a Cévenoles Sagas novel - Book Two of the Huguenot Trilogy
By Jules Larimore
In our predominantly secular twenty-first century society, it can sometimes be challenging to comprehend the full impact the Protestant Reformation had on people’s lives. The religious reform movement that swept through Europe in the sixteenth century brought conflict and change on an unprecedented scale. Age-old traditions and beliefs were challenged and social structures upended while religious factions battled for supremacy.
My novel, The Dartington Bride, spans the years from 1559 to 1584, a period which saw two strong women hold the reins of power and grapple with their respective nations’ response to religious upheaval; in France Catherine de Medici, in England Queen Elizabeth I.
Elizabeth’s grip on those reins was perhaps the stronger because she ruled as absolute monarch and controlled her council with an iron will. Catherine sought to rule as ‘Queen Mother’ through a succession of young sons. While France descended into a series of bloody civil wars that would divide the country for forty years, England stayed relatively free of conflict. Throughout this time, both women must also navigate their relationship with ardently Catholic Spain, which was emerging as the European ‘Super Power’ of the age.
Portrait of Catherine de’ Medici, by Clouet.
Catherine’s eldest son, Francois II, inherited the throne in 1559. He was as a teenager, married to Mary Queen of Scots.
Mary’s uncles, the ultra-Catholic Cardinal of Loraine and his brother, the Duc de Guise, seized power and introduced policies to repress the Protestants. This helped trigger the conspiracy of Amboise in March 1560, a plot to seize the young king and overthrow the Guises. The conspiracy ended in failure, resulting in the execution of approximately 1,200 individuals and the arrest of Prince Louis de Condé, the Protestant leader.
But Francois died in December of the same year, replaced by his even younger brother Charles IX. Catherine de Medici made sure this time that she became his regent. She sent Mary back to Scotland, dismissed the Guises, released Condé, and reversed the previous policy of religious oppression. The Catholic response to the limited toleration she introduced was hostile. It was the Duc de Guise who provided the spark that set the two sides at war. As he was passing through Vassy on 1 March 1562, his men opened fire on a Protestant congregation. In response to this ‘massacre of Vassy’ the Protestants asked Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, to raise an army to protect them. He issued a call for the Protestant people of France to raise troops to oppose Guise and his allies, and the fighting began. Gabriel de Lorges, Comte de Montgomery (see below) would soon emerge as a leader of the Protestant forces.
Over the following two decades Catherine de Medici made repeated attempts to achieve religious compromise between the Protestants, known as Huguenots, and Catholics led by the House of Guise. She would never satisfy both sides.
In England, Elizabeth inherited a complex religious situation from her three predecessors. Her father, Henry VIII, had split from the Church of Rome. Her brother, Edward VI, had pushed England towards Protestantism. Her sister, Mary, had sought to restore Catholicism. Although Elizabeth’s personal conviction leaned towards Protestantism, she regarded the matter of religion primarily as a political concern. She removed Mary’s Catholic Bishops and advisers and appointed moderate Protestants, while denouncing persecution of people of either persuasion. By adopting this approach, she more-or-less succeeded in maintaining peace in her realm. It was only after the Ridolfi plot in 1571, a conspiracy orchestrated by an international banker, that she decided to strengthen the laws against Catholics. The plan was to assassinate Elizabeth and replace her with the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots. From then onwards, Elizabeth became concerned that, because of Mary Queen of Scots’ affiliation with the Guise family and her previous time as the Queen of France, Spain and France might join forces in a Catholic alliance. That fear would ultimately lead to Mary’s execution at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587.
In my novel I do not seek to educate readers in the complex high politics of this turbulent period in French and English history. Rather I keep the focus on one woman’s own lived experience of those years. Scarred by a traumatic childhood during the French Wars of Religion, Lady Gabrielle Roberda Montgomery arrived in Elizabethan England in 1571 to marry into one of Devon’s most prominent families. Affectionately known as Roberda, she was the daughter of Gabriel de Lorges, Comte de Montgomery. She wed Gawen Champernowne, the son of Sir Arthur of Dartington — a marriage that promised huge benefits for both families.
Roberda’s father achieved unwelcome fame in 1559 when he unintentionally caused the death of King Henri II of France during a jousting accident. While the king pardoned him from his deathbed, Queen Catherine would always hold Gabriel responsible for her husband’s untimely death. Two years later, Gabriel travelled to England and encountered many influential people who leaned towards the Protestant faith. Amongst them he met Sir Arthur Champernowne of Dartington Hall in Devon. Upon his return to France, Gabriel embraced the reformed religion and became a prominent Huguenot military leader. His wife, Isabeau, took her children with her when she followed him as the tides of war ebbed and flowed.
Sir Arthur Champernowne was a staunch supporter of the Protestant cause, as were many other members of his family. He was the younger son of Sir Phillip of Modbury, who, in his youth, was squire of the body to King Henry VIII. Sir Philip and his wife, Katherine Carew, had six daughters and two sons. By the time of his death in 1545, five of Sir Phillip’s daughters were married; advantageous alliances with either powerful courtiers or with local men to strengthen Sir Philip’s Devon power base. Sir Philip made the unmarried eldest girl, Katherine the elder, executor of his will alongside her uncle, George Carew, a prominent churchman. Towards the end of 1545, she married John Astley. Many people know her as Kat Astley, Elizabeth’s childhood governess.
The arms of Champernowne.
Arthur was a minor when his father died in 1545 and his elder brother, John, was also dead. While travelling with his cousin Sir Peter Carew, he succumbed to disease in Vienna in 1541, leaving behind an infant son, Henry.
Prior to his father’s death, Arthur had already served in Henry VIII’s last campaign in France. In 1548, Sir Anthony Denny, an up-and-coming figure at Henry VIII’s court and the husband of Arthur’s sister Joan, sought the king’s blessing for Arthur’s marriage. Arthur’s bride was Mary (née Norreys), the widow of his cousin Sir George Carew who tragically perished on the Mary Rose. In 1549, Arthur played his part in suppressing the Western uprising known as the ‘Prayer book rebellion’. With Mary he came into possession of Polsloe Priory near Exeter and then, in a complicated transaction begun in 1554, he exchanged the Priory for the former royal estate at Dartington. He was the first of the Champernowne family to live there. They would remain until 1925.
In 1554, Arthur, alongside his cousin Peter Carew and his uncle Sir Gawen Carew, became implicated in the Wyatt rebellion, a plot against Queen Mary’s Spanish marriage. He spent a short time in the Tower of London before he was released, having satisfied the authorities of his loyalty.
When Elizabeth came to the throne in November 1558, family connections brought Sir Arthur close to the centre of power. Kat had remained faithful to the Queen through difficult times, and Elizabeth appointed her former governess Chief Lady of the Privy Chamber. From that influential position, Kat was well-placed to advance members of her family. Sir Arthur served as Sheriff of Devon in 1561, he was MP for Totnes and Queen Elizabeth made him Vice-Admiral of the Fleet of the West. Gabriel, Comte de Montgomery, hoped to persuade Queen Elisabeth to send money and troops to aid the Huguenots, No doubt it was Sir Arthur’s close connection to the crown through Kat that encouraged him to link his daughter to Sir Arthur’s son, Gawen. He hoped Sir Arthur would be able to influence the Queen and her advisers to offer stronger support.
Sir Arthur was just as enthusiastic. His son Gawen would marry into a French noble family who shared their passionate Protestant beliefs. Considering that Sir Arthur’s own family had Norman ancestry, the idea of acquiring lands and establishing a connection with a prominent Normandy family might have also been appealing. However, Arthur’s principles didn’t prevent him from negotiating a significant financial reward for the union. It took several years to reach an agreement with the Montgomerys regarding a substantial dowry.
The queen continued to favour the Champernownes after Kat’s sudden death in 1565. As Vice-Admiral, Sir Arthur was in an excellent position to give the Huguenots practical support. He ‘stayed’ Spanish ships that were supplying the Duke of Alva, who had been sent to the Low Countries by King Phillip to suppress Protestants who were rebelling against Spain’s authority. In doing so he sometime crossed the thin line between privateering under letters of marque from the queen and piracy. A few years later, he faced court cases demanding the return of some of the goods he seized.
In 1568/69 Arthur helped his nephew, Henry Champernowne, to raise a land force. With the queen’s permission they went to France to support the Huguenots, Champernowne would eventually inherit the bulk of the family estates and would fight alongside the Huguenots in France, only to die in La Rochelle in 1570. Henry led a force of 100 soldiers, which included Arthur’s sons Gawen and Charles Champernowne. Notable amongst a group of other cousins was a young Sir Walter Raleigh. Henry and his men fought at the battle of Jarnac, where the Huguenots suffered a defeat. He returned later in the year and was credited with saving many lives during the retreat following the battle of Montcontour. Henry also acted as a conduit for information from France to Queen Elizabeth’s chief adviser, William Cecil, Lord Burghley. After Henry died in 1570 in La Rochelle, probably as a result of disease raging through the overcrowded port, Sir Arthur and the Gawen took over this role.
The young couple had no say in their marriage. Gawen, who was barely eighteen years old when they wed, had been raised to become a soldier and had assumed control of his father’s ships from a young age. Marriage seemed to hold little appeal for him. On the other hand, Roberda had been educated with the expectation that she would eventually marry.
After the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572, Sir Arthur Champernowne welcomed the Montgomery family to Dartington Hall. In my story Roberda is determined to help others with lives blighted by the conflict. But Gawen does not approve. Their differences will set them on an extraordinary path.
I have drawn this article together from a range of sources including Elizabeth’s French Wars, 1562-1598 by William A Heap, which has been particularly helpful during my research for The Dartington Bride.
The word trap
“No dozens here, legate!” No, the concept of dozen didn’t exist for the Romans, and was something I’d forgotten. EXSILIUM was at copy-edit stage, but just in time I realised to my horror I’d used ‘dozen’ and ‘half-dozen’ in several places to describe small groups and even worse, in dialogue. Luckily, there were only half a dozen(!) rampant dozens to track down and extirpate.
For writers of Roman historical fiction, the other difficulty is that while hours were defined – prima hora, secunda hora – Romans didn’t use minutes or seconds. Cue heartbeats, breaths, glancing, picking things up and throwing things on the ground, etc. for those short, tense gaps.
Although we can scatter a few words here and there, we can’t write the whole novel in the language of the historic period and setting of our book if we want it to be accessible to 21st century readers. However, we can try and keep anachronistic bloopers such as ‘dozen’ and ‘minute’ to a minimum.
Nothing so inevitable as the passing of time
Since my first encounter with an immaculate mosaic in Ampurias, a former Greek and Roman trading port in northeast Spain, I’ve been mesmerised by Ancient Rome. I’m fairly familiar with its history, especially in the west where it lasted 1,229 years. However, as I do with all my novels, when writing EXSILIUM I checked on many individual things I thought I knew. Sometimes you do remember correctly, other times the memory is a little fuzzy.
By AD 395 ¬when EXSILIUM is set, everything in Ancient Rome had moved on since the time of Augustus and Hadrian, from armour and military organisation to clothes and dining arrangements. This period even has a different name – Late Antiquity.
Photo of the approach to Pola today with the Roman amphitheatre centre left. |
Something unexpected was the frequency with which Roman towns changed their names over the years. Name changes depended on the emperor, his pet project, his aim to obliterate his predecessor’s existence or as a reward. For instance, Pula in Istria, Croatia, was a major port and the administrative centre of Histria from ancient Roman times until 1991.
Known to the Greeks as Polai, the "city of refuge” and enjoying the prestige status of a Roman colonia for a long time, it was destroyed in 42 BC by Octavian, who became Rome’s first emperor as Augustus, for taking the wrong side in the civil war. (Never a good idea!) Rebuilt at the request of Octavian's daughter Iulia, it was then called Colonia Pietas Iulia Pola Pollentia Herculanea, short form Pietas Iulia. Two hundred years later during the reign of emperor Septimius Severus (AD 193-211), the name of the town was changed again, this time to Res Publica Polensis. By the time of JULIA PRIMA and EXSILIUM, that’s its formal name, but I bet the locals simply referred to it as Pola.
The time-trip
Although a great deal of the architecture of Ancient Rome is in ruins, a surprising amount has endured. Amphitheatres, aqueducts, bridges, roads, walls, sometimes even whole buildings have survived two thousand years; the Romans were indeed talented civil engineers. There’s nothing like standing on a Roman road incised with the ruts of hundreds of thousands of wheels or walking through the Forum Romanum, perhaps gazing up at the Aurelian walls in Rome or staring at breathtaking arches of the Pont du Gard aqueduct in southern France, then closing your eyes and letting your mind wander. You have to clear away the modern cars, people and roads and let your knowledge supplement your imagination. It’s easier in more remote parts away from the built environment such as in the spaces between the barracks at Carleon in Wales (Isca). You see the same countryside, smell the same weather, look at the same sky that those legionaries experienced.
The Roman barracks at Caerleon. |
If you can’t take a field trip, then there’s Google Maps. It’s astounding how clearly Roman roads and town remains show up from the landscape using the satellite view.
Consulting a specialist
I’d researched a fair bit about horse trekking and riding in the 4th century when I was researching for JULIA PRIMA and knew about the ‘no stirrups’ rule and horned saddles. But I don’t ride and I confess I’m rather nervous around horses. So I consulted an expert, Helen Hollick, who not only writes excellent historical novels but also rides and breeds horses. She gave me some guidance and suggestions about how it feels to sit on a horse while travelling and how often to stop to rest, water and feed your animals. Fellow Roman fiction writers Ruth Downie gave me some sound advice about travel and recommended the comprehensive Travel in the Ancient World by Lionel Casson and Gordon Doherty sent me a wonderful reading list for the 4th century.
In over thirteen years of writing novels, I’ve appreciated very much the help from others and tried to give back by advising on foreign languages and general history. Researching and writing is not a solo game!
Writing about the backdrop for "Covered in Flour" takes me back to 1968, an unforgettable chapter in American history. It was a year that mixed up everything in a tumultuous blend of social unrest, political shocks, and a war that seemed to never end. Now, imagine seeing all of this through the eyes of an eight-year-old—me, back then. My dad, gearing up in his riot control outfit, is one of those memories that just sticks with you. He had this gear, right? A white helmet, a wooden baton, and the sap—a heavy, metal-filled club. For a kid, this was more than just clothing; it was a signal that big, serious things were happening.
Our family life kind of revolved around these events. We'd watch the news, seeing cities burning and people marching, and then we'd sit at the dinner table and talk about it. I remember feeling this mix of fear and fascination, trying to make sense of it all. My dad, preparing to face the riots, became my personal link to the chaos outside our front door.
Reflecting on this as an adult, and writing "Covered in Flour," I dove deep into what 1968 meant. It wasn't just about recounting the big headlines; it was about feeling that year, understanding the tension, the hopes, and the fears. I pored over family stories, historical records, and tried to capture the spirit of the times. My aim was to bring readers into that year, to feel the upheaval and see how it shaped a young boy's view of the world. It's this journey from innocence to a broader understanding of society that I wanted to share, all set against a backdrop of a country at a crossroads.
Charles Presti
Charles Presti, emerging from the sun-drenched shores of Pensacola, Florida, crafts narratives that echo with the richness of his varied life. His journey from a USF College of Medicine graduate to a storyteller is as unconventional as it is inspiring. Drawing from his days as a physician and informatics specialist, Charles infuses his writing with a rare blend of scientific precision and heartfelt emotion. His debut novel, "Covered in Flour," is a vivid tapestry of his Italian-American heritage, his experiences in the whirlwind era of the 1960s, and his personal journey as a gay man. These elements converge to create stories that not only entertain but resonate deeply with themes of family, discovery, and the delicate dance of life's everyday moments.
Charles's passion for storytelling is paralleled only by his commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion. Alongside his husband, Mike Bruce, and their beloved Wheaton Terrier, Zoey, he is a vibrant force and founder of "Sunday's Child," a local charity dedicated to nurturing inclusion and empowering LGBTQ+ and other marginalized communities through grants to local charities. A pillar in the Emerald Coast Writers group, he continually explores the nuances of identity, heritage, and a sense of belonging. Discover more about Charles's captivating world and "Covered in Flour" at www.coveredinflour.com, where each story is a window into a life lived fully and authentically.
Five Minute History
Rock concerts and the changing musical scene in St. Louis in 1970.
By Trish MacEnulty
One of the most fun things to research for my novel Cinnamon Girl was rock concerts and the changing musical scene in St. Louis in 1970 where my protagonist, Eli Burnes, goes to live with her father when she is fifteen.
Some aspects of the book are based on my own life. When I was fifteen I lived with my older brother and his family for a year in Webster Groves, a satellite community in St. Louis County. At a Moody Blues Concert I met a really cute boy who worked at a headshop so of course, I had Eli meet her boyfriend (who works at a headshop) at a Moody Blues Concert. They go to several more concerts after that because the boyfriend gets free tickets through his work.
I found dates, venues, opening acts, and songlists for all those concerts on the Internet as well as reviews of the concerts. This helped a lot with my faulty memory. And I think it’s important to have specific songs to reference.
Here’s an excerpt from the book when Eli and her boyfriend go to a Jethro Tull concert:
The Jethro Tull concert was fabulous. First Procul Harem came on, and the audience went wild when they played “Whiter Shade of Pale.” I never understood what the words meant, but it didn’t matter. It was the mood that the music put you in, especially the electric organ as if you were in a psychedelic church service.
During the break Zen and I walked around, hand in hand, looking at the freaks and hippies. Both of us in our bell bottoms and head-shop gear, we fit in perfectly. We had seats in the fourth row and I felt like we were hippy royalty, which is what my English teacher would have called an oxymoron.
Then Ian Anderson bounded out on the stage, flute in hand. He was all bushy hair and red beard, wearing a long coat that looked like something out of a medieval fairy tale. The band mem-bers fiddled with their equipment and Ian paced like a tiger while the audience grew antsy. “Get it on!” a guy yelled impatiently. The band pretended not to hear them. Just when it felt like the ten-sion would explode, the music erupted — Ian Anderson’s deep voice telling us that “Nothing is easy.” He stood at the mic, blowing his flute, one leg up like a stork, bouncing his dangling foot to the beat of the music.
Thanks to my research I was able to combine YouTube videos, playlists, and my own memory to recreate the concert.
Another aspect of the music scene in that era was the advent of FM radio. In the 1960s, everyone listened to AM radio. AM radio had a specific formula: three-minute popular songs, boring news-casts, endless contests, and super-extroverted guys for DJs (I don’t ever remember hearing a fe-male DJ!). FM came along, and the quality of sound was better, the mellow DJs had more control over what they played, and there wasn’t a formula they had to follow. This was the beginning of album-oriented rock. For the first time you might hear someone like Joni Mitchell or a band like Crosby, Stills, and Nash on the radio.
In St. Louis, the cool FM station was KSHE, which debuted their rock ’n’ roll format in 1967 by playing Jefferson Airplane’s iconic “White Rabbit.” I remembered the switch from AM to FM in our listening habits, but I didn’t realize the importance of FM to the culture.
Jethro Tull |
After doing some research, I discovered the role of FM radio in protest and hippie culture. An arti-cle written by authors Chapple, Garofolo and Rogers in Mother Jones magazine explains: “FM stations established switchboards that provided listeners with rides, addresses of places to spend the night and news of concerts and demonstrations. San Francisco's KSAN was ‘information cen-tral,’ … ‘The station was just where people would call when they were in trouble. The classic was at KMPX where a kid called one day who'd been busted in Sacramento for grass. They allotted him one phone call, so he called us, ‘cause we were the only friend he had. You had a lot of that.’ Many FMs built radical news departments that did not simply ‘rip and read’ the wire service re-leases as AM did, but gathered their own news from a variety of sources.” This was especially im-portant to my story, as Eli’s dad is a DJ who is involved in the peace movement.
When you’re writing “history” that took place during your own lifetime, research becomes vital to your understanding of that history. Just because you lived it doesn’t mean you remember it accu-rately or fully. Research is about discovery. I think it’s one of the most fun parts of writing histori-cal fiction.
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