.


Is there any queen of England more complex that Maud?


AW: Anne Boleyn? It's tempting to regard Maud from a modern, feminist perspective and take a more sympathetic view, but she lost the throne because of her appalling lack of political judgement. No one complained that a woman had no right to rule - you will search in vain for evidence that they did - and at one point Maud carried almost the whole kingdom with her. If she had shown herself conciliatory and bountiful, her arrogance would have been forgiven.


Do you think King Henry I was a pleasant husband for either of his wives? Or was he pretty much what most wives would have to deal with in that century?


AW: He was considerate towards them, and did not demur when Matilda of Scotland decided she wanted no more children. Certainly he relied on her to rule as regent while he was abroad, which argues a high degree of respect for her. And he was careful not to blame Adeliza of Louvain for her failure to bear him an heir, and even sensitive to her embarrassment and sense of failure when he had publicly to make alternative plans for the succession. But he was serially unfaithful to both wives, although there is no record of either of them complaining, and they accepted the presence of his bastards at court. They must have been aware that he could be cruel and ruthless, but he never displayed such behaviour towards them.



I wanted to switch to your novel of Anne Boleyn, which was extremely interesting as well. Do you think the key to understanding her is that she never loved Henry VIII or even found him physically attractive?


AW: Thank you! Yes, I think her story makes more sense if you go with George Wyatt's statement that ‘she imagined that there was less freedom in her union with her lord and King than with one more agreeable to her’, which suggests that Henry the man was not particularly agreeable to her. But she was the product of an ambitious family, and it is likely that the prospect of becoming queen outweighed all other considerations.


Can you tell us anything about your perspective on Jane Seymour, the book that is next in that series of the novels of the wives of Henry VIII?


AW: I can only say that the novel is built on exciting new research! Jane is an enigma. Historians endlessly debate whether or not she was the demure and virtuous willing instrument of an ambitious family and an ardent and powerful king; or whether she was as ambitious as her relations and played a pro-active part in bringing down the Queen whom she served. I hope I've offered a credible reading of her. I found some interesting evidence about her obstetric history. But the most startling development was in regard to her death. Traditionally, it has been assumed that Jane died from puerperal fever, yet when I studied the sources for her final illness, and looked at the chronology, an anomaly emerged. I got a team of medical experts on the case, and they all said the same thing. But it's under wraps until the book comes out!

Stafford Castle: The Stronghold of the Family Too Close to the Throne

By Nancy Bilyeau


The protagonist of my trilogy The Crown, The Chalice, and The Tapestry, Joanna Stafford, is fictional but the family was quite real. The Staffords played an important part in the War of the Roses, fighting on the side of Lancaster. But through a royal marriage and aggressive acquiring of land and titles, the Staffords had become too rich and powerful as far as the reigning monarchs were concerned.

First the Yorks and then the Tudor monarchs had trouble with the Staffords. Richard III had Henry Stafford, 2nd duke of Buckingham, executed for treason. A generation later, Henry VIII ordered the death of Edward Stafford, 3rd duke of Buckingham, also for treason.

Edward Stafford, 3rd duke of Buckingham

The family's rise and fall is inextricably linked to Stafford Castle, in Staffordshire, the west midlands. All that is left is remains of this once proud medieval castle, which stands tall against the sky on the edge of a ridge.

In the 1070s a Norman lord raised a wooden building on the hill, worried about the rebellious Saxon population. In 1347, Ralph de Stafford, a supporter of Edward III and founding member of the Order of the Garter, built a stone castle on the same site. Ralph was a tough, ambitious and ruthless soldier, still leading troops when he was 60 years old. After his first wife had died, he abducted a wealthy young heiress and married her, ignoring the outrage of her parents. When the girl's family turned to Edward III for justice, he refused to order Stafford to give up his bride. Instead, he gave the girl's parents more titles.


The great-grandson of this roughly made union was Humphrey Stafford, first duke of Buckingham. Stafford Castle's heyday was during the life of Duke Humphrey, who built a massive rectangular stone keep, a tower in each corner.

The castle's "interior," today

Carole Rawcliffe, in the book The Staffords, wrote:

"The first Duke of Buckingham's household was an itinerant body which accompanied him from one lordship to another as he toured his estates or executed official business....The oldest and in many ways the most impressive was Stafford Castle, where Duke Humphrey kept a large stable with a resident staff of over forty yeomen and grooms. The castle, dominating the town and its environs, provided an ideal recruitment centre and assembly point for his retainers in Cheshire, Staffordshire and the Welsh March."

Duke Humphrey died in the Battle of Northampton, leading the Lancastrian army at the age of 58. Before the battle in support of King Henry VI he had informed the Yorkist side via messenger: "The Earl of Warwick shall not come to the king's presence and if he comes he shall die." The duke was not able to keep that promise; he was slain by Yorkist soldiers outside Henry VI's tent, defending his king to his last breath.

Humphrey Stafford

The second Duke of Buckingham also exhibited the family's taste for bravado. He helped Richard, Duke of Gloucester, take possession of the teenage Edward V, conveying him to the Tower of London. But then he turned against Richard once he became king, led a rebellion and was beheaded for his betrayal.


As for the third duke, a man of "harsh and acquisitive disposition," he was an early victim of Henry VIII's paranoia about relatives who could try to take his throne. There was little proof of treason introduced at Edward Stafford's trial except for testimony that he'd met with a monk who prophesied the future of Henry VIII--how long would he live and whether he'd have a son. To the Tudors, this was more than enough.


The family never recovered from the execution of Buckingham in 1521. Although Stafford Castle was the family seat, the duke had lived most of the time in such grand homes as Thornbury Castle. But all of this property was seized by the crown after Buckingham's death and his widow and children were left with nothing at first. After a couple of years, Henry VIII returned one home--Stafford Castle--to the devastated clan. It was all that remained of their vast holdings across the kingdom.

The oldest son, Henry, Lord Stafford, lived at the castle with his wife, Ursula, and their 14 children for the rest of his life. Fearful of drawing attention, he played no part in politics and rarely attended court. He spent pleasurable hours in his private library, which included at least 300 books, translating works from Latin and dabbling in writing himself. He was in some ways the anti-Stafford.


But he had a problem: he owned almost no land beyond the immediate vicinity of the castle, and his need for money was intense.


That is why on April 27, 1536, Lord Stafford wrote this craven letter to Thomas Cromwell, chief minister of Henry VIII:

"Though I am least able to serve you, yet the comfort you gave me makes me bold to write to you. I beg you will use means with the King that I may have the farm of the abbey of Rantone, if it be dissolved. It is within four miles of my house and reaches my park pale, and I will give as much for it as any man. I heard that the Queen had moved the King to have me in remembrance for it, and he was content, saying it was alms to help me, having so many children on my hands. I heard that Geo. Blunt endeavours to obstruct my suit. By the last act of the Lords Marchers my income will be 20l. a year less. In the matter which I showed you of my lord of Wiltshire's motion, pray make my humble submission to the King."

The queen in question was Anne Boleyn and the "lord of Wiltshire" her father. Apart from the fact that it was unlikely that the Reform-minded queen would support the cause of an old Catholic disenfranchised aristocratic family, there was a sensational scandal at court that put Stafford's request at the bottom of any list. Cromwell was interrogating suspected lovers of the queen at the end of April. Anne Boleyn would be arrested and beheaded in May. Poor Henry Stafford had made his desperate plea for patronage of the wrong faction at the wrong time.

Henry Stafford had better luck when Catholic Mary Tudor succeeded to the throne. He petitioned the queen for financial assistance in 1554 and was made a chamberlain of the exchequer, a position that brought him 50 pounds a year.

Lord Stafford died in his bed at the age of 62. With little income to draw on, the castle continued to crumble, and his grandson referred to it as "my rotten castle of Stafford" in 1603.

Which brings us to Lady Isabel Stafford. When the Civil War broke out, the family still held the castle, though how is hard to imagine. They had the dusty prestige of the name "Stafford," but the dukedom of Buckingham had been given away to favorites of the Stuart monarchy long ago.

Nonetheless, Lady Isabel showed the same fire as the first Staffords. The town near the castle sided with the forces trying to topple Charles I. But Isabel, being a determined Royalist, held the castle as a siege against Parliamentarian forces in May of 1643.

A Colonel Brereton approached the castle with his men and called on her to surrender. Isabel refused. The men set fire to some of the wooden buildings outlying the castle "to work their spirits to any relenting." Far from relenting, it led the Stafford force within to fire shots from the castle. The fires started in earnest then, "to provoke a serious revenge." But they could not damage the main castle, and in frustration retreated.

A Royalist relief force arrived and Lady Isabel left. But later that summer the garrison that was left to defend Stafford Castle fled when a large Parliamentarian army approached. On December 22nd, the Parliamentarian Committee of Stafford ordered "the castle shall be forthwith demolished" so that it could never again serve as a defendable source of opposition. And so it was.

The great Stafford Castle was no more. A traveler riding by wrote "the castle is now ruinated." The glory of the family and the castle that bore its name was finally over.

In 1813, a new family tried to rebuild Stafford Castle in the Gothic Revival Style but ran out of money. The keep, however, was occupied up until the 20th century by caretaker families who offered tours and served tea. In 1961, a member of the Stafford family, worried about public safety, gave the keep to the local authorities.



This castle has an unqualified happy ending, however. Stafford Castle has a thriving visitor centre today, running many education programs and for years has served as an inspiring backdrop for Shakespearean plays. Seeing that a few Staffords have appeared as characters in the plays of the Bard, this seems fitting indeed.

Summer Shakespeare, at Stafford Castle

To learn more about Stafford Castle today, go here.

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of the award winning trilogy The Crown, The Chalice, and The Tapestry, for sale in North America, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Russia, and the Netherlands. The Crown was an Oprah pick, and The Tapestry a finalist for the Daphne du Maurier Award for Best Historical Suspense.

Touchstone Books has discounted The Chalice to .99 as an ebook in the U.S. Go here.

The Big Ideas Behind "Small Hours"

By Nancy Bilyeau

There are some books you open at Page One and the next time you look up, hours and perhaps days have passed and you just made it to the end. It's impossible to tear yourself away. Jennifer Kitses' Small Hours is an engrossing novel of a single day in the life of a young couple whose suburban life is far less perfect than it seems. Over the course of a single day, the viewpoint swings back and forth between Helen Nichols, a graphic designer working at home while taking care of young twins, and Tom Foster, the commuter in the family who is hanging on to his job as a financial editor by a thread. Money problems and the stress of parenting are taking a toll on Helen and Tom, issues that I could completely relate to--and I'm sure I'm not alone. As their lives unravel, the tensions and secrets between the two come to a full boil. I found myself reading the book while holding my breath! 

I caught up with Jennifer Kitses to ask her some questions about this, her debut novel. 

Has your life ever changed this substantially in a single day?

I’m not sure if my life has ever changed significantly in one day. (If so, I’ve erased that from my memory!) But I’ve had many days, particularly when my twin daughters were very little, when I experienced so much in one day: maybe there’s a major problem at work (the kind that can cost you a job), and then something crazy happens at the park, and then suddenly a child is very sick and needs to go to the emergency room, and meanwhile everyone in the family is sleep-deprived and making one terrible decision after another. I’ve had that day many times, only to get up the next morning and start the process all over again. I think there’s definitely a kid-factor at play here, but these types of days can happen to anyone. One you’ve made one terrible decision or had a moment of bad luck, more seem to follow ¾ it’s like there’s a law of compounding errors

Do you think of this story as one about a strong marriage being tested by a devastated economy (and specifically the downturn and collapse of the media) or is it primarily about the issues the couple have deep down and they would manifest no matter how their careers fared?

Tom and Helen face a number of crises over the course of one day, and I think they would be forced to confront some of their problems--particularly the ones that arise in Tom’s storyline--no matter what they were experiencing financially. However, Helen’s story is very closely tied to changes in the economy, and to her position in it. She is watching her family slide down the economic ladder. She’s very aware of how job losses and downsizing have hurt her family, and how the financial decisions and mistakes that she and Tom have made are now affecting their well-being.

The year isn’t specified in the novel, but the 2008 financial crisis was very much on my mind as I was writing it: Tom and Helen bought their house at the height of the market, and then they were hit by the collapse of the media industry and the economic downturn. But I also feel that the middle class has been struggling for a long time, and that was something I wanted to weave into the story. There’s a large section of the middle class (increasing all the time, it seems to me) that is barely scraping by, and the downsizing of a job or even an unexpected medical bill can be devastating.

Would you say that trust is a theme of the novel?

Trust is one of those themes that sort of worked its way in, without my realizing it at the time. I think both Tom and Helen would say that they trust each other completely. Yet at the same time, neither is being completely truthful, or trustworthy. They both have trouble with self-perception. I’ve always been fascinated with the difference between how we see ourselves and who we really are, and that runs through the story. (Personally, I think most people are still deserving of trust, even after terrible errors of judgment.) 

Is the upstate New York town based on a real place? It felt incredibly real.

Devon is based partly on Beacon, New York, although the real Beacon is faring a lot better than my imaginary town. I also brought in aspects of Maynard, Massachusetts--another former mill town that I love.

Doing the research about the setting was one of my favorite parts of working on this book. I loved taking the train to Beacon on weekdays, and seeing what it felt like when so many people were off at their jobs in the city. I’ve often imagined leaving the city for various Hudson Valley towns, and it was great to have an excuse to explore.

How about the jobs that the husband and wife have? That too felt very authentic. Did you need to do research being a graphic artist or a financial editor?

After putting aside an earlier novel that required endless research, I decided to make things a little easier for myself with this story. So I borrowed a lot from my personal experience. I was a reporter at a financial newswire (Bloomberg News) for about four years, and I’ve also worked at magazines, so I was able to draw on those settings for Tom’s workplace. Helen’s job is based on my husband’s work in graphic design. He read all of those sections very carefully, many times, and even helped me vet product names for nutritional supplements (which play a role in Helen’s job). There are so many crazy supplements out there--it was hard to come up with names that aren’t actual products!

Did you consider telling the story from one character’s point of view initially and then it became the back and forth?

I planned on the alternating points-of-view from the start, and I was so happy to find a structure that worked. It made sense, because I wanted to tell each of their stories. Also, I was interested in how Tom and Helen each have their own, full life (at home and at work, with and without their kids, on the subway and at the playground), and yet they come together at the beginning and end of their days, and connect at various times. Each is a strong presence in the other’s life, but they live in their own worlds.

Which writers have most influenced you in how you approached this novel?

There was definitely a Tom Perrotta influence; I’m a huge fan of Little Children and Election, which have shifting points-of-view and a lot of momentum. But crime novels have also been a major influence, because I’m drawn to stories with tension and suspense. Current favorites are Richard Price and Kate Atkinson, for her Jackson Brodie series. Sometimes I’m very influenced by a single book by a writer; I love the sense of place in The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem.

What is your next book?

I’m very excited about the story I’m working on now, but it’s still in early stages. I’m guessing it will change a lot over the next few drafts. I wish I knew a better--or faster!--way, but at this point the details are still falling into place.

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Jennifer Kitses is the author of the novel Small Hours. She received an MLitt in creative writing from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and has worked for Bloomberg News, Condé Nast Portfolio, and Columbia Business School. Her fiction has appeared in Akashic Books' online series, Mondays Are Murder. She lives with her family in New York. You can follow her on Twitter at @JenKitses.

A Tudor Halloween + Giveaway of "The Tapestry"

by Nancy Bilyeau

This post originally ran on English Historical Fiction Authors.

I have a passion for 16th century England. My friends and family, not to mention my agent and editors, are accustomed to my obsession with the Tudorverse. Namely, that for me, all roads lead back to the family that ruled England from 1485 to 1603. Could it be possible that Halloween, one of my favorite days of the year, is also linked to the Tudors?

Yes, it turns out, it could.

The first recorded use of the word "Halloween" was in mid-16th century England. It is a shortened version of "All-Hallows-Even" ("evening"), the night before All Hallows Day, another name for the Christian feast that honors saints on the first of November.

But it's not just a literal connection. To me, there's a certain spirit of Halloween that harkens back to the Tudor era as well. Not the jack o' lanterns, apple-bobs and haunted houses (and not the wonderful Christopher Lee "Dracula" movies that I watch on TCM network every October, two in a row if I can). It's that mood, frightening and mysterious and exciting too, of ghosts flitting through the trees; of charms that just might bring you your heart's desire; of a distant bonfire spotted in the forest; of a crone's chilling prophecy.

The Oxford Astrologer

In pre-Reformation England, the Catholic Church co-existed with belief in astrology and magic. It was quite common to attend Mass regularly and to consult astrologers. "The medieval church appeared as a vast reservoir of magical power," writes Keith Thomas in his brilliant 1971 book Religion and the Decline of Magic.

Faithful Catholics tolerated the traditions of the centuries-old Celtic festival of Samhain ("summer's end"), when people lit bonfires and put on costumes to scare away the spirits of the unfriendly dead. In fact, an Eighth Century pope named November 1st as the day to honor all Catholic saints and martyrs with an eye toward Samhain.

Soul cakes

Nothing shows the merger of Celtic and Christian beliefs better than "soul cakes." These small, round cakes, filled with nutmeg or cinnamon or currants, were made for All Saints’ Day on November 1st. The cakes were offered as a way to say prayers for the departed (you can picture the village priest nodding in approval) but they were also given away to protect people on the day of the year that the wall was thinnest between the living and the dead, a Celtic if not Druid belief. I am fascinated by soul cakes, and I worked them into my first novel, The Crown, a thriller set in 1537-1538 England. Soul cakes even end up being a clue!

In the early 16th century, Halloween on October 31st, All Saints’ Day (or All Hallows Day) on November 1st and All Souls’ Day on November 2nd were a complex grouping of traditions and observances. Life revolved around the regular worship, the holidays and the feast days that constituted the liturgy. As the great Eamon Duffy wrote: "For within that great seasonal cycle of fast and festival, of ritual observance and symbolic gesture, lay Christians found the paradigms and the stories which shaped their perception of the world and their place in it."

Sculptures smashed at Worcester Cathedral.

Henry VIII changed the perceptions of the kingdom forever when he broke from Rome. A guiding force in his reformation of the Catholic Church was the destruction of what he and his chief minister Thomas Cromwell scorned as "superstition." Saints' statues were removed; murals telling mystical stories were painted over; shrines were pillaged; the number of feast days was sharply reduced so that more work could be done during the growing season. "The Protestant reformers rejected the magical powers and supernatural sanctions which had been so plentifully invoked by the medieval church," writes Keith Thomas. The story in The Crown is told from the perspective of a young Catholic novice who struggles to cope with these radical changes.



My children love Halloween as much as I do. Yet somehow Halloween, the day before All Saints’ Day, survived the government's anti-superstition movement, to grow and survive long after the Tudors were followed by the Stuarts. It’s now a secular holiday that children adore (including mine, who are trying on costumes four days early). 

As for me, I relish the candy handouts, costumes and scary movies—and I also cherish our society’s stubborn fondness for bonfires and charms and ghosts and sweet cakes, for in them can be found echoes of life in the age of the Tudors.

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of the award-winning Tudor mystery series "The Crown," "The Chalice" and "The Tapestry" and a magazine editor who has lived in the United States and Canada.

For the next four days, this Halloween giveaway will run. If you're interested in a signed copy of The Tapestry being mailed to you, comment below and please include your email address. There are six copies available.

Historical Novel Society starred review of The Tapestry: "She captures the fear, danger and paranoia of the Tudor court as well as its extravagant splendour – not to mention all its complications....A highly recommended, gripping novel."