Interview with Mystery Author Max Eastern

By Nancy Bilyeau

Max Eastern's debut novel is a suspenseful, hard-boiled, edgy and amusing story of a lawyer turned paparazzi who gets in way over his head with some dangerous people. The book, The Gods Who Walk Among Us, won the Kindle Scout competition and was published last year. Amazon selected it for a recent promotion of the top-rated mysteries and thrillers.

As one reader said in his review on Amazon: "When it comes to urban suspense, it's all in the details and the attitude and this book delivers both big time. Paparazzo Adam Azoulay stumbles into something much bigger than he bargained for when he spots a model/actress/vegan cleanse addict with an African dictator. What follows is a wild ride through a New York populated by exposure hungry celebs, air-headed philanthropists, a desperate dad, and a guy who just wants the truth told about a mass grave. Azoulay is great, cynical company and Eastern is meticulous and affectionate in his attention to the details of a still delightfully scuzzy NYC. This is a smart, sharp read that would appeal to Elmore Leonard fans and people who actually peruse a newspaper from time to time."

I got a chance to ask Max a couple of questions about his book, which I enjoyed quite a bit:




Question: It feels as if New York City is a character in this novel, you bring it to life with such vivid skill. How do you feel about the city?



Max Eastern: New York is classic; it's the center of the world, a glittering beacon on the seas, a cultural capital, where the best of the best are, a prosperous, rich epitome. But if you live here it's endless construction, subway delays, tiny, inadequate apartments, loud cheap window air conditioners, garbage collection at 12:00 am, weird smells, unidentifiable substances dripping from subway station rafters, endless lines. A recent contestant on Wheel of Fortune said he was a helicopter pilot for the NYPD. They first time that came to mind: was this the guy who hovered over my apartment for half an hour at midnight last night?

One of Max Eastern's photos of NYC, serving as inspiration image

Question: The plot revolves around a desperate--and very funny--effort to find a reclusive humanitarian figure in order to give him an award. I suspect you have quite specific feelings about awards.

Max Eastern: Awards are great if you get one and it feels good to give one to show appreciation and admiration, but they've gotten out of control. The spread of awards is crazy. Too much glad handing and back patting, and worship because a bunch of people got together to say someone gets a prize. The mutual appreciation societies are endemic and soul killing, and who really knows how they decide or every who decides. The Nobel Peace prize is awarded by Norwegian ex legislators. Does their imprimatur mean anything to you?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To read an excerpt of Max's book and his blog posts about noir and hard-boiled thrillers--and his search for the perfect gin gimlet, the kind that Raymond Chandler wrote about, go to his website.

True or False? Debunking the myths of the Death of Henry VIII

By Nancy Bilyeau

No one would have called Sir Anthony Denny a brave man, but on the evening of January 27, 1547, the Gentleman of the Privy Chamber performed a duty the most resolute would recoil from: He informed Henry VIII that “in man’s judgment you are not like to live.”

            The 55-year-old king, lying in his vast bed in Westminster Palace, replied he believed “the mercy of Christ is able to pardon me all my sins, yes, though they were greater than they be.” When asked if he wanted to speak to any “learned man,” King Henry asked for Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer “but I will first take a little sleep. And then, as I feel myself, I will advise on the matter.”

            Cranmer was sent for but it took hours for the archbishop to make his way on frozen roads. Shortly after midnight, Henry VIII was barely conscious, unable to speak. The faithful Cranmer always insisted that when he asked for a sign that his monarch trusted in the mercy of Christ, Henry Tudor squeezed his hand.

            At about 2 a.m. on January 28th Henry VIII died, “probably from renal and liver failure, coupled with the effects of his obesity,” says Robert Hutchinson in his 2005 book The Last Days of Henry VIII: Conspiracies, Treason and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant.

            It was a subdued end to a riotous life. The sources for what happened that night are respected, though they are secondary, coming long after the event: Gilbert Burnet’s History of the Reformation of the Church of England (1679) and John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (1874).

            Yet there are other stories told of the death and funeral of Henry VIII. He was perhaps the most famous king in English history, and so it is no surprise that in books and on the Internet, some strange or maudlin words and ghoulish acts have attached themselves to his demise.

            It is time to address them, one by one.

            Myth 1: “Monks, monks, monks”

            Henry VIII broke from Rome and made himself the head of the Church of England, dissolving the monasteries. The monks and friars and nuns faithful to the Pope lost their homes and were turned out on the road. Those who defied the king and denied the royal supremacy, such as the Carthusian martyrs, were tortured and killed.  

            Did the king regret it at the end? “He expired soon after allegedly uttering his last words: ‘Monks! Monks! Monks!’" says the Wikipedia entry for Henry VIII. It’s a story that has popped up in books too. The major source for it seems to be Agnes Strickland, a 19^th century poet turned historian who penned the eight-volume Lives of the Queens of England from the Norman Conquest, and Lives of the Queens of Scotland, and English Princesses. Strickland writes: The king “was afflicted with visionary horrors at the hour of his departure; for that he glanced with rolling eyes and looks of wild import towards the darker recesses of his chamber, muttering, ‘Monks—monks!’ ”

            More on Strickland later. But when it comes to visions of cowled avengers glowering in the corner, it seems certain that this is an embellishment, an attempt at poetic justice. But not something that happened. Most likely at the final hour Henry regretted nothing.

Myth 2: “Cried out for Jane Seymour”

            Another story is that while dying Henry VIII cried out for his third wife, the long dead Jane Seymour. It supports the idea that Jane, the pale lady-in-waiting who rapidly replaced Anne Boleyn, was the love of Henry’s life. He did, after all, request to be buried next to her. And whenever a family portrait was commissioned after 1537, Jane was shown sitting beside him, rather than one of the wives he was actually married to. But Henry VIII does not quite deserve his reputation for being impossible to please when it comes to women. He actually had a low bar for marital success: birth of a baby boy. Jane produced the son who became Edward VI—doing so killed her—and thus moved to the top of the pecking order. 

Whether he actually loved Jane more than the five other spouses (not to mention those alluring mistresses) is best left to screenwriters. But one thing seems certain: Henry VIII did not cry for his third wife while expiring. There is no historical source for it.

           

Myth 3: “And the dogs will lick his blood”

            The most macabre story of all supposedly happened weeks after the king died but before he was lowered into the crypt next to Jane Seymour in St. George’s Chapel.  On February 14th, the king’s corpse was transported in a lead coffin from Westminster to Windsor; the procession of thousands lasted two days. There was a large funeral effigy on top of the coffin, complete with crown at one end and crimson velvet shoes at the other, that, one chronicler said fearfully, was so realistic “he seemed just as if he were alive.”

            At the halfway mark, the coffin was housed in Syon Abbey, once one of England’s most prestigious religious houses. That is fact. But the rest is suspect. Because of an accident or just the undoubted heaviness of the monarch’s coffin—Henry VIII weighed well over 300 pounds at his death—there was supposedly a leak in the night, and either blood or “putrid matter” leaked onto the floor. When men arrived in the morning, a stray dog was seen licking under the coffin, goes the tale.

            This hearkened to an unforgettable Easter Sunday sermon in 1532 before the king and his soon-to-be-second-wife, Anne Boleyn. Friar William Peto, provincial of the Observant Franciscans and a fiery supporter of first wife Katherine of Aragon, compared Henry VIII to King Ahab, husband of Jezebel. According to Scripture, after Ahab died, wild dogs licked his blood. Peto thundered that the same thing would happen to the English king.

            Gilbert Burnet is the main source for the coffin-leaking story. A Scottish theologian and bishop of Salisbury, he is today considered reliable—except when he’s not. One historian, while praising Burnet’s book as an “epoch in our historical literature,” fretted that “a great deal of fault has been found—and, no doubt, justly—with the inaccuracy and general imperfection of the transcripts on which his work was largely founded and which gave rise to endless blunders.” One of Burnet’s most well known contributions to Tudor lore was that a disappointed Henry VIII described fourth wife Anne of Cleves as a “Flanders mare.” Author Antonia Fraser, in particular, writes sternly that Burnet had “no contemporary reference to back it up” in her book The Six Wives of Henry VIII.

             What seems undeniable is that the foundation Burnet created, Agnes Strickland built on. Indeed, she raised a whole Gothic mansion in her own description of that night in Syon: “The King, being carried to Windsor to be buried, stood all night among the broken walls of Syon, and there the leaden coffin being cleft by the shaking of the carriage, the pavement of the church was wetted with Henry’s blood. In the morning came plumbers to solder the coffin, under whose feet—‘I tremble while I write it,’ says the author—‘was suddenly seen a dog creeping, and licking up the king’s blood. If you ask me how I know this, I answer, William Greville, who could scarcely drive away the dog, told me and so did the plumber also.’

             “It appears certain that the sleepy mourners and choristers had retired to rest, after the midnight dirges were sung, leaving the dead king to defend himself, as best as he might, from the assaults of his ghostly enemies, and some people might think they made their approaches in a currish form. It is scarcely, however, to be wondered that a circumstance so frightful should have excited feelings of superstitious horror, especially at such a time and place; for this desecrated convent had been the prison of his unhappy queen, Katherine Howard, whose tragic fate was fresh in the minds of men; and by a singular coincidence it happened that Henry’s corpse rested there the very day after the fifth anniversary of her execution.”

              Putting aside Strickland’s Bram Stoker-esque prose, there’s the question of whether such a ghastly thing could even occur. Sixteen-century embalmment did not call for completely draining a corpse of blood, it is true. And medical experts say it is possible that fluids circulate 17 days after death.

              But Strickland’s fervent connections to not only Friar Peto’s sermon but also Syon’s monastery past—echoing the “Monks, monks, monks” poetic justice—and the (near) anniversary of Katherine Howard’s death make it seem likely that this was a case of too good a story to resist.

               No one disturbed the coffin of the indomitable King Henry VIII—not even ghosts in “currish form.”


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Read Nancy Bilyeau's newsletter for more links to nonfiction stories about history and for more information on Nancy Bilyeau's 4th book, a spy novel set in the 18th century: The Blue. To subscribe to the monthly newsletter, sign up here.

Nancy Bilyeau is the author of a trilogy of Tudor-era historical thriller.  THE CROWN, published in nine countries, was shortlisted for the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award. The protagonist is a Dominican novice taking on the most important men of the era.  THE CHALICE was published in 2013 and won the RT award for Best Historical Mystery. The third and final book in the series, THE TAPESTRY, was a finalist for the Daphne du Maurier award for Best Historical Suspense. For more information, go to www.nancybilyeau.com

Searching for Blackfriars: The Lost World of Dominican Glory

By Nancy Bilyeau


"Catherine, queen of England, come into the court!"

It was the third call made by the crier, commanded by Henry VIII to stop the queen from leaving the tribunal court convened to inquire into the legality of their 20-year marriage. On that day, June 21, 1529, before a vast room occupied by two scarlet-clad cardinals, nobles of the realm and a throng of spectators, Catherine threw herself at the feet of the man who was desperate to divorce her in order to marry another woman.

Immortalized by Shakespeare, Queen Catherine said:

Sir, I desire you do me right and justice; and to bestow your pity on me; for I am a most poor woman, and a stranger; born out of your dominions; having here no judge indifferent, nor no more assurance of equal friendship and proceedings. Alas, Sir, in what way have I offended you? What cause hath my behavior given to your displeasure, that thus you should proceed to put me off, and take your good grace from me?

 After finishing her entreaty to an embarrassed and unmoved husband, Catherine rose, ignored the crier, saying,  "It matters not, this is no indifferent court for me. I will not tarry." And she left. When the queen reached the sight of the crowd of commoners gathered outside, they cheered for her, the sound of it wafting into the chamber she'd left behind.

It is an unforgettable scene, one that has shaken and moved me each time I read Catherine of Aragon's plea to be spared such a humiliating rejection. Perhaps it was the draw of such high drama--the cheers and cries and arguments of The Great Matter--that led me to search that section of London for the place where the royal confrontation took place: Blackfriars. But there is another reason too.

In my novels, The Crown, The Chalice, and The Tapestry, I write the stories through the eyes of a Dominican novice who lives at the priory of Dartford, in Kent. It was the sole house of Dominican sisters in the kingdom. But the largest male Dominican establishment in England--and one of the most prestigious in all of Europe--was the monastery of friars dubbed Blackfriars. In its vast complex, the upper frater building, 110 feet long and 52 feet wide with two-foot-thick stonewalls, had a second-storey room called the Parliamentary Chamber. Many important sessions of government were held there.

It's natural to be surprised that a friary would possess such a chamber; the medieval monarchs' respect for the large monastic orders--Dominicans, Benedictines, and Franciscans--is not much written about. The first followers of St Dominic arrived in England in 1221. Over the next 50 years, their influence, and their numbers, grew as, pledged to humility and poverty, they stayed in various churches. They were nicknamed "Blackfriars" because of the color of their robes.

Edward I

Edward I was the principal patron of the new Blackfriars friary in London. He made a gift of 200 marks in 1280 to raise the church; construction of all the buildings--cloister, frater, infirmary, chapel, dormitory, vestry, buttery, brewery--lasted at least 20 years. King Edward took its creation so seriously that he extended the western perimeter wall of the city of London so the friars could have more room. Their property extended from the Thames River to Ludgate; the friars, moreover, were not answerable to the mayor or any governmental officials of the city. They were a city within the city.

After the work was finished, King Edward I conducted state business in Blackfriars and even slept there on occasion. Did nights spent on a friar's pallet afford more peace for Edward Longshanks, the Hammer of the Scots? Perhaps.

The Dominicans were grateful to their patron, so much so that they staunchly defended his son, Edward II, when no one else did. After Edward II was deposed by his French wife and her allies, the Blackfriars were distrusted and blamed for a time and had to go into hiding.

Edward II coronation

There are no more instances of Dominicans'  dangerous interference with political affairs. On the property, houses were built and lent to those not affiliated with the friars. It became a fashionable place to live, known for its gardens. Sir William Kingston retired to Blackfriars precinct after his years of service managing the Tower of London, dealing with such prisoners as King Henry's second wife, Anne Boleyn. The Parr family also had a house in Blackfriars, and Henry VIII's sixth wife, also named Catherine, was born there in 1512. 

When the end came in the 1530s and Henry VIII, denied his divorce by Rome, declared himself head of the Church of England, the Dominicans did not martyr themselves, like the Carthusian monks. The prior, John Hilsey, surrendered Blackfriars without any known objection in November 1538. The 15 friars living there were ejected and the friary officially closed. For his cooperation, Prior Hilsey received a pension of 60 pounds for the rest of his life and could stay in prior's lodgings, which included larders, buttery, kitchen, storeroom, cellar, gallery and other parcels.

Blackfriars as Elizabethan playhouse

Throughout the rest of the 16th century, the buildings and gardens of Blackfriars were sold to various courtiers. Large structures were broken up; later, some of the halls were put back together to become a playhouse for Shakespeare and other Elizabeth playwrights. In the Great Fire of London, that building was destroyed.

I knew very well that nothing of Blackfriars remained when I visited London in the summer of 2011 to research my novel, The Chalice. But it was hard to believe. It had functioned as more than a friary and parliamentary-session house, it was a palace. When Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, visited his aunt, Catherine of Aragon, he stayed not in any of Henry VIII's castles but in the guesthouse of Blackfriars. 

I bought some historical maps and guidebooks at the fantastic bookstore at Museum of London. Armed with my research suggesting some bits and pieces of the medieval complex remained, I headed for the neighborhood early in the evening. I took the underground to--what else?--the Blackfriars station.

I walked the neighborhood, my backpack, stuffed with books growing heavier by the minute. It's not really a tourist area, and the financial workers, ties loosened, drinking beer outside a shiny pub, glanced at me, bemused, as I rounded their corner yet again, a map of the city in my hand.

Tired and hungry, I was about to give up when I heard something very strange on a deserted side street. It was singing, a beautiful hymn of some sort. I followed the sound of their voices to a set of stairs leading up. At the top was a small, leafy courtyard park, and a group of 20 middle-aged men and women gathered, singing. A priest stood by.

I learned that this day, July 26, was St Anne's Day, and they sang to honor her, the mother of the Virgin Mary. I sat on a bench and listened to their program. At twilight, I got up to leave, and saw a scrap of low stone wall and near it a line of centuries' old tombstones on the edge of the park pavement. 

They were the graves of friars of the Dominican Order. The Church of St. Anne was built in 1550, twelve years after the surrender, to serve as the house of worship for those still living in the precinct. One thing they did was gather and protect some of the graves.

I had found Blackfriars.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Touchstone/US

Orion Books/UK

Nancy Bilyeau's trilogy of historical novels are set during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Published in nine countries, they follow the life of a Dominican novice named Joanna Stafford. The second novel, The Chalice, won the award from RT Reviews for Best Historical Mystery. For more information, go to www.nancybilyeau.com

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.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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: