Author: judeknight

by

Working men of the ancient highway

A Thames waterman soliciting for passengers

From ancient times, boats have used the Thames as a highway, carrying goods and passengers to, from, and around London. The Romans built the first bridge between their city of Londinium and what become Southwark. It was of wood, and needed to be replaced many times until the stone bridge was built in the twelfth century.

That bridge, the famous London Bridge of the nursery rhyme, with its shops and houses, remained the only bridge until Westminster bridge was built until 1750. In all that time, wherrymen and lightermen and their boats of all sizes remained the main way of crossing the river or of negotiating up and down its current. Wherrymen carried passengers; lightermen goods and cargo. By the sixteenth century, some 40,000 men made their living on or around the river. In this century, too, an Act of Parliament regulated the fares wherrymen could charge, and another, a few decades later, appointed a ruling body, the Company of Watermen and established seven year apprenticeships.

“As may easily be imagined, they formed very much of a caste by themselves… They were a rough, saucy, and independent lot, if we may judge from allusions to them which occur in the novels, comedies, farces, and popular songs of the last century.” —Old and New London Vol 3

The coat of arms of the Company of Wherrymen and Lightermen

As London grew in the second part of the Georgian era and on into the Victorian years, more and more bridges were built. Still, the Thames remained a vital thoroughfare, for both pleasure and business. In the Regency, there were still over 3000 wherries (or water taxis) plying their trade in London.

Slowly, in the Victorian years, as more and more bridges connected the city to the increasingly well maintained road network and railways began to stretch over and under the river, the importance of the watermen diminished. Today, they still have more than 900 members who ply their ancient craft of the Thames, albeit mostly in a ceremonial role.

Im my novella, Melting Matilda, my hero argues about the fee that a waterman wants to charge when Charles and Matilda want walk on the frozen Thames. (The fee and the role of the watermen is accurate, the conversation is fictional.)

On Monday the thirty-first, the Thames was a complete field of ice from London Bridge to Blackfriars Bridge. The watermen, who had been barred from their usual profession for most of the month by the dangerous ice floes, quickly organized to test and then to control access to the ice. When Matilda went down to view the area she and Lady Hamner had chosen for the Haverford marquee, they demanded payment for helping her and her party over the small rivulet that had formed at the bank.

“That is outrageous,” complained Charles, at her elbow as had become usual.

“Na, jes’ think about it,” the waterman coaxed. Matilda focused to translate his thick accent into words she could understand. “People pay us to take them on the river. Doesn’t matter whether it is wet or dry. We did the same twenty odd years back, and before that, I reckon.”

“Were you here for the last Frost Fair,” Matilda asked? He certainly looked bent and wrinkled enough, what she could see of him in his greatcoat, cap, and scarf.

“That I were, me lady. And this bids fair to be a better one, it does.”

Charles paid the couple of sixpences the man demanded, and then Matilda pointed out that he had now received the value of a boat ride. “Would you escort us, and tell us about the last Frost Fair, and what you expect for this one?”

They spent half an hour listening to the waterman’s stories while they looked for a good site for the marquee and its subordinate tents—far enough from the main booths and activities of the fair that access was easy to control, and yet close enough that the ticket-holders could stroll the fair at their pleasure.

“That was clever,” Charles noted, as they settled themselves back under the furs in his sleigh. “You’ve convinced the watermen to keep that part of the ice clear, and have negotiated a fee to make entry to the ice free to anyone who shows a ticket.”

Matilda was pleased, too. “They shall do very well out of it: a lump sum deposit before the event and another afterwards, and all they have to do is keep our space clear, let our servants onto the ice to set up, and pass people who show a ticket on the third of February. Not that I grudge them. Imagine being unable to earn a living because the river you depend on freezes solid.”

“You are a remarkable woman, Matilda Grenford,” Charles said.

by

Kisses and feelings on WIP Wednesday

This week’s theme is kisses, and the feelings that go with them. You show me yours (in the comments) and I’ll show you mine, from To Claim the Long-Lost Lover, which will be out in July. Sarah has just invited Nate to stay with her for the night.

Nate reached Sarah’s side, and handed her a glass. “Thank you, Wilson, but I shall be maid for my wife tonight.” He kissed Sarah’s forehead, and Wilson blinked several times before bobbing a curtsey and stammering, “Yes, my lord. My lady. Um.” She bobbed again. “Every happiness. Hot water. Yes.” And still bobbing, she hurried from the room, closing the door behind her.

“Poor Wilson. I am afraid she might burst of curiosity.”

Nate ran his finger down her check and then slid a hand down her arm and across onto her breast, driving what she had been about to say completely out of her head.

His voice was husky as he commented, “She should knock before she comes in, should she?”

Sarah sipped her brandy, trying to pretend she was not going up in flames. “I hoped that was a good idea,” she told him.

He sipped his own before answering, his hand continuing its explorations, shaping her breast and then moving to the other. “An excellent idea. But I think I should not strip you naked quite yet?”

She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. He was bold, this older, more confident Nate. “Nor I, you.” She managed the retort, and her voice barely shook.

“Perhaps a kiss, then?” he asked. His hand slid around her back to hold her firm against him, and his lips descended on hers.

For seven years, memories of their kisses and embraces had fuelled her dreams. Tender at first, almost tentative, this kiss set those memories in the shade from the first, and as the heat rose and his free hand pressed her closer; as she spiralled into a space out of time and place where nothing existed but him, the memories slipped away to be replaced by new ones.

Somehow, the glasses were gone, and both of his hands were on her, and hers on him, untying and stripping off his cravat, fumbling undone the buttons of his waistcoat, pulling his shirt from his pantaloons so she could slide her hands up under it, to stroke and caress his warm firm skin, silk over steel, much more of it than back when he had been a skinny youth just shooting up from boyhood and still inches short of his adult height.

Such random thoughts surfaced and drifted away as he released her for long enough to wriggle out of his waistcoat, pull the shirt over his head, all the while kissing her as if the touch of her lips was keeping him alive.

Then his hands were on her again, and he was kissing her neck and then lower. With her bodice now completely unfastened, her gown slipped down her body to pool around her feet, and she kicked free of it and curved her spine so that he had room to continue to feast while she pressed the rest of her body to his.

The knock on the door was repeated twice before either of them surfaced enough to notice.

 

by

Tea with Eleanor: Paradise Lost Episode 6

Chapter Three

A Haverford townhouse in Brighton, May 1812

The package was stamped with the welcome postmark—ST PETERSBORGH, all in capitals. Eleanor guessed its origins when the butler brought it into the room, properly presented on a salver. The package itself was anonymous from across the room, but her butler’s face, usually professionally impassive, told the tale. Only dear Jonathan brought that lift to the corners of Parswarden’s lips, as if he was fighting a doting smile.

Sure enough, she recognised the slanting hand, just far enough away from a scrawl to escape his tutor’s heavy hand. She reached out for it, grinning at Parswarden. “News from Jonathan,” she affirmed. “Wait while I open it, Parswarden, and I will give you news to take below stairs.”

Parswarden’s smile almost escaped his control.  “If Your Grace would be so good, I am sure Cook would be pleased to hear how our young lord is managing in those foreign parts. I will send for a tea tray for Your Grace, while you open your package, shall I?”

Fifteen minutes later, the butler sailed out of the room, as close to hurrying as his dignity would allow, eager to regale the upper servants with stories of their young lord and his adventures: racing a troika—a sleigh pulled by three horses; dancing with a Russian imperial highness; hunting wolves with a wild band of Cossacks.

Eleanor shivered at the risks he took, but she had to admit that Jonathan led a charmed life, and waltzed through danger that made her hair curl. Indeed, he had been both charmed and charming since his birth.

She smiled as she sipped her tea. He had arrived after a further miscarriage, when she had almost lost hope that the birth of a son would deliver her from the consequences of her husband’s lifestyle. Haverford had kept his word. As soon as it was certain that she was with child, he stopped visiting her, and before long she and her husband had established a pattern of separate lives, intersecting only when Eleanor would be a social or political asset to the duke.

Later that summer Haverford demanded she serve in such a role when he insisted on her joining him for a house party in Wales, where he wanted her assistance to impress a former ally who had changed sides.  Later, she looked back on that chance meeting with the daughter of a local mine owner as a watershed moment in her life. The woman’s son had the Haverford hazel eyes.

He arrived at her house a few months later, escaping his cruel grandfather after his mother’s death. In helping him, Eleanor discovered what became her life’s passion: helping the helpless, particularly those with a call on His Grace or the Haverford family.

Perhaps it was not the life she had dreamed of, but she had made a difference in many lives. She mattered. Her pregnancy ended in a difficult birth, and it took her time to recover, but by the time Lord George Jonathan Creydon Walter Grenford received his unwieldy list of names at his baptism, the boy from Wales was established in her house. In her hidden cupboard, tied into a neat package, lay the notes that confirmed her in her path.

Haverford House, London, August 1787

Thomas Oliver, or Uncle Tolly as her son called him, balanced the delicate porcelain cup carefully on his knee, not taking his eyes off his hostess. A slow blink was his only reaction to her announcement that she intended to defy both Society and her husband. The Duke of Haverford was not a gentle man, and did not tolerate rebellion in his household. As his base-born brother, Tolly Fitz-Grenford had reason to know this fact at first-hand.

“The duke will not be pleased,” he warned.

“His Grace will not wish to upset me.” The duchess smiled serenely, and placed a hand on her middle. Tolly nodded his understanding. Eleanor had lost several babies since the son who secured the succession. Even His Grace would hesitate to counter his duchess’s express commands when she had recently delivered the backup hope of the Haverfords.

“Does His Grace know the boy is here?” Tolly asked.

“His Grace left London immediately after Jonathan’s christening, Tolly, which gives me time. I would like to be armed with some information before he discovers David’s presence.

“So, what, precisely, do you wish me to do?” Tolly asked.

Eleanor had her answer ready. “Talk to the boy, then trace back his steps and talk to the people he met on the way. I have made my own judgement based on my meeting with him and his mother. Your report will confirm or disprove that he is fit company for the Marquis of Aldridge and the baby. I believe him, Tolly, but I do not trust myself in such an important matter.” She waved an impatient hand. “You understand. You are His Grace’s half-brother, as David is half-brother to my sons.”

Fitz-Grenford smiled, despite the caution he felt impelled to offer. “Unacknowledged half-brother, and the duke will bar the door to me if I presume on the relationship in the least. Very well, Your Grace. I shall see what I can find out.”

by

Spotlight on Melting Matilda

I’m delighted to put Melting Matilda out into the world as a part of the Mountain King series. It first appeared as part of the Bluestocking Belles collection Fire & Frost, but now it where it belongs, released (and happening chronologically) in between To Mend the Broken Hearted and To Claim the Long-Lost Lover.

Part of the reward of writing is wonderful reviews like the ones Melting Matilda is getting, such as: “I thoroughly enjoyed this Regency romance with great characters, romance and intrigue. Charles was really a good guy and the ending was great.” “One foggy night, and encounter or two, and we are on the Charles and Matilda journey. Oh, the twists and turns in this one were awesome: some expected, and some very surprising. I loved it!” “This was a sweetly romantic story. It was wonderfully intense in ALL the best ways.”

Melting Matilda

Fire smolders under the frost between them.

Can the Ice Maiden Soften the Granite Earl?

Her scandalous birth prevents Matilda Grenford from being fully acceptable to Society, even though she has been a ward of the Duchess of Haverford since she was a few weeks old. Matilda does not expect to be wooed by a worthy gentleman. The only man who has ever interested her gave her an outrageous kiss a year ago and has avoided her ever since.

Can the Granite Earl Melt the Ice Maiden?

Charles, the Earl of Hamner is honour bound to ignore his attraction to Matilda Grenford. She is an innocent and a lady, and in every way worthy of his respect—but she is base-born. His ancestors would rise screaming from their graves if he made her his countess. But he cannot forget the kiss they once shared.

Buy links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08YS4DHMJ

For links to non-US Amazon stores and to other retailers: Books2Read: https://books2read.com/MeltingMatilda

 

by

City liberties and marriages of the fleet

Now that I’m aware that the different London entities exist, I keep noticing bits of information about the relationship between the City of London (the City), the City of Westminster (called Town by the Polite World), the County of Middlesex and Southwark, not just historically, but right through to the present day.  For example, I was watching a documentary on Jack the Ripper, which pointed to his straddling the boundary between the City and Middlesex. Having two different police forces involved hampered the investigation. A news item at the time of the death of Prince Phillip the Duke of Edinburgh speculated about the death of the Queen, and claimed that, historically, the City of London is not part of the United Kingdom after a new monarch is proclaimed, until it choses to be so when the Lord Mayor swears fealty to the king or queen, and that part of their charter is that the monarch must ask permission to visit. (I’m not saying that’s correct–in fact, I did a bit of research and I think the conclusions the news article drew misinterpreted the facts.)

Nonetheless, the City of London is a peculiar place, which retains much independence as a result of medieval agreements, beginning in 886 and repeated down through time.

With its powerful City-wide authorities of the Lord Mayor and the Courts of Aldermen and Common Council, its overlapping local jurisdictions of wards and parishes, and the separate corporations of the guilds, the City was governed differently and more intensively than any other part of the metropolis. Throughout the century, the City successful defended its independence from all other forms of metropolitan government, as exemplified in its exemption from the 1792 Middlesex Justices Act. [London Lives: https://www.londonlives.org/static/CityLocalGovernment.jsp]

One result of the ancient liberties that the City enjoyed was that certain places enjoyed the residue of rights granted to the religious institutions that previously thrived there, and were exempt from ordinary laws. The example you’ve probably heard of allowed what they called Fleet marriages.

Various bylaws made prosecution of Fleet clergy impossible, even for conduction bigamous or over-hasty wedding services, and so the Liberty of the Fleet became the Las Vegas wedding chapel of London… It was possible to walk in, sign and get out in under fifteen minutes, as the mammoth number of records for the period show: over a quarter of a million in fifty years. Marrying ‘at the Ditch-side’, as it is called on some certificates, might not have been romantic but it was fast, fuss-free and didn’t require parental consent. [Georgian London: Into the Streets. Lucy Inglis]

On sundown on 24 March 1754, the Hardwicke Marriage Act became law, bringing in rules about parental consent, and guidelines for banns, licenses, and church celebration. That day, the Fleet Chapel recorded close to one hundred marriages, but the Liberty of the Fleet was over.

by

Relatives on WIP Wednesday

I am always tempted to commit family saga. I really have to rein myself in during short stories, but in the rest of my books, especially my regencies, I have plenty of room, since my characters wander back and forth between books and even series. I have relatives. Lots of relatives. And the number is growing now that quite a few of them are married.

I particularly like women relatives. Some of them are villains, some of them silly, but many of them are my heroine’s best friends and greatest supports. At the very least, they give her someone to talk to, someone to encourage her to follow her dreams, as the best female friends do. Give us an excerpt, if you’d like, with relatives of the hero or heroine in your work in progress. Mine is from To Claim the Long Lost Lover.

Within the hour, Sarah came looking for Nate. “My mother and my aunts wish to meet you, Nate.” He took her hand, feeling unaccountably nervous. Lady Sutton had every reason to despise the man who had run off with her daughter and then abandoned her, even if he had reasons, good reasons, for both actions.

He felt no better when he arrived in the drawing room, where three great ladies of Society sat side by side like justices in a courtroom, though they were seating on a long sofa behind a low table. Around them a number of other richly dressed ladies occupied chairs and coaches. In his fancy, they would be the jury in the coming trial.

Sarah bobbed a curtsy. “Aunt Eleanor? Mama? Aunt Georgie? May I make known to you my husband, Lord Bentham?”

Nate bowed to each of them. He had seen the duchess at various entertainments this season; Lady Sutton, he recognised from years ago, when she’d attended church from Applemorn, which made the third Lady Georgiana, the duke’s sister.

Sarah continued around the room. Charlotte, he knew, and Ruth. He also recognised the duchess’s ward, Miss Grenford, with whom he had danced on the night he first waltzed with Sarah, who sat side by side with her sister, Lady Hamner.

The lady with the infant on her knee was the younger Lady Sutton. She was married to the duke’s eldest son, who had arrived this afternoon with his wife and daughter, and immediately taken command of a large segment of the battle planning that continued in the study.

Nate was also presented to Lady Georgiana’s friend, Miss Chalmers, and Lady Rosemary, another daughter of the duke.

Once he had been conducted around the room, he was instructed to sit. “There, Lord Bentham, if you please,” said the dowager Lady Sutton. She pointed to a chair that had been placed a few feet away from and facing the long sofa. Again, he was uncomfortable reminded of a trial, an impression that was reinforced when Lady Sutton and Lady Georgiana nodded at the duchess, and she spoke.

“We are Sarah’s godmother, mother, and aunt, Lord Bentham. We have stood beside her and suffered with her since you persuaded her to cast propriety to the wind and abscond with you and then disappeared.”

She put up a hand when Nate opened his mouth, and he closed it again. She waited for a moment, as if to see whether he intended to continue his interruption, then nodded to Lady Sutton, who continued, “We understand that you were not responsible for your own abduction, but we wish to hear your explanation for the rest. Why did you elope with Sarah? Why did you not write to her? Why did you not return as soon as you were able?”

by

Tea with Eleanor: Paradise Lost Episode 5

He straightened, and opened his mouth, but Eleanor spoke over the rebuke that was certain to come. “I have no objection, sir, but I assume you have not given her license to neglect your heir or to be impertinent to me.”

The duke frowned. “Certainly not. I shall have a word with the bitch.”

“Thank you, Your Grace. You have always required others to treat me with the respect due to your wife, and that is why I was certain I could depend on you for what I am about to ask.” Honey worked better than vinegar, one of the Haverford great aunts was fond of saying.

The duke smirked at the compliment and inclined his head, graciously indicating that she should continue.

Now for it. Best to say it straight out, as she had rehearsed a dozen times since she and Haverford’s base-born half-brother, who was also his steward, had concocted the strategy. “You may be aware, Your Grace, that I have been taking the mercury treatment for the pox. As I am a faithful wife, and have only ever had intimate knowledge of one man—yourself, Your Grace—I must assume it originated with you.”

As expected, Haverford erupted. “I will not—”

Eleanor held up a hand. “Your Grace has needs, and I would not normally comment on how you meet them, as long as any lovers you take within the household you have given me to manage are willing partners.”

She kept talking over his attempt to interrupt, hoping his temper would not override his manners. “I owe you a second son, Your Grace, and I fully intend to attempt to carry out that side of our bargain, but I have a request to make to keep me safe from falling ill again.”

He frowned, silenced for the moment. Eleanor thought it best to wait for him to speak. At least he was listening.

“Go on,” he said at last.

“My doctor has assured me that fewer than half of all people who contracted second stage syphilis moved into the deadlier third stage, and most of those have had the disease multiple times. Repeated infections may also kill or deform any further children we have. I would like to take steps to limit the risk, Your Grace.”

“What steps?”

In the end, Haverford lost his temper twice more before he signed the document she put before him. In it, he promised to not to require intimacy from Eleanor unless he had refrained from any potential source of the disease for six weeks, and had been inspected by a doctor.

She had delicately hinted at the retribution that would follow if he didn’t keep his word. A gentleman’s word was his bond, of course, but only when given to other gentlemen. Haverford would not hesitate to break an agreement with his wife, if it suited him.

Thanks to the duke’s training in politics, she knew all about the pressure to apply—in this case, the social contacts who would be informed of the whole disgusting situation if he broke his word. She had been a lady of the chamber to the Queen, was friends with several of the princesses, was sister to the current Earl of Farnmouth and sister-in-law to another earl and an earl’s second son.

Added to that there were all of her social contacts. Those she specifically mentioned to him were only the start. Being Haverford’s hostess had given her huge reach into the upper echelons of Society, especially those families headed by his political cronies and rivals. He was a consummate player of the game of Society. He knew all of that without her saying.

One son, she contracted for, and a maximum of two more pregnancies. Eleanor prayed she would conceive quickly, that she would suffer no more miscarriages, and that she would deliver a healthy son without any further ado.

***

Haverford House, London, April 1812

To give Haverford credit, Eleanor conceded, he had stuck to the agreement for several years. Her copy of the agreement was still in her secret compartment, somewhere. Her co-conspirator, Tolly Fitz-Grenford, had a second copy, and the third had been given to her brother in a sealed envelope, to be opened only if she died unexpectedly or sent a message asking him to read it.

Presumably, that copy was somewhere in the papers inherited by her nephew. Perhaps she should ask for it back, for Haverford had not approached her with marital duties in mind since she announced that she was enceinte with the child who proved to be the wanted spare son.

She very much doubted that he ever would. After all, his mistresses and lovers were all twenty or thirty years younger than Eleanor.

On the other hand, he was behaving like a bad-tempered guard dog over James Winderfield’s return, and she wouldn’t put it past him to—mark his territory, as it were. The copies of the agreement had better stay where they were.

In truth, as long as the disease never recurred, Haverford had done her a favour. Without the incentive, she might have taken much longer to grasp what freedom she could.

Eleanor felt dizzy again, just thinking about James as he appeared last night. Haverford’s command was not to be borne. Grace and Georgie were her dearest friends, and she was not going to be separated from them.

She would need to be careful, though. Perhaps one of her goddaughters could pass a note to one of Grace’s daughters. The Society for the Betterment of Indigent Mothers and Orphans was meeting tomorrow. That would do nicely.

She moved to her escritoire, took out a sheet of her monogramed paper, and sharpened a quill. Now. Where could they meet? Perhaps Grace or Georgie might have a notion.

by

Writing love

I’ve been thinking about love. It is, at base, what I write about. In both of my current works-in-progress, the hero and heroine have known one another for years, but faced powerful barriers to having a future together. I need to show a love that changes and grows as they do, until they can work through the problems.

In novellas, and particularly in short stories, I often make the hero and heroine separated lovers, old friends or at least acquaintances. Shorter formats give less time for the relationship to develop. People who don’t know one another can fall in love in a flash, but I need enough space to convince the reader that this love will last. That mixture of euphoria, infatuation, and lust that kicks our brain into a mating frenzy is wonderful while it lasts, but love is more than that.

I’ve written elsewhere about levels of intimacy, and why I don’t want to write at the shallow end of the intimacy pool. Today’s philosophical rambling is more about how to take things deep.

C.S. Lewis wrote a book called The Four Loves. He used Latin names but in essence, he talks about:

  • affection — the love that arises from familiarity
  • friendship — the love that is based on shared interests, activities, and points of view
  • romantic — the love that binds a couple together and expresses itself in physical intimacy
  • spiritual — the love God (whomever or whatever you suppose God to be) gives to us and that we give to God, which we show by giving to those in need, whether known or not, whether worthy or not.

You can see that you can burrow deeper into each of these, so you’ve got a kind of moving scale:

  • affection — at one end, the slightly increased comfort a person feels with a stranger who belongs to the same club or who went to the same school; at the other, the love between parent and child
  • friendship — at one end, people who have chatted with one another occasionally in an online group or met over coffee after bowling club; at the other, people who share ideas, experiences and activities, and who will put their own lives on hold to help one another
  • romantic — at the one end, the flash-in-the-pan experience that is largely lust and need; at the other, a deep and unwavering commitment where the happiness of one is needed for the happiness of the other
  • spiritual — at one end, spare change in a beggar’s bowl; at the other, a life lived entirely in service to rescuing sex slaves in Thailand or building wells in Kenya or providing school lunches in Baltimore or some other specific group of people in need.

Of course, in a couple worth reading about, by the end of the novel you’re going to have all four, to at least some level. At least one of them needs to start with some sense of commitment to those in need (because without that, they’re not the kind of people I want to spend several hours with). Over the course of the book, I want to see them develop quite a bit of affection, a good friendship, and a strong attraction that goes beyond the basics.  It takes time for those to grow. It takes time to show them.

It’s easier in a novel. Easier still in a series. One of the reasons I like mystery series with a couple as the main protagonists is that the author has time to explore how love changes and deepens, but you can get some of the way even in a novella. You can even hint at it in a short story.

That’s the challenge I set myself every story I write. That’s what I mean by a love story.

by

Lies, spies, and unsung heroes

Colonel Edward Despard was arrested before he and his radical friends could seize the Tower of London as part of a revolutionary strike against the Crown.

We’ve loved our spy fiction for over 100 years. The early years of the twentieth century saw the start of the genre, with Kim, by Rudyard Kipling, several books by Joseph Conrad, The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orkzy, even some of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sexy heroes, thrilling encounters, mysterious beautiful women, and ghastly villains. Spy novels had it all. How things have changed.

Disreputable and dishonest

In the past, spying was a murky hidden business, and spies despised as liars who sold their honour. The British Secret Service was not founded until the twentieth century, and before that spies were seen as dishonest and disreputable. Yet without them, the history of England would be very different.

Henry VIII and Elizabeth I both had spymasters whose extensive spy networks helped keep their royal majesties on their throne.

John André was a British Army officer hanged as a spy by the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War for assisting Benedict Arnold’s attempted surrender of the fort at West Point, New York to the British.

Sir Anthony Standen—torn between loyalties

One of those spies was a Catholic refugee from Protestant England, whose reports on the Spanish Armada allowed the English to attack the Spanish Fleet at Cadiz. Drake fired ships and sunk galleys, putting the invasion off for years.

Poor Sir Anthony Standen. His love for England and his love for his faith conflicted, and — although he eventually returned to his home country — he was not welcomed by a grateful nation. Indeed, though he was sent on further spying missions, he was also imprisoned for a time in the Tower of London.

It is an interesting juxtaposition: his sterling work for the Crown did not (in the eyes of some) prove his patriotism, but rather his lack of moral fibre. He spied, therefore he could not be trusted.

Spying at home as well as abroad

Walsingham and his successors were as likely to spy on Englishmen as on enemies from abroad. William Pitt the Younger, in more than tripling the amount spent by the government on spying and infiltration of potentially rebellious organisations, was walking in well-trodden footsteps. The budget passed through the hands of a few civil servants at home, and ambassadors and military commanders abroad, with no more accounting than this oath.

I A.B. do swear, That the Money paid to me for Foreign Secret Service, or for Secret Service in detecting, preventing, or defeating, treasonable, or other dangerous Conspiracies against the State…, has been bona fide, applied to the said Purpose or Purposes, and to no other: and that it hath not appeared to me convenient to the State that the same should be paid Abroad. So help me GOD.

A secret part of the Post Office opened, read, and copied mail, especially mail from foreign governments. And both amateur and professional informers reported on their neighbours.

Systematic spying

Napoleon employed a network of spies, under the Minister of Police, Joseph Fouche, who had survived the two previous regimes and would survive the Empire to serve the restored monarchy.

The English system was much more ad hoc. Spies, yes, and many of them, but probably no central co-ordination, though William Savage makes a good argument for the central role of The Alien Office.

Overseas, diplomats and military commanders took the fore. We know the names of some of the diplomatic spymasters who plotted against Napoleon: William Wickham in Switzerland, Francis Drake in Munich and later Italy.

Noble spies

Colquhoun Grant was one of the Duke of Wellington’s most famous exploring officers.

Wellington had ‘exploring officers’, who would have challenged you to a duel had you dared to call them spies. They were officers and gentlemen, and if they did creep behind enemy lines to collect information, they wore their uniforms to do so. Wearing a disguise or other forms of deception would be beneath their code of civilised behaviour.

But Wellington (and other military leaders) also had other intelligence gatherers who were less particular. Did some of them include members of the great aristocratic families of England? If so, we would not expect to find out from the records. Such a secret would reflect badly on those families, and would never be disclosed.

Spies of romance

So we are free to imagine that the romantic heroes and heroines of our modern stories might represent some, at least, of the spies whose reports on Napoleon’s troops, movements, and intentions saved England from invasion. Or who uncovered plots at home.

I’ve written a spy or two, both for and against England. Prudence Virtue is one. She first appeared in The Prisoner of Wyvern Castle, then in Revealed in Mist, and currently in my latest work in progress, To Claim the Long-Lost Lover as the wife and business partner of David Wakefield, Aldridge’s half brother. Watch out for her adventures.

References:

Ioffe, Alexander: Espionage During the Napoleonic Wars. On The Dear Surprise: http://www.thedearsurprise.com/espionage-during-the-napoleonic-wars/

Rice, Patricia: Spies in Regency England. On Word Wenches http://wordwenches.typepad.com/word_wenches/2010/03/spies-in-regency-england.html

Savage, William: The C18th British Secret Service under Pitt. on Pen and Pension: https://penandpension.com/2015/02/24/the-c18th-british-secret-service-under-pitt-1/

Secrets and Spies, National Archives Exhibition: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/spies/spies/default.htm

by

Caring on WIP Wednesday


I do love a strong masculine hero who shows his caring side. One of the scenes in Farewell to Kindness, where the hero tenderly washes his beloved’s wounds, is based on an experience in my own life. I’d been in a car accident, and had been through the windscreen. My betrothed came to me at my mother’s house, and gently washed all the blood and glass out of my hair.

Today’s theme is caring for one’s beloved, and I have a piece from To Claim the Long-Lost Lover. Please feel free to share an excerpt in the comments.

Nate fussed over the scrapes and cuts on Sarah’s wrists, the bruises she’d accumulated when she was being manhandled. Wilson had ordered up a hot bath, and he insisted on staying while she undressed so that he could inspect all of her wounds.

Since she was a small girl, Sarah had only ever been unclothed in front of two other people—and that rarely—her maid, when in her bath, and her husband, in the dark and under the sheets on the three nights—four now—she had spent in bed with him. Stripping in front of him in full daylight had her blushing like a young maiden, which she had not been for eight years.

He set her at ease with his manner: crisp and matter of fact, focused on checking that her injuries were no worse than she said. He finished by taking her gently in his arms and pressing a tender kiss to her forehead. “Now have a long soak, my love.” He stepped back and held out his hand to help her into the water. The scrapes stung as she lowered herself, but once she was immersed, the heat felt wonderful.

Nate knelt beside the tub, so his head was close to hers. “Wilson is bringing you a soothing herbal tea. If you will permit, dearest heart, I shall go up to see Elias. I daresay some of today’s doings might have reached the nursery, though I hope his nursemaid will have had enough sense to keep it from him. If not, I will be able to reassure him that you are home and well.”

A swift knock at the door was followed by Wilson’s entrance, with a tea tray. She could smell some of Cook’s delicious drop scones, and suddenly realised that she was hungry.

“Go, of course, she told him. “Tell him I shall be up to see him later.”

“After you have had a sleep,” Nate told her, firmly. “I shall be back by the time the water cools, and shall dress those cuts, then tuck you into bed. Wilson, stay with your mistress and make sure she doesn’t go to sleep in her bath.”

It had always annoyed Sarah when other people made decisions for her, but it was very nice, she decided, when the person doing the deciding loved her to distraction, had suffered when she was taken, and needed her to let him take care of her. Her hero.