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Jessica Blair is giving away two books, The Road Beneath Me and The Locket. You can read more about these books HERE . You will be prompted to return to this page to enter the drawing. Please be sure to leave your contact information.

The last pitched land battle in England happened at Sedgemoor, just outside Bridgwater in Somerset, in 1685. And if hadn’t been for a man with a pistol, and an unexpected ditch, it might have ended quite differently. Earl of Feversham The two generals on either s ide were Louis Duras, the Earl of Feversham, and James Scott, Duke of Monmouth. In June 1685 Monmouth had landed with three ships at Lyme Regis, in Dorset, where he recruited an army mostly composed of Protestant West Country cloth workers and artisans, with whose aid he hoped to depose his Catholic uncle, King James II. The army of Louis Duras, and his second in command John Churchill (later the Duke of Marlborough), consisted entirely of professional soldiers. Their job was to crush Monmouth’s rebellion as quickly as they could. In the three weeks between 11 th June, when he landed, and 1 st July, the date of the battle of Sedgemoor, Monmouth had done his best to equip and train his part-time soldiers. They were well armed...

New proposals for Official Secrets legislation in the UK not only make the law more severe, they seek to broaden the definition of "Official Secret" to include almost any information that might embarrass the government. It is no longer a question of information that might be useful to an enemy, but anything that might affect foreign policy, and so on. The new laws will be more severe because the maximum penalty will be a fourteen year jail term, which is a far more severe sentence than has been passed in an official secrets case for many years, and because it is going to be an offence to have information, whereas at present the offence is to communicate or attempt/conspire to communicate such information. This is being seen as primarily an attack on The Guardian newspaper, which often runs stories based on leaked Ministry of Defence information. But, in practice, and like David Cameron's Royal Charter making the fascist-owned "Impress" militia the official p...

Judith Arnopp Believed to be Katherine Howard On February 12 th 1542 (some sources say 13 th ) a young queen went to the scaffold accused of adultery and treason, leaving history to make of her what it would. Katherine Howard has been dismissed as a bit of a trollop, a superficial girl interested only in jewellery, gowns and dancing. Since she clearly lacked her cousin, Anne Boleyn’s, poise, her intelligent wit and sparkling personality, it is not easy to pinpoint exactly what it was about Katherine that so entranced Henry VIII. Perhaps it was just her seeming simplicity and her youth. Although of good pedigree Katherine was borne to impoverished parents and placed in the care of her grandmother, Agnes Howard (nee Tilney) the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk who ran a very lax household.   The other ladies that served the Dowager were left to run wild and did nothing to protect Katherine from their sexual indiscretions and gave no credence to her position in life.   Indeed, Kathe...

As a writer of historical fiction I am fascinated by the stories we inherit about history. Quite a few of these are 'urban myths' - stories that travel orally usually via bars or other social meeting grounds. I recently came across an entertaining one which apparently went viral across the internet in the 1980's.  image of Titanic from www.bbc.co.uk A Russian destroyer was on manoeuvres near Iceland when the captain spotted a strange dark shape on an iceberg floating some distance away. They went in closer for a better look and saw it was a woman, dressed in a long black dress and lying on her back. She was encased in a thin layer of ice. A party of men including a physician went to investigate and spent almost an hour freeing her from the ice. However her outdated clothes showed she had perhaps been frozen for fifty years or more. In the pockets of the woman's coat were found a brooch, a purse with old english money, and a number of documents including one that said sh...

Alchohol and Samuel Pepys: Drunk and Disorderly? - by Grace Elliot Thence Jenings and I into London (it being through heat of the sun a great thaw and dirty) to show our bills of return, and coming back drank a pint of wine at the Star, Cheapside. Samuel Pepys diary. When Pepys casually mentions drinking a pint of wine in the same sentence as the thaw and the pub, it makes me smile. Apparently, Pepys didn't think imbibing such a quantity of alcohol was anything out of the ordinary, which arguably it wasn't. Samuel Pepys In the modern age the majority of people reading this post will have access to clean, sanitised drinking water - but this wasn't the case in the 17th century world. Although germ theory (disease is caused by micro-organisms) wasn't discovered until the late 19th century, instinct must have warned people that drinking dirty water led to awful stomach upsets. As such, alcohol was consumed more widely, by everyone from children and servants, to labourers...

by Maria Grace These days, most of our evening entertainment centers around electricity: television, video games, internet, even our lighting is almost entirely electric. If the power goes out, we grow agitated, wondering what we are supposed to do to keep ourselves entertained until the power comes back on. In the days before electricity, evenings, particularly winter evenings which kept families indoors with poor lighting, proved challenging for entertainment. Consequently, young ladies were often accomplished musicians and called upon to entertain their fellows in song. Cards were also popular, but often could only accommodate a small group at a time. To include larger groups at once, house parties turned to parlor games to while away the long evening hours. Rachel Revel, spinster, published a book in 1825, ‘ Winter Evening Pastimes or The Merry Maker’s Companion ’ that offers guidelines for various amusements suitable for genteel company in the drawing room.  Many...

Swords populate the world of English history and the books we love.  Whether your favorite character(s) went on Crusade, haunted the tourney circuit, lived through the Anarchy, or strolled the courts of intrigue under the shadow of a Tudor, a sword was an everyday staple.  Some were ornate and ceremonial and rarely saw the heat of battle, while others were the difference between life and death or glory and shame. This weapon was much more than simply a sword-shaped piece of steel.  There were many parts and pieces that made a sword both a formidable weapon and work of art.  Balance, weight, its edge, the grooves along the blade, the handle (grip), the scabbard, the crossguard, and the pommel all played a small, but vital part in a sword's construction and long-term use.  When these disparate chunks of leather and steel were crafted together as a whole a masterpiece was the result; they could even become an extension of your character. The Pommel Pommel varieties...