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(Portrait sourced via Wikimedia commons from the collection of Lord Hastings - thought to be Kat Champernowne/Ashley (Astley).)
It’s well known that a woman named Katherine Champernowne, later the wife of John Ashley (Astley), was governess for the future Queen Elizabeth I. Many people recognise her as ‘Kat’, although those closest to her may have actually called her Kate. I have therefore continued to use Kat, both here and in my novel A Woman of …
Today Southernhay is a leafy street of attractive Georgian town houses and modern offices just beyond Exeter’s ancient city walls. It follows the line of the great town ditch, know as the Crulditch a name which, according to Devon historian Hoskins, comes from the word crull, meaning curly, as the ditch followed the curve of the city wall.
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"Deare Sonnes"
On the 18th April in the year 1594 Katherine Raleigh lay in her bed in a house close to the Palace Gate, near Exeter Cathedral. She was well into her seventies, a long life for a woman of her time.
Fearing her end was near, she called for her grandson, Arthur Gilbert, one of Sir Humphrey's many sons. Along with Nicholas Bolte and Richard Jerman, probably Exeter merchants, Arthur Gilbert witnessed her last will and testament.
As she lay, probably very near death, Katherine’s overriding concern was to see all her accounts on earth …
Guest post for The Historical Fiction Blog
Rosemary Griggs - A Woman of Noble Wit
Tudor Teenagers
Parents of today will recognise that moment when their cherubic, enthusiastic, biddable children seem to transform into moody monsters who sleep all day, never tidy their rooms and are generally out of sorts with the whole world. I mean, of course, when they become teenagers. It’s a difficult time for youngsters when hormones are racing around, they are changing both physically and mentally, and there are many new challenges to meet. The …
A sixteenth century Christmas
We know quite a lot about how the wealthy spent Christmas in the sixteenth century. Surviving account books from Royal, noble and gentry households paint a picture of lavish feasts and costly entertainment. For the less well off Christmas must have come as a welcome holiday, relief from the drudgery of life in the long, cold winter season.
On Christmas Eve men, women and children went out into the woodlands to cut greenery such as holly, ivy and mistletoe to decorate …