For today's #HistFicThursdays blog, I am thrilled to be welcoming Rosemary Griggs to the blog with a guest post about her latest book Mistress of Dartington Hall , as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club tour! Read on to find out about her strong female character in what is largely thought of as a male world. But first, let's meet the book... Blurb 1587. England is at war with Spain. The people of Devon wait in terror for King Philip of Spain’s mighty armada to unleash untold devastation on their land. Roberda, daughter of a French Huguenot leader, has been managing the Dartington estate in her estranged husband Gawen’s absence. She has gained the respect of the staff and tenants who now look to her to lead them through these dark times. Gawen’s unexpected return from Ireland, where he has been serving Queen Elizabeth, throws her world into turmoil. He joins the men of the west country, including his cousin, Sir Walter Raleigh, and his friend Sir F...
For today's #HistFicThursdays blog, I am thrilled to be welcoming Rosemary Griggs to the blog with a guest post about her latest book Mistress of Dartington Hall, as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club tour! Read on to find out about her strong female character in what is largely thought of as a male world.
But first, let's meet the book...
Blurb
1587. England is at war with Spain. The people of Devon wait in terror for King Philip of Spain’s mighty armada to unleash untold devastation on their land.
Roberda, daughter of a French Huguenot leader, has been managing the Dartington estate in her estranged husband Gawen’s absence. She has gained the respect of the staff and tenants who now look to her to lead them through these dark times.
Gawen’s unexpected return from Ireland, where he has been serving Queen Elizabeth, throws her world into turmoil. He joins the men of the west country, including his cousin, Sir Walter Raleigh, and his friend Sir Francis Drake, as they prepare to repel a Spanish invasion. Amidst musters and alarms, determined and resourceful Roberda rallies the women of Dartington. But, after their earlier differences, can she trust Gawen? Or should she heed the advice of her faithful French maid, Clotilde?
Later Roberda will have to fight if she is to remain Mistress of Dartington Hall, and secure her children’s inheritance. Can she ever truly find fulfilment for herself?
Mistress of Dartington Hall
is available via this Universal Link
Guest Post
Finding Roberda and giving her agency in a man’s world
My Daughters of Devon novels tell the stories of lesser-known women who lived in Devon in the sixteenth century. We still hear a lot about the men of England’s West Country from that era. People remember men like Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins, and Grenville, no matter what we think of them today. We rarely hear about the women. They also played important roles and lived interesting lives.
While the men were off on adventures, or fighting for the Queen, their wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters ran large households and estates. They brought up the next generation. Women ran businesses and provided for their families. They worshipped in church, cared for the sick, and played a crucial role in both urban and rural communities. Some women even lead rebellions. Others, like Anne Dowriche, became writers. (Anne, the wife of a Devon vicar, was one of the first women to have a poem published.) Yet their stories are seldom told; their contribution to our history is often overlooked.
These women have left a light footprint on the historical record. However, we should not assume that they could not act independently, because they rarely feature in the record. What remains to us is simply what the record keepers (men) chose to document. As Dame Hilary Mantel eloquently put it, the record is “what's left in the sieve when the centuries have run through it—a few stones, scraps of writing, scraps of cloth.” Philippa Gregory, in her inspirational book, ‘Normal Women’, makes the point strongly that men have left out a lot of what women achieved when telling our history. She has uncovered previously untold stories of many ordinary women. Barbara Harris’s ‘English Aristocratic Women’ also gives us many insights into the realities of life for women from elite families.
Women were much more decisive and active than we may think, even though, in Tudor and Elizabethan England, they lived within seemingly rigid patriarchal rules. They ceded most of their rights to their husbands, but often emerged as independent women and property owners in widowhood. Katherine Champernowne, Sir Walter Raleigh’s mother, the subject of my first novel, A Woman of Noble Wit, appears rarely in the record during her early years. However, after becoming a widow for the second time, she topped the 1585 tax returns for her part of Exeter. She had become a wealthy woman in her own right. However, women like Katherine exerted their influence throughout their lives, but often quietly, behind the scenes. Sir Walter Raleigh likely formed impressions at his mother’s knee that shaped the talented, yet complex man he became.
A few ‘larger than life’ women of that time stand out. For example, the indomitable Bess of Hardwick, who oversaw complex building projects in Derbyshire. She must have possessed tremendous financial acumen. After three marriages, she ended up the second richest woman in England after the Queen. From my current research, another Katherine Champernowne, better known as ‘Kat Astley’, shaped a future queen of England. But Kat’s contribution went far beyond overseeing Elizabeth’s early education. Although she was a married woman, Kat forged a unique and highly political role as a courtier after Elizabeth came to the throne.
For The Dartington Bride and the recently published sequel, Mistress of Dartington Hall, I took inspiration from the life of a young Huguenot woman who came to England to marry into one of Devon’s most prestigious families.
Roberda’s own mother, Isabeau de la Touche, is another woman who has made it into the record books. She left an extraordinary mark on the history of the French Wars of Religion. Her letters seeking support from Queen Elizabeth survive. Records tell how she commissioned a barge to convey supplies and ammunition to her husband during the siege of Rouen. The small vessel ran the gauntlet of booby-traps set by the royalists along the River Seine and reached the besieged city to bring aid to the Huguenot forces. Isabeau took Roberda and her brothers and sisters with her on that frightening journey. Roberda’s mother also established a Huguenot church in her hometown of Pontorson. Her husband, Gabriel de Lorges, Count of Montgomery, had such faith in her he gave her full power of attorney to manage all his affairs while he was away leading the Huguenot army in battle. After taking refuge in England following the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, Isabeau raised funds and troops to continue the fight in France. Even in her old age, she was very much in evidence, still supporting the Huguenots during battles in Pontorson in 1594. With such a role model, Roberda was likely to become a strong and independent woman.
Mistress of Dartington Hall begins in the autumn of 1587. Roberda has been managing her estranged husband’s lands while he was away in Ireland on the queen’s business. She has done so successfully, putting the trials of her problematic marriage behind her and gaining the trust of her servants, tenants and estate workers.
In 1587, England had been at war with Spain for over two years. Women often step outside the boundaries during wartime. In the First World War, society women became nurses or learned how to drive ambulances. In the Second World War, many women worked in munitions factories, as well as keeping things going on ‘the home front' as land girls. Women eked out scant food supplies, and they ‘dug for victory.’
 |
| Woman cranking an ambulance and Women's Land Army in the First World War. [Wikimedia commons] |
England being in a state of war in 1587 gave me the opportunity to allow Roberda to push back against the patriarchal rules that surrounded her.
The record is completely silent about the actions of half the population while England prepared for the Armada. It is easy to discover what the Spanish commanders did. All the naval battles and the significant roles played by the English officers, including Drake and Admiral Howard, are well documented. There are accounts of Drake’s fireships and the changing wind that scattered the Spanish fleet and drove them around the coast of Scotland. Records detail last-minute efforts to shore up Plymouth’s defences, the establishment of a chain of warning beacons, and musters of ill-equipped and poorly trained men. In short, there is a wealth of information about what the men were doing. Nothing to tell us about the women.
The situation in 1587/88 was much like that facing southern England during the Second World War, when a different invasion seemed imminent. In Mistress of Dartington Hall, I have allowed Roberda to adopt a sort of ‘Blitz spirit’. From her childhood experiences in France, she knew only too well what devastation they could expect if the Spanish army marched through Devon, Determined to prepare, she rallies the women to stitch better clothing to equip their menfolk, to manage food supplies against the likely need for evacuation, and to prepare medicines to care for the injured.
Gawen’s return, threatening Roberda’s role as ‘head of the household’, builds tension between them. A conflicted Roberda puts wifely duty and her children before her own sense of self. However, the historical record gave me clear evidence that she acted decisively and courageously by seizing control during her son, Arthur’s, minority. (Spoiler alert: this is after Gawen dies!) She was determined that the Devon estate she loved would remain in the family.
 |
| Dartington Hall [Rosemary Griggs] |
Another way for women to exercise plausible agency in Elizabethan England was through the strong support networks they forged with other women. They helped each other through many childbirths, offered companionship and gave practical advice. In Mistress of Dartington Hall, Roberda turns to her support group to manage a difficult situation concerning her rebellious daughter, Lisbeth. Roberda’s devoted French maid, Clotilde, discovers sixteen-year-old Lisbeth in an embrace with a young secretary employed by Gawen’s rather sinister companion, John Harte. Clotilde immediately gives the young man a tongue-lashing, and then reports to Roberda. From her own experience, Roberda understands how vital it is that no hint of scandal attaches to a young girl if she is to find a husband. She does not want Gawen to get wind of what’s been going on. So, as well as tackling Lisbeth herself, she appeals to her close friend. Bess, who is Gawen’s sister, lives at nearby Berry Pomeroy Castle, and offers to take Lisbeth to her home for a while, skilfully defusing a difficult situation. Resourceful women often worked together to deal with matters without involving their menfolk.
The challenge of writing Historical Biographical Fiction is to respect the few references the record provides, while weaving a story around them. Sometimes it is hard for us to understand how the women who went before us could have accepted a life of constant childbearing and little independence. They achieved more than we may think. Strong women like Roberda lived fulfilling and significant lives despite the constraints of their time.
Now, let's meet the author:
Author and speaker Rosemary Griggs has been researching Devon's sixteenth-century history for years. She has discovered a cast of fascinating characters and an intriguing network of families whose influence stretched far beyond the West Country. She loves telling the stories of the forgotten women of history — the women beyond the royal court; wives, sisters, daughters and mothers who played their part during those tumultuous Tudor years: the Daughters of Devon.
Her novel, A Woman of Noble Wit, set in Tudor Devon, is the story of the life of Katherine Champernowne, Sir Walter Raleigh’s mother. The Dartington Bride, follows Lady Gabrielle Roberda Montgomery, a young Huguenot noblewoman, as she travels from war-torn France to Elizabethan England to marry into the prominent Champernowne family. Mistress of Dartington Hall, set in the time of the Spanish Armada, continues Roberda’s story.
Rosemary is currently working on her first work of non-fiction — a biography of Kate Astley, childhood governess to Queen Elizabeth I, due for publication in 2026.
Rosemary creates and wears sixteenth-century clothing, and brings the past to life through a unique blend of theatre, history and re-enactment at events all over the West Country. Out of costume, Rosemary leads heritage tours at Dartington Hall, a fourteenth-century manor house that was home of the Champernowne family for 366 years.
You can follow Rosemary on these links:
Comments
Post a Comment