For several years, Lincoln was my county town and, for centuries before that, it was the county town for many of my ancestors. So, today, for the #HistFicThursdays blog, I'm delighted to be hosting Rachel Elwiss Joyce with a guest post about her book Lady of Lincoln , as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club tour! Read on to find out more about the woman who inspired this book and where her place in history is secured forever. But first, let's meet the book... Blurb A true story. A forgotten heroine. In a time when women were told to stay silent, could she become the saviour her people need? 12th-century England. Nicola de la Haye wants to do her duty. But though she’s taught a female cannot lead alone, the young noblewoman bristles at the marriage her father has arranged to secure her inheritance. And when an unexpected death leaves her unguided, the impetuous girl shuns the king’s blessing and weds a handsome-but-landless knight. Harshly fined by...
For several years, Lincoln was my county town and, for centuries before that, it was the county town for many of my ancestors. So, today, for the #HistFicThursdays blog, I'm delighted to be hosting Rachel Elwiss Joyce with a guest post about her book Lady of Lincoln, as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club tour! Read on to find out more about the woman who inspired this book and where her place in history is secured forever.
But first, let's meet the book...
Blurb
A true story. A forgotten heroine. In a time when women were told to stay silent, could she become the saviour her people need?
12th-century England. Nicola de la Haye wants to do her duty. But though she’s taught a female cannot lead alone, the young noblewoman bristles at the marriage her father has arranged to secure her inheritance. And when an unexpected death leaves her unguided, the impetuous girl shuns the king’s blessing and weds a handsome-but-landless knight.
Harshly fined by Henry II for her unsanctioned union, Nicola struggles to salvage her estates while dealing with devastating betrayals from her husband… and his choice to join rebels in a brewing civil war. Yet after averting a tragedy and gaining the castle garrison’s respect, she still must face the might of powerful men determined to crush her under their will.
Can she survive love, threats, and violent ambition to prove she’s worthy of authority?
In this carefully researched and vividly human series debut, Rachel Elwiss Joyce showcases the complex themes of honour, responsibility, and freedom in the story of a remarkable heroine who men tried to erase from history. And as readers dive into a world defined by violence and turmoil, they’ll be stunned by this courageous young woman’s journey toward greatness.
Lady of Lincoln is the gritty first book in the Nicola de la Haye Series historical fiction saga. If you like richly textured female heroes, courtly drama, and fast-paced intrigue, then you’ll adore Rachel Elwiss Joyce’s gripping true-life tale.
Lady of Lincoln
is available on #KindleUnlimited and via this Universal Link
Guest Post
Nicole of Nicole: Why Nicola de la Haye Would Never Let Go of Lincoln Castle
Imagine growing up inside a place like Lincoln Castle, knowing every stone, every shadow, every creak of the gate in winter. Knowing the names of the men on the walls, the sound of the horn at dawn, the smell of the kitchens. Knowing, before you are old enough to fully understand it, that this place is not just where you live, but what you and your family are.
That was Nicola de la Haye’s childhood, as daughter of the castle’s constable, his heiress who, early in life, would become the constable herself.
Decades later, after a lifetime spent defending her inheritance, Nicola and her garrison held Lincoln Castle against a French invading army, and their resistance helped turn the course of the war. It is no great stretch to say that what happened at Lincoln is one of the reasons England remained England - and why we do not speak French today.
What could have driven this extraordinary medieval woman to stand firm in the face of month upon month of bombardment and threat?
The more I researched Nicola’s world for my novel Lady of Lincoln, the first in a trilogy about her life and the world she lived in, the more I understood the motivations for her fierce, lifelong refusal to surrender Lincoln Castle to the many men that tried, over her lifetime, to take it from her.
And that determination may well have saved the country.
Older Than England
Before the Norman castle, before the medieval city of Lincoln, there was Lindum Colonia: a major Roman fortress and settlement, standing on the great north-south road of Ermine Street, fortified with roman walls and gates.
By the Middle Ages, Lincoln’s high ground had been a place of power for so long it must have seemed almost mythical. If you wanted to control the north of England, Lincoln was one of the places you had to hold.
Within two years of the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror had built a castle on that hill, planting Norman authority in the heart of the old Roman defences.
So every time Nicola walked the battlements, she walked over the bones of something that had endured for centuries: Roman, Saxon, Norman - and now Haye.
Her Family’s Roots
Nicola’s family’s connection to Lincoln was so deep we can’t even be sure when it began.
Through her grandmother Muriel, Nicola descended from Colswein of Lincoln, one of only two Anglo-Saxon lords in the country recorded as having retained their lands after the Norman Conquest.
This meant the people of Lincolnshire had known Nicola’s family not merely as recent Norman overlords, but as leaders with roots stretching back across generations. The allegiance they felt to her family would have been older, deeper, and more personal than anything they felt for the Norman kings and lords claiming authority over them.
Nicole of Nicole
And then there is the striking detail of Nicola’s name.
She was probably known not as Nicola, or Nicholaa, the Latin form used in records, but as Nicole: the Norman French name for Lincoln.
She was Nicole of Nicole.
She didn’t just belong to this place. She was this place. For a woman who spent her entire life fighting to hold Lincoln Castle, there is something almost fated about that, as if the identity she spent her life defending had been written into her before she drew her first breath.
What She Was Responsible For
A royal castle like Lincoln was not simply a home, or even a military stronghold. It was a small world unto itself. Lincoln had extensive walls and within them, two keeps, all housing a permanent garrison of knights and men-at-arms: perhaps thirty to fifty soldiers in peacetime, and more in times of threat. And then came the stewards, clerks, smiths, craftsmen, grooms, stable hands, kitchen staff, servants, and prisoners held in the gaol.
The constable was responsible not only for walls, weapons, and gates, but for order, discipline, supplies, justice, and the daily lives of well over a hundred people in peacetime alone.
And in moments of danger, that responsibility could expand dramatically. If Lincoln’s Jewish community sought refuge in the castle, or if townspeople and refugees fled there during siege, the number of lives under the constable’s protection could have swelled far beyond the ordinary household and garrison.
With the keys came the responsibility for the lives and wellbeing of many, many people.
The Honour of Being Chosen
To hold a royal castle was a public mark of the king’s trust, and in a world where status shaped your alliances, your children’s futures, your finances, and your power base, the title of constable was in high demand.
Royal castle constableships changed hands constantly. Kings reassigned them as rewards, stripped them as punishments, and handed them to favourites. But the Hayes, a family known for loyalty, had somehow held Lincoln Castle across multiple generations.
For Nicola to inherit, however, there was a complication.
She was a woman.
And when she married, her husbands would have taken on her title of constable, because medieval society expected a man to command soldiers, answer to the king, and hold a royal fortress. Marriage, for Nicola, therefore carried more than emotional or political risk; it threatened the very thing she had been born to inherit.
Both her husbands, in different ways, endangered that legacy: one through rebellion, the other when by being accused of treason.
And in widowhood, her control of her castle was once again under threat. A woman holding a royal fortress was not merely unusual; it would have seemed unnatural, even impossible.
But Nicola kept the keys, and the command.
Crucially, King John, and later William Marshal, as regent for the young Henry III, reconfirmed her position over and over again. They recognised what others might have refused to see: that Lincoln Castle was safest in the hands of the woman who had spent her life defending it with a legitimacy, authority, and the local command of personal loyalty few men would have been able to rival.
Holding Lincoln Castle Meant Holding England
So by the time we reach 1217, with French forces outside the walls, rebels in the city, a garrison outnumbered, relief far from certain, we can understand what Nicola was really defending. She was not just defending the castle, and not just England’s future – although if Lincoln Castle fell, England was likely to fall too.
Nicola was defending her home - the place where she had grown up, and the inheritance that had shaped her. Every person sheltering inside those walls was under her protection, and every gate, every tower, every key would have carried a lifetime of meaning.
She was Nicole of Nicole, and she would not let anyone take it from her.
The Legacy
Lincoln Castle still stands today. Its walls, towers, gateways, and views over the city are a wonderful monument to a medieval past, but they are also a reminder of a moment when England’s future hung in the balance, to be saved by an elderly woman who refused to surrender the fortress and the people entrusted to her.
History has too often allowed women like Nicola to slip into the margins, named briefly in chronicles, then forgotten in the shadow of kings, bishops, and warriors. But Nicola was extraordinary. She held a royal fortress when it mattered most and, in doing so, may well have saved a country.
Her castle still stands.
So should her name.
Nicola’s story begins in Lady of Lincoln, the first novel in the Nicola de la Haye trilogy, where the young heiress of Lincoln Castle takes her first steps towards becoming the woman history should never forget.
Now, let's meet the author:
Her fascination with the past began early. At six years old, she was already inventing tales about medieval women in castles, inspired by her treasured Ladybird books and other picture-rich stories that transported her to another time. By the time she discovered Katherine by Anya Seton as a teenager, she knew the joy and escape that only great historical fiction can bring.
Rachel’s two grown-up children still tease her (fondly) about childhoods spent being “dragged” around castles, archaeological sites, and historical re-enactments. For Rachel, history and imagination have always gone hand in hand.
There was, however, a long gap between the stories of her childhood and her decision to write her own novel. The spark came when she discovered the remarkable true story of Nicola de la Haye—the first female sheriff of England, who defended Lincoln Castle against a French invasion and became known as “the woman who saved England,” Rachel knew she had found her heroine, and a story she was destined to tell.
Rachel lives in the UK, where she continues to explore the lives of women who shaped history but were left out of its pages.
You can follow Rachel on these links:
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