The Monmouth Summer by Tim Vicary

1685. King Charles II dies unexpectedly, and is succeeded by his brother James II, England's first Catholic monarch since Bloody Mary. English Protestants feel threatened, and King Charles’s illegitimate son, the handsome young duke of Monmouth, rises against his uncle in armed rebellion. The rebellion turns young Ann Carter’s world upside down. Eighteen years old, she is betrothed to Tom Goodchild, a Protestant shoemaker; but secretly loves Robert Pole, an officer in King James’s army, who offers to take her to London as his mistress. Ann knows it is her duty to marry Tom, but does not love him; so when he marches away with the rebels, she imagines him being killed – which would set her free. But she knows such thoughts are wicked; her father is a rebel soldier too, like all the men of her village. So who should she pray for, when musket balls start to fly? What matters most – love or loyalty?

When I was asked to review this book, I jumped at the chance. As readers of this blog will know I have a bit of a thing for all things Seventeenth Century (despite having not really done much on it recently...), and a book set in the midst of the 1685 West Country Rebellion seemed like my perfect historical novel. Now I've said in before, and I'll say it again - I'm not a big fan of historical fiction; but this turned out to be one book that was the exception to the rule. In a nutshell, I thought that this book was a masterpiece. My love of the Seventeenth Century includes pretty much everything from James I onwards, but I have a particular love of the English Civil Wars, Restoration and more recently, Monmouth's rebellion in 1685. Over the past year or so I have been devouring non fiction books on James Duke of Monmouth and his rebellion; and it also helps having grown up near many of the towns featured in both the historical rebellion, and this novel. And from the get-go, I devoured this book.

Vicary's writing style is second to none in this book. From the very first page, as we are introduced to the people of Colyton, and in particular the Carter family, the world in which the characters live in seems to burst from the page and come alive. Vicary weaves his prose together masterfully, and as I read I could quite clearly imagine the scenes being described. And as the story began to pick up pace, and the rebel armies of the Duke of Monmouth began to clash with the Royalist troops, it was as if I could hear the musket shots in my ears. It's not often that a book does this to me, and when it happens it is a real breath of fresh air. As I was reading through however, I did notice a couple of odd grammar mistakes such as full stops in random places throughout the sentences, but I can overlook this as it wasn't blindingly noticeable. As well as this, I really loved the way the Vicary made his characters speak. The town where the story is mainly set, Colyton, is a real town located in East Devon; and throughout the prose, the characters speak in a west country accent. And Vicary makes this clearer by having the characters actually speak as those in the West Country did (and still do for the most part!):

"Good day Mr Carter! Sorry 'bout Methuselah! Come here Methuselah, you stupid beast! You'm scarin' they 'orses!"

Almost all of the characters spoke like this throughout the story, and it really endeared many of them to me. It's little things like this that can change a book from a good book, to an excellent one.

As I mentioned previously, the story follows the inhabitants of Colyton (a fun fact: known as the most rebellious town in Devon due to their part in the Monmouth rebellion) as they hear of King Charles II's bastard son coming back from overseas to try and take the throne back from his Catholic uncle, James II. The main character of the story is Ann Carter, a young lady born to a good Puritan family, and she is betrothed to Tom Goodchild. The problem for Ann however is that she is secretly in love with Robert Pole, second son of the local Lord and a supporter of King James. Ann finds herself torn as the men of her village march off to war (including her father) and to fight for the Duke of Monmouth. She is betrothed to marry Tom, who she does not love; yet in love with a man who her father would likely end up meeting on the field of battle. The character of Ann is an interesting one and throughout the narrative you can really see how desperate she is to break free of the ties that bind her to the village and to see the bigger picture. So much so she finds herself highly tempted when Robert offers to take her to London as his mistress. And you can see this throughout the entire story - she fights to stay true to her family's wishes, to marry Tom and remain true to her faith yet at the same time delights in escaping the village and travelling with the army. And yet despite this new found freedom she finds herself entangled in a life where she must face life or death decisions and finds out that the world is not one to be viewed through rose tinted glasses.

I was incredibly pleased also with the amount of research that went into this book. As a bit of a seventeenth century nut (who, to my shame, was in the Sealed Knot at one point as a musketeer), I was paying quite close attention to the description of the battles, and the musket drill. And it was spot on. And even though I was only ever in a pike block once in my time with the knot (and was rather drunk at the time, thanks for that Nantwich!), I couldn't see any issues with the pike drill being described in the story either.

All in all, a fantastic story right from the get-go that includes some of the most names and faces of the Seventeenth Century - Prince Rupert, Judge Jeffries and the Battle of Sedgemoor. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Seventeenth Century and looking to read a well researched, action packed story of an incredibly famous rebellion in English history.

You can pick up Tim Vicay's novel from Amazon UK and Amazon US for kindle.

Review: The Sickly Stuarts by Frederick Holmes

It's been ages since I've posted a book review on here so I thought I would delight you all and post one. I will warn you now that this review may end up with me yelling about how much I love the Stuart family and how much I want to hug them all. But I'll try not to do that.

So, this book came through my letterbox yesterday morning, and I read the entire thing in a day. Whenever this has happened previously it's because the books have been really pants. This one was however, rather good. I'd spotted Holmes' book in the shop at Hampton Court before and kept wondering whether to pick it up or not, but if I'm honest it was the price that put me off. Then I found it on amazon, nice and cheap. And so when my ex library copy arrived, I settled down to read about the medical problems of my favourite historical family. And let me tell you, I learnt a lot, especially about the Stuart monarchs who I don't know all that much about.

Holmes splits the book up into each monarch that ruled throughout the Stuart era, with one chapter that concentrated on the children of Charles I. But before Holmes gets into the nitty gritty medical history of each monarch we are given a rather good introduction to disease and doctoring in the seventeenth century. This chapter describes how rife disease was in Stuart England, London in particular, and how the ever increasing population affected said disease. We are also given a brief introduction to the various illnesses and epidemics that plagued the populace (including plague...see what I did there? lolol) as well as the various treatments that are given them. Now then, some of these treatments were a little daft, including the "hot and cold method" of treating small pox. There was one part in this introduction that really made me prick my ears up, and that was a brief mention of early methods of diagnosing diabetes (as a type 1 diabetic myself, the history of this disease is hugely fascinating to me):

"In 1694 Thomas Willis was the first to note that the urine of diabetics ‘is wonderfully sweet, like Sugar or hony’"

As I quoted on our tumblr page, this 17th century doctor really has earned my respect and I really like him (even though I don't know all that much about him) because he had the balls the taste a diabetic person's urine. Now that is pretty gross, but it really opened the door for further treatment and even (in some distant way) paved the way for the advent of insulin by Banting and Best in the 1900's. Anyway, I'll shut up about the medical history of diabetes now and get on with reviewing the book. So yeah, after this we are given an introduction to the main doctors of the Seventeenth Century, and these are the men who feature prominently as physicians to the monarchy - Theodore de Mayerne, William Harvey, Thomas Sydenham, Richard Lower, John Radcliffe, Richard Mead and John Arbuthnot.

Following this introduction, Holmes' gets right into the thick of things and begins looking at each Stuart monarch. Of course we start out with James I (VI of Scotland) and Holmes then looks at each monarch in chronological order. The layout of each chapter is exactly the same - we start out with a brief look at their medical history, stuff that made them sick throughout their reign and their death and then goes on to look at their post mortem results to come to a conclusion as to what actually killed them. And as I made my way through each of the chapters, I learnt a lot of stuff that I didn't know about these monarchs.

Of course, Holmes is unable to come to a definitive answer as to the right diagnosis for each monarch but he does a damn good job with the information he had available. Drawing on primary sources and post mortem reports he was able to say "ok then it is super likely that Charles II had this, but not likely at all he had this other thing because the post mortem report says this". And although I'm not trained in medicine, a lot of Holmes' conclusions made a lot of sense. OK so he used some big words for various illnesses, but he also explained what they meant and what the illness was made up of. So yes, good.

Interesting stuff I learnt from this book:

James I had dementia, weak legs and his tongue was too big for his mouth so whenever he drank anything he slobbered it everywhere. He also didn't wash his hands, only dabbed the ends of his fingers.

Charles I had weak legs (inherited from his father), a speech impediment and according to Holmes was a tad delusional (mainly because he was all "lol parliament, I'm the King and I own all so shut up and let me rule on my own).

Charles II was actually pretty healthy until he made a massive derp of himself and conducted mercury experiments without safety gear (but then, was safety gear even invented then?) and gave himself mercury poisoning which killed him.

James II was also a derp, had an epic nosebleed that meant he couldn't fight off William of Orange (later William III, or actually he probably used the nosebleed as an excuse because he couldn't be bothered...maybe). And he died in exile of a stroke and pneumonia.

William III was an epic warrior who invaded England yet was pretty sickly and had asthma and died young because of bacterial pneumonia. His wife, Mary II confused everyone and no one knew whether she died of small pox or measles - at any rate she burned loads of her letters and papers before she died. And it was actually a really bad form of smallpox that killed her.

And last but not least, Anne was never really all that healthy. She survived 17 pregnancies, only 1 child surviving until he died of pneumonia at the age of 11, and eventually it was Lupus that killed her. And she was the last of the Stuart Monarchs...

All in all, an utterly fantastic book and a brilliant read. Some of it is a little complicated and I found myself having to read a few bits a couple of times before the medical terminology sunk in. This is certainly a book I would recommend for anyone interested in the Stuart family. It makes for quite morbid reading, and I won't lie, I did shed a tear at Charles II's death but it is hugely interesting and eye-opening. A good read and highly recommended. 

15th July 1685 - The Execution of James, Duke of Monmouth

Plate showing the execution of James, Duke of Monmouth

I've written a lot about the Duke of Monmouth recently, and I have to say that I find him absolutely fascinating. This young man who believed so wholeheartedly that his mother had legally married his father and he was the legitimate heir to the throne, this young man who believed in his claim so much that he rebelled against his uncle James II. His story is exceptionally sad and his end exceptionally brutal.

Monmouth, by William Wissing

On 15th July 1685, after his defeat at Sedgemoor, James Duke of Monmouth was executed on Tower Hill. He was condemned to death by act of attainder and automatically found guilty of high treason against his uncle James II. Whilst imprisoned in the Tower, Monmouth had begged for mercy and written to the King - but of course the King never received the letter. And James II, in his exile admitted "I never saw the letter, nor did I ever hear of it till within these few days" - if he had seen the letter, would he have pardoned his nephew? James had at first said that Monmouth was to suffer a full traitors death of hanging, drawing and quartering but later decided that he should be beheaded upon Tower Hill and that the date of execution would be St Swithun's Day, 15th July. The King wanted as many people as possible to see their hero die, and according to J.N.P Watson chose the date as a lesson to his nephew "for giving credit to so vain a prediction; for 'tho Almighty God permits such divinations to fall out some times according as they are foretold, yet never to the benefit or advantage of those that believe them".

Shortly before his execution, the Bishop of Ely and Dr Ken visited him to hear his confession. He shook off his fear, realising that St Swithun's day would indeed be his day of judgement and became very sincere and dignified except on the matter of his mistress Henrietta Wentworth. He refused to admit that he had been living in sin with her, saying "I have heard it is lawful to have one wife in the eye of the law and another before God". When he was challenged for saying this he replied, "Well, but if a man be bred up in a false notion, what shall he do when he has but two hours to live?".

He told the bishops he would die a true Protestant, and he was then refused the sacrament. But he signed a paper renouncing his allusions to the throne for the sake of his children and also declared that his father Charles II had told him he was illegitimate although he was very careful not to admit it himself. He also asked that the King did not make his children suffer on his account.

On the morning of his execution he dressed carefully, wearing clean stockings, a fresh skirt and lace scarf, as well as a grey suit lined with black and a long periwig. His wife visited him that morning for a final farewell and fell to her knees begging his forgiveness if she had done anything to offend him but he told her she had been a good, dutiful wife. He also instructed his children to be dutiful to the King and to respect their mother.

He approached Tower Hill and the scaffold was heavily defended, and James II had given special permission for the scaffold to be draped in mourning cloth. As he climbed the steps and spied Jack Ketch he said "do your work well". The crowd was huge, and thousands of people had flocked to see their hero die. It is said that Monmouth spoke very little on the scaffold, only to yet again defend Henrietta Wentworth, stating that he had not lived in sin with her and that she was a virtuous woman. He also stated that he said he would die "very penitent". He was also asked to address the soldiers in front of the scaffold, as he ,  had been a soldier himself and he refused, saying he would take no speeches, but the men accompanying him on the scaffold kept badgering him saying that just 10 words would be enough. Some have said that at this point he made his "Martyr of the People" speech that he wrote in the Tower, but official reports deny this.

Monmouth now turned to Jack Ketch and addressed him, handing him a bag of six guineas, "Here are six guineas for you. Pray do your business well. Do not serve me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard you struck him three or four times. If you give me two strokes I promise I will not stir".

Following this he removed his waistcoat and periwig. He refused a blindfold and knelt, laying his head on the block. After a moment, he turned back to Ketch and asked if he could feel the axe. After he had done so he expressed his fear that the axe was not sharp enough. Ketch then stated that it was both sharp enough and heavy enough. The executioner himself had been unnerved by Monmouth's mention of Russell, and he botched the execution completely. The first swing caught the side of Monmouth's neck, making him heave up and look at Ketch in shock. The second made a slightly bigger gash and the third he missed all together. Ketch then threw the axe down crying, "God Damn Me, I can do no more. My heart fails me, I cannot do it!". The crowd became angry, threatening to kill Ketch if he did not do any better. Ketch was ordered to pick the axe back up and finish the job, taking 3 more blows to kill Monmouth, though the head was still attached. He resorted to using a butchers knife that hung at his belt to finally remove Monmouth's head. The crowd was still so indignant at the executioner that he had to be lead away by armed guard.

Portrait said to be of James Duke of Monmouth after his death, artist unknown (though possibly by Kneller)

James, Duke of Monmouth, was buried in the chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula inside the Tower of London alongside other noble and royal victims of the executioners axe.

The diarist John Evelyn wrote of his death, "Thus ended the quondam Duke, darling of his father and the ladies, being extremely handsome and adroit, an excellent soldier and dancer, a favourite of the people, of an easy nature, debauch'd by lust, seduc'd by crafty knaves...He was a lovely person"

I'm not going to lie, as I have been writing this I have been crying a little...actually that's a lie because I am sobbing as I write this. Monmouth's end was very grizzly, and such a horrible way for such a popular figure to die. Because he was popular, and he was loved. And no one deserves to suffer such a terrible death.

Tonight I shall be raising a glass to James, Duke of Monmouth.

Further Reading


Coward, B, 2012, The Stuart Age: England 1603-1714, Pearson: Harlow
Watson, J.N.P, 1979, Captain General and Rebel Chief: The Life of James, Duke of Monmouth, George Allen & Unwin: London

James II Vs William III

James II by Sir Peter Lely

I'll admit now that I haven't done as much reading on James II as I would like and don't know anywhere near enough about him. Other than the fact that he was Catholic and had his nephew Monmouth executed. And I'll admit also that I have done even less reading on the deposition of James in favour of William III and his wife Mary (who was actually James II's daughter!) Now then, I don't know whether it's the fact that I have this rather unnatural love of the Stuart family that has put me off reading much on William (and before you say it, I know he was a relation, and married a Stuart but shhhhhhhh!) or the fact that I have gotten it into my head that William was well...rather dull...but I have been avoiding anything after James II for a while.

Until now!

William III by Kneller

So yesterday, in 1690, William III who had come over to England and invaded in 1688 which lead to him becoming King in 1689, utterly trounced James II at the Battle of the Boyne over in Ireland. The Battle itself was actually fought on 1st of July but in the Julian Calendar - which works out as the 11th July in today's Gregorian calendar. Today however is the date in which the battle is 'celebrated'

So anyway, what lead up to the battle? And why did William win? Here, have some bullet points...

• James was catholic, and parliament were a tad fed up with him.
• So Parliament invited William over for an invasion, and invade he duly did, landing in November 1688 at Brixham.
• As William landed with thousands and thousands of troops, James began to loose support and refused to fight his nephew's armies deciding it would be much more sensible to run away.
• He tried to run away to France but was captured in Kent. William really didn't want to make his uncle a martyr though and let him escape in December.
• In 1689 a Convention Parliament met to discuss what to do and William really wanted to rule in his own right, even though his wife was higher in the succession. A lot of Parliament wanted Mary to be queen in her own right but she refused, being loyal to her husband.
• On 13th February Parliament decided that because James fled to France he had abdicated his throne and offered the joint crown to William and Mary because they were protestant - it was deemed safer for the English monarchy to remain Protestant. After this, so English monarch has ever been catholic.
• In 1690, the Irish people thought they would help James get his throne back, mainly because they were Catholic too and hoped he would allow them to keep practising their religion. James obviously thought this was a marvellous idea and joined up with the Irish to try and take back his throne.
• William however thought this was a bad idea, and wanted Ireland to remain protestant so he got an army together and marched off to Ireland.
• To cut a long story short (again because I haven't done very much reading on the subject), the battle went very badly for James and he lost and ended up taking himself back to France. He knew he was defeated.
• So William stayed King until 1702.
• And James died in France in 1701 - though up until his death some people kept trying to reinstate him, and there was this one episode where his supporters tried to assassinate William in 1696. It didn't work very well.

I have to say I feel really sorry for poor James II. He'd never been popular, and less so after his conversion to Roman Catholicism...and having a Catholic King of England didn't go down too well. Yet, at least William didn't have his uncle executed - which let's be fair, he probably could have - and allowed him to pretty much retire in peace.

I am hoping to do a lot more reading in and around this part of Stuart history because well...now I think about it, William probably wasn't all that dull, and I love battlefield history. So whilst this post may not be hugely detailed, expect more on James II, William & Mary and the Glorious Revolution in due course.

Further Reading

Coward, B, 2012, The Stuart Age: England 1603-1714 (Fourth Edition), Pearson: Harlow

6th July 1685: The Battle of Sedgemoor

James Duke of Monmouth, Rebel Commander by Jan Van Wyke

On this day in history, 6th July 1685, James Duke of Monmouth was defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor by the army of his uncle King James II. I have written briefly about James Duke of Monmouth before, but due to the fact that I am finding Monmouth more and more fascinating as the days pass, I thought I would mark his defeat at Sedgemoor with a blog post. After all, this was his final defeat and 9 days later he lost his head upon Tower Hill.

The battle itself started early in the morning at around 2am, and lasted for around 3 hours. The previous day Monmouth and his army had been cornered in Bridgwater, even though his army was bigger than that of his uncle, they were much less experienced. And in the end, this lack of experience was what lead to Monmouth's loss. Monmouth, in a last desperate bid to escape the Royalist army thought it would be a good idea to launch a surprise attack.

James Duke of Monmouth

Unfortunately, Monmouth's army was discovered as they crept their way towards the Royalist camp, and his small troop of horse were unable to locate the river crossing in the darkness. The surprise element was gone, and James II's army was much more well drilled and disciplined. Monmouth's own army was, of course, not so disciplined and his horse fled the field leaving the foot soldiers as sitting ducks on the open battlefield.

Monmouth's army was utterly destroyed. In around three hours Monmouth lost over 1000 men compared to 80 losses for the Royalists.

Monmouth and another of his captains, a man by the name of Grey, managed to escape the field of battle and they escaped to the town of Ringwood dressed as peasants. They were captured a few days later and Monmouth was taken to the Tower of London where he was condemned to death by Act of Attainder for committing treason against King James II. He was beheaded upon Tower Hill on 15th July by the notorious Jack Ketch where it took 8 blows and a butchers knife to remove his head.