John Raleigh of Forde – a Newton Abbot connection

John Raleigh of Forde - a Newton Abbot connection

The girl she called granddaughter was peering at her, offering the apothecary’s potion. Kitty Hooker; such a pretty girl, so like her mother, Walter’s Mary. Katherine’s mind rambled over memories of the day Kitty wed John Hooker’s son Robert at the Church of St Mary in Wolborough. John Raleigh, grown wealthy from his shipping interests and his wife’s money, had put on quite a show for the wedding of a favourite niece.

An extract from A Woman of Noble Wit 

Names -  the frustrating vagaries of sixteenth century spelling!

Anyone who has researched their family history will be familiar with the frustration of finding, or more often missing, different spellings of their family name as they trawl through parish registers, wills and land transactions.  We are lucky to have access to sophisticated search engines and online catalogues, but it is so very easy to miss vital documents.  The further back you go, the worse if gets. Amongst the records that remain to us from the sixteenth century and before, its an absolute minefield! So when searching for records that mention the characters in A Woman of Noble Wit I …

Pandemic - spare a thought for those who went before.

A new disease is sweeping through continental Europe at alarming speed, felling all in its path.  It enters England through the south coast ports and soon reaches London where rich and poor alike succumb.  Soon its tendrils spread through the whole country: even as far as Devon where the graveyards fill rapidly.  It’s an all too familiar scenario.  But the year is 1557 and Mary Tudor sits on the throne of England.

This was no swift killer like the sweating sickness or the plague, which, it was said, …