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Nuns, monks, priests and believers: writing about spiritual matters in English historical fiction

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I once told a friend that it was impossible for me to write a novel without a nun or a priest in it. In my household this has become a bit of a joke; my husband likes to say, “Oh you wouldn’t like this book or movie! No one’s searching for God!” Well, sometimes it is true. I am myself a church mouse; I can hardly pass an old church or chapel in England without slipping inside. Oh the history! Sometimes a thousand years or more in one church. Women were praying for families seven hundred years ago in the very spot where you stand. Roughly I can put the nuns, priests and devout characters in novels in three categories: sleuth, spiritual seekers, and secondary characters who slip in and out of pages baptizing and burying (in the many periods of historical fiction, religion was a major part of one’s life.)   And of course the first two categories intermingle. There are so many such novels or series that I can mention only a few. The sleuth nuns in both THE CROWN by Nancy Bilyeau and th...
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Drinking Tobacco - A 17th Century Vice - by Deborah Swift

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Nobody in my novel THE GILDED LILY 'drinks' tobacco, which is a pity because that is actually the word that was used for smoking in the 17th century. If I had used that word than the reader would have stopped to think why and it would have brought them out of the story to focus on the writer instead of staying in my 17th century world. So I used the word 'smoke' even though it is technically incorrect. Cigarettes did not exist of course so all smoking was through a pipe, and the smoke was drunk, sipped or swallowed. Smoking was a word only applied to the tobacco itself when it was alight! Tobacco was very expensive so pipe bowls were very small, allowing less than an ounce of tobacco. The stem of the pipe was very long and the hole through which you drank very small. You would have had to suck quite hard to get your hit of tobacco. Painting by Pieter Claesz 1636 Clay pipes were very decorative especially those made for women, and I have an example at home which has flow...
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The Federal Reserve ADMITS that Its 12 Banks Are PRIVATE - Not Government - Entities

Much of the tens of trillions in bailout money and "easy" money from quantitative easing went to foreign banks (and see this , this and this ). Indeed, Ron Paul noted recently that one-third of all fed bailout loans - and essentially 100% of loans from the New York Fed - went to foreign banks. The New York Fed is the most important Fed bank. As Bloomberg pointed out in 2020: The New York Fed is one of 12 regional Federal Reserve banks and the one charged with monitoring capital markets. It is also managing $1.7 trillion [now up to at least $1.9 trillion] of emergency lending programs [and accepting collateral from the banks in return]. However, the country's most powerful "agency" - the Federal Reserve - is actually no more federal than Federal Express . The Fed itself admitted (via Bloomberg): While the Fed’s Washington-based Board of Governors is a federal agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act and other government rules, the New York...
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