Today, in Caithness, the sun is shining and the air is clear. I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone reading this blog that, certain weathers and certain times of the year ignite certain music in me. And, on late winter days which are filled with sunshine, I am usually to be found singing the songs of The Spinners . Inevitably, I start humming different ones of their songs (and of course adapting them to be about Orlando and Jess) as I go around doing different things. But I remember almost all the words to them. I haven't heard a lot of them in years, but they are all there, rooted in my memory. It is truly fascinating to think about how these songs have passed through history. They are part of my own nostalgia, which is why crisp sunny mornings make me incapable of ignoring the temptation to sing them, but they are part of something much bigger. There are songs amongst them which are a newer step in the folk music movement. Songs like Silver in the Stubble are amongs...
This month being #HistFicMay has got me thinking about my closest-to-being-finished WIP, Poisoned Pilgrimage. As much as possible, I'm attempting to answer all the prompts based on this one and hoping that it might spur me on to actually write the last few chapters...
Alas, so far, time has been a rare commodity this May!
That being said, we did sit down this evening and watch the announcement of the newly elected Pope Leo XIV and listen (via the most appalling automatic translation software!) to his first address as pope. Whatever your religious beliefs, this was a moment for the history books. What happens during his tenure remains to be seen, but it was a deeply significant and spiritual moment to join people in every corner of the world and look forward in hope. While the commentary teams were discussing what the choice of Leo might represent, I was able to (with a small amount of smugness, I'm not going to lie!) impress Judith with my knowledge of the fact the Medici popes favoured the name Leo.
The Medici family feature heavily in Poisoned Pilgrimage, although it is a little while before their papal years. Piero "The Unfortunate" de Medici is one of the book's major players, but the pope at this time was the infamous Rodrigo Borgia, Alexander VI. It is between the artistry of Florence and the grandeur of Rome that Poisoned Pilgrimage is set, as the political rivalry plays out, not just between the two cities, but also between the Italian states and Spain.
Known predominantly for his nepotism and his shameless flouting of the church's rules, Alexander made as many enemies as he did friends, and his legacy is generally not regarded as a great one. At best, he was a family man, but he exhibited a shocking lack of humanitarian concern in the management of the newly discovered Americas, and was not adverse to using the individuals of his family for the advancement of the Borgias as a whole. But, as the history books show, his obsessive lust for ownership and power were to lead to the downfall of the Borgia family who, over the following century, faded into obscurity.
All that being said, there is very little evidence that Alexander stooped to the depths of which he is often accused, nor is it likely that Lucrezia went around poisoning people. And yet the jealous onlookers, frightened bystanders, and horrified members of the religious orders could hardly be blamed for watching the abuse of power Alexander exhibited and questioning just how he got away with it... A little bit like how many of us feel today about certain world leaders!
Although Alexander makes the perfect gangster-esque pope for books like mine, I'm sure - absolutely positive! - that Pope Leo XIV will not be like those Renaissance popes. There is something very reassuring about the return to the original role of pope of recent years. I wonder what books will be written about him in five hundred years time...
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