As it's National Poetry Day, I thought I'd share a few thoughts on Byron. The celebrity cult of Lord Byron began while he was still alive, boomed when he died, and still continues today. He remains an object of fascination, scandal, and appeal. I've been interested in him since I first read about him in a "Famous People" encyclopaedia. It was a children's book, so it did not explore the more infamous aspects of his life. But it was enough to inspire me to delve further into research on the man and the myth - including the puzzle of the mirror . Ultimately, Byron went on to become a major inspiration for my first published book Day's Dying Glory , right down to its title. His early poems (generally my favourite ones) feature heavily in the book, and I enjoyed weaving in lines and references which Byron-fans would spot where others might not even notice them. Poets and poetry have inspired hundreds of writers. It is fascinating that language can be so power...
Sir Thomas More by Hals Holbein
(Accessed via Wikipedia)
What does this have to do with historical fiction, I hear you say? Well, during March 2020, we went into lockdown and suddenly I went from working ten-hour-days to ten-hour-weeks. I met up with my class on Google Meet, I put work up for them on a meticulously designed Google Classroom, but I just had so much more time.
Virginia, Clemency and I played games every day. We had first of all Cluedo, then Monopoly, then Game of Life set up on the table in the railway room (the spare room which was supposed to house Dad’s model railway). Eventually, we settled on Munchkin, perhaps one of the greatest board games ever, and we played several games every day. We used our daily allocated exercise time to either walk the dog or go down to the allotment. Sometimes, we’d sneakily do both providing we couldn’t be cross-contaminating anyone!
Mum’s birthday present that year was a pond which we dug from scratch in the garden, taking time out from the hard work to play with water pistols. I can’t imagine doing that in a town garden now – I would feel so conspicuous – but back then it didn’t matter.
Every afternoon, I would go upstairs to my attic bedroom, pull the blind down across the Velux window, and take a nap. I’m not even much of a napper, but it became part of my daily routine throughout the months of that first lockdown.
But, still, there was Time. My days had been painfully and impossibly stretched by my abandonment of a work/life balance, and now I had extra hours in the day to fill. So, I began to binge watch things. I started with The Tudors.
Prior to lockdown, I had only ever watched one episode of this series but, within a couple of episodes, I was hooked. I love characters more than plot, so the way that the series followed the relationships between individuals made it a must-finish series. There’s great chemistry between many of the characters, and the bromance between Henry and the Duke of Suffolk is better than any of the physical relationships which take place in the series. I have to admit, I was less keen on the final series, which I felt went a little more into shock-and-gore than the others. Of course, it was a violent era but, despite being not very squeamish, the depiction of the hanging, drawing and quartering of Francis Dereham took the graphicness too far for me.
There were also historical inaccuracies: the main one which comes to mind is Margaret and Mary Tudor being mashed up in a pot together and churned out as someone who is not particularly like either of them.
But this was the series into which I inserted Walter Cavendish and his story: Passing Bell.
Sir Thomas More, excellently played (in my opinion) by Jeremy Northam, appears in the story. He is not simply the historical figure: he is the historical figure as portrayed by Jeremy Northam. Natalie Dormer plays Anne Boleyn in the story too – a clever and scheming individual, rather than the sadder, more innocent and immature, portrayal by Claire Foy in Wolf Hall. When I wrote the fate of Father Matthew (which is not actually referenced in Passing Bell), I could see Jonathan Rhys Meyers as King Henry pleading with him to change his stance. My Henry was, I hope, a 3D character, akin to the one portrayed in The Tudors.
Having seen the characters playing out in front of me, I didn’t find it too difficult to develop my story around it and, although Walter’s tale is new and different, there are elements of the secondary characters which owe aspects of themselves to The Tudors. I am ready to watch the series again, to see how accurate my memory of the character depictions were, but next time I might just stop after the penultimate series!
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