The Women of Bruce - Part Three The Two Wives of Robert Bruce

The Women of Bruce - Part Three 

 The Two Wives of Robert Bruce

What do we know of the two women that married Robert the Bruce, king of the Scots?  There have been four, maybe more films made about Bruce’s life in the last 20 years, all iffy history at best, which is sad since the story of Bruce’s rise from the earl of Carrick to the man who fought his cousin to determine who would claim the crown is a wonderful tale.  Did the women who became his brides fare any better?  For the most part they were simply omitted, or if included written with questionable inaccurately.  Both women were born to be a queen, but only one reached that pinnacle.  They were both young, both reputed to be lovely, and both came from lineage that had ancient and royal blood running through the lines.

 

Isabel of Mar

 

Arms of Isabel of Mar

Isabel of Mar was born 1278 at Kildrummy, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.  She was the first wife of Robert Bruce, and she carried blood royal on both sides of her family.  Her father, Donald "Domhnall mac Uilleim" Mar, 10th earl of Mar, whose lineage goes back to origins of Clan Macdonald and “King of the Hebrides”—Somerled.  He also was the great grandson of Henry I Beauclerc, king of England, younger son of William "the Conqueror" FitzRobert, duke of Normandy, king of England.  An impressive lineage but it is matched by  Isabel’s mother—Elen “the Younger” ferch Llywelyn was a princess of Wales, and widow of Mormaer Maol Choluim II, earl of Fife.  Her grandfather on her mother’s side was Llywelyn Fawr 'the Great' Llywelyn prince of Wales and Gwynedd, who married Lady Joan Siwan Fitzjohn of Wales, lady of Snowdon, illegitimate daughter of King John of England.  So in the marriage to Isabel, Bruce was cementing bonds not only to powerful clans of Scotland, but to the high English and Welsh rulers as well.  Isabel was a woman bred to be a queen, the perfect wife to rule at Robert’s side when the time came.

Isabel’s father was an ardent supporter of Robert Bruce, 5th lord of Annandale—Bruce’s grandfather, known as 'the Competitor'—and was there at Annandale’ back during The Great Cause.  Of the seventeen lords vying for the crown of the Scots, Annandale was one of the top three contenders, if not the candidate to wear the Scottish crown.  And it wasn’t arrogance for Annandale to expect, when all was said and done, that he would become the ruler of Scotland.  When Alexander II, his cousin, lacked an heir, the king had name Annandale as tanist—a Scottish term for heir apparent.  If Alexander had died at that point in history, Annandale would have become king of the Scots with none to lay challenge.  Later, he was Regent of Scotland during the minority of his second cousin, King Alexander III.   I am sure it came as a shock, which turned to outrage, when Edward chose John Balliol over him.  Edward had deliberately held the Bruces close to him, rewarded them richly in ways he wouldn’t do with other nobles, yet at the back of his mind was the truth—the men of Bruce were not to be taken lightly.  The ultimate goal for the English king was to fold Scotland into the kingdom of England, along with Wales, and then to add France.

The Earl of Mar was one of the seven Guardians of Scotland and he had believed Robert the Bruce was the lawful King of Scots. Mar could see great advantage in aligning his family with the Bruces.   In 1292, Isabel’s older brother, Gartnait mac Domhnaill, married Robert’s older sister, Christian.  Three years later, by papal dispensation, and at the age of 18, Isabel married Robert, earl of Carrick, who was four years her senior.  In a time when marriages for nobles were little more than political power moves, legend has it that Robert and Isabel were very much in love.  Few were surprised, when a short time later, Isabel was soon with child. They seemed blessed; she had a healthy pregnancy.  Late in 1296, Isabel gave birth to a daughter.  They named her Marjorie after Bruce’s late mother, Marjorie, countess of Carrick.  Then, Fate waved a hand on the night of December 12th, Isabel died at Castle Cardross, on the Firth of Clyde, in Renfrewshire.

Paisley Abbey

 Following her death, Isabel of Mar was buried at the Cluniac Paisley Abbey. Her tomb has not survived.  In his last act of revenge against Robert Bruce, Edward had the abbey burnt to the ground in 1307, thus destroying both the tomb of Isabel and her daughter Marjorie.  William Wallace was born in nearby Elderslie, and is believed to have been educated in the abbey when he was a boy.  Scots not being deterred had the Abbey was rebuilt.  An eerie circumstance arose when Isabel’s daughter, now grown and married to Walter Stewart, was riding near the abbey and was thrown from her horse. She was pregnant at the time.  They carried her to abbey for medical care.  I suppose saving the life of a princess came second to the child who might be king.  Robert II was born by caesarean section.  Considering the lack of anesthetics, it was small wonder she did not recover.  Marjorie was interred at the rebuilt abbey, as her mother before her had been once, and as the line of Stewarts after her.

 

 

Elizabeth de Burgh

Arms of Elizabeth de Burgh 

Elizabeth de Burgh was likely born in 1284 at Connaught Province, Ireland.  Some sources cite Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland as her place of birth.  However, since her father had been fighting in Wales with the king of England, and another daughter, Eleanor (named after Edward’s queen) was born in Wales, there is an outside chance Elizabeth might have been born there as well.  Without question she was conceived in Wales.  At this point in history, male historians barely noted the arrival of another de Burgh female, little need in their minds for accuracy of place and date of birth; they never suspected she would be one of the most famous queens of  Scotland, her legend only eclipsed by Mary queen of the Scots. 

She was the third daughter of seven, out of eleven children of  Richard Óg de Burgh, the ‘Red Earl’.  He was the 2nd earl of Ulster, 3rd baron of Connacht, Lieutenant of Ireland, Keeper of Athlone, Randown, and Roscommon Castles—and unarguably the most powerful man in Ireland.  His wife was Margaret Guines, daughter of Arnoul de Guines III and Alice de Coucy.  Margaret was a 2nd cousin once removed of Queen Eleanor.  Margaret was also a first cousin of Alexander III of Scotland, Edward I's brother-in-law.  Edward was Elizabeth’s godfather. As impressive as Margaret’s lineage was, her husband Richard matched it.  He was educated at the Court of Henry III (Edward’s father), thus cementing a lifelong friendship between Edward and Richard.  Through the years Richard was Edward’s closest friend and one of his most trusted advisers.  At nearly every battle Edward fought in England, Wales and Scotland, Richard was there at his back.

Elizabeth most likely met Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick, at the English Court.  The Bruces and de Burghs dancing to Edward’s whims, living and fighting nearly in the other’s pockets, there had to be occasions where both were in attendance.  With Isabel Mar’s death in 1296, Robert was a good catch for mothers looking for arranged marriages for their daughters. By 1300, there was some hint Edward was considering giving Robert a new bride.  Richard had three daughters of age at the time—Aveline, Eleanor and Elizabeth, the youngest.  The second daughter married Sir Thomas de Multon, 1st Lord Multon of Egremont, so that left the other two as candidates. Edward was playing a game of chess with the Bruces, often lavishing money on Robert after he refused to pay homage to John Balliol, and his lands in Scotland were seized in punishment.  At Court, he was mocked and called Edward’s Lordling. Some say, Edward paid more attention to Robert than he did his own son.  I truly think he hoped by keeping Robert close, he could curb the hunger to be the king of the Scots that had filled Robert’s father and grandfather.  And what better way than presenting him with a new wife?  Not just any bride—but one that was his goddaughter.

The English invaded Scotland in 1301.  In 1302, Robert married Elizabeth at Writtle, near Chelmsford in Essex. Robert would have been close to 28 and she was 18.  In 1304, Edward again invaded Scotland to regain control of Stirling Castle.  So, it’s not surprising to see the political turmoil around their marriage was coming to a head. 

On February 10th, 1306 at Greyfriars, Bruce met with John Red Comyn to settle, for once and all, who would be the future king of Scotland.  Comyn or his uncle tried to kill Bruce; in return, Bruce pulled his dirk from his boot and struck back, wounding Comyn.  Bruce staggered outside and told his trusted friend, Sir Alexander Seton, that he stabbed Comyn but the man was still alive. Roger de Kirkpatrick rushed inside to see, and came back with the tides that he killed Comyn. Events that would soon propel Elizabeth’s life out of control.

After meeting with the Church of Scotland, it was decided to crown Bruce king as soon as possible.  So on 27th March 1306, Robert and Elizabeth were crowned king and queen of Scots at Scone.  One might infer Elizabeth lacked faith that her husband’s bold move to be king would be a lasting one, for it is reported that she smiled faintly after the coronation and said, ‘Alas, we are but king and queen of the May that children crown for sport.’  The May King and May Queen only rule for one day.  On the other hand, perhaps it wasn’t a lack of faith in Bruce’s ability to hold the kingship as much as she understood her godfather’s ruthlessness when betrayed, and knowing also that her father would be backing Edward’s every move to put the new king down.  As well, two-thirds of Scotland aligned with Clan Comyn would be the hounds for Longshanks hunting Robert Bruce.

Thus, once again, the English army invaded.  Bruce was forced to contend with facing the English, and hampered by raising troops to fight for him.  Gold was offered to any man who could bring Bruce in.  Bruce had little time to form a strong government, or to raise his army, when he was compelled to meet the English at Methven.  Aymer de Valence, the English general acting for Edward I, had not only arrived with an established host of English soldiery and knights, the men of Comyn were flocking to him.  To Bruce’s credit he did have very able commanders in James Douglas, Christopher Seaton and Gilbert Hay to lead his troops.  Aymer de Valence seemed content to outwait Bruce.  In flamboyant fashion, Bruce invited de Valence to leave the walls of Perth and join him on the battlefield.  To his mistake, Robert presumed the preliminaries of feudal battle protocol would be observed.  When de Valence failed to take up the challenge, Bruce figured there would be no battle that day.  He and his forces retired for the night at Methven, expecting to get a good night’s sleep before the coming battle on the morrow.  Instead, before dawn, the English attacked and nearly destroyed Bruce’s forces.

Bruce had to scramble to see his family was moved out of harm’s way.  He sent  Elizabeth, his young daughter by his first marriage, Marjorie, and his sisters Mary and Christian to Kildrummy Castle, under the protection of his brother Nigel.  Kildrummy was the castle of Christian’s first husband Gartnait of Mar, and though she was now newly married to Christopher Seton, the people there were still very devoted to her.   Bruce, I would assume, thought the English would give chase to him, leaving the women safely out of reach.

Ruins of Kildrummy Castle

Again, underestimating the choices the enemy would make, the English laid siege to the castle containing the royal women. The siege finally succeeded when de Valance bribed a blacksmith with 'all the gold he could carry' to set fire to the grain store. Nigel gave a valiant defense, knowing the castle was lost, but giving time for the earl of Atholl to get the ladies safely away.  Nigel was captured alive.  He was taken to Berwick to be hanged, drawn and beheaded.

The Bruce ladies were probably heading to the Orkneys, where they would be beyond reach of Edward.  Isabel, another of Bruce’s sisters, had married Eric II Magnusson, king of Norway and ruler of the Orkneys.  Though Magnusson had died in 1299, Isabel had remained in Norway as dowager queen, and still exerted a great influence in court matter there and abroad.  However, the women only made it as far as the sanctuary of St. Duthac at Tain in Easter Ross.  There they were captured by a Balliol supporter, William, earl of Ross, who handed them over to Edward I’s men.  (Odd side note—less than two years later, Robert’s sister Maud would marry the son the earl of Ross—Aodh 0'Beoland)  For his protection of the Bruce women, the earl of Atholl was hanged, drawn and beheaded.  His head was displayed on a pike on London Bridge.

Elizabeth spent the next eight years in captivity.  While Isabella Macduff, the woman who had crowned Bruce king, and Bruce’s sister, Mary, were taken to Berwick and Roxbury Castle, and hanged over the castle walls to punish Robert, his wife suffered a milder fate.  She was housed from October 1306 to July 1308 at Burstwick-in-Holderness, Yorkshire.  At first, she was confined with only two elderly women to take care of her needs, and ordered not to speak with her.  A letter from her during this period complained about her conditions, that she was limited to three sets of clothing and no headgear or linen bed clothing.  That saw a series of moves to other manors and castles—Bisham Manor, Windsor Castle, Shaftesbury Abbey, Barking Abbey and finally Rochester Castle.   By the time she reached Windsor Castle, she had been given six servants and an allowance to pay them.  She was even permitted to have her pet Irish wolfhounds to keep her company.  At this point Edward was long dead, and she was dealing with his son, Edward II. 

So why had she been treated so well compared to the dire fates of Isabella and Mary?  Simply because she was Richard de Burgh’s daughter.  Edward had been planning on invading France for over a decade.  He needed men from Ireland to support that invasion, as well to replenish his forces in Scotland to fight Bruce, and de Burgh could do that. 

Bruce’s daughter was kept prisoner at the nunnery at Watton during those eight years.  But a puzzle surrounds Bruce’s daughters by Elizabeth.  They had three daughters:   Maud, Margaret and Elizabeth.  Not surprisingly, historians seem to have the births of the three mixed up, some even try to deny the existence of Elizabeth, and one says her birth was in 1364 (that is her death).   Genealogy sites list the dates of Maud’s birth as 1303, and then Margaret’s as 1307.  This seems perplexing.  Maud would have been three years old when her father was crowned king and her mother captured, if that were the case.  Yet, there is no reference to Elizabeth having a baby with her when captured by the earl of Ross.  John Fordun in his Scotichronicon refers to Maud as “did nothing worth recording”.  I would think if she had been held captive with her mother, or take from her mother by the English, then Fordun might have deemed her worthy of writing about!  And if the second daughter was born in 1307, that would mean Elizabeth have given birth to her after she was a prisoner.  Nowhere have I come across any reference to this.

There is no way a daughter could be born until late 1315.  If Maud’s actual date were 1315, and Margaret in 1316, that would dovetail with Elizabeth’s birth in 1317, backed up by reference to her as Bruce’s “youngest daughter”.

In the case of this Elizabeth, you will see some sites fail to list her as Bruce’s daughter entirely, or suggest she must be the child of one of his mistresses.  Sir David Dalrymple dismisses her out of hand.  He declared Fordun had not mentioned Elizabeth, and that he had not seen any charters of land grants to her, and that if any such charters existed they needed to be “deposited in the Register House”.  Well, they do exist.  There are a number of royal charters, mostly regrants signed by King David II, in which Elizabeth is described as "dilecte sorori me" — my beloved sister or "dilecte sorori nostre" — our beloved sister.  When Dalrymple was shown the proof, he promised to publish a correction to his The Annals of Scotland Volume 2, but he died without fulfilling that promise.  Thus, historians referencing Dalrymple today keep perpetuating the lie that she was illegitimate, or not Robert’s daughter at all.

After the Battle of Bannockburn, Elizabeth was moved to York.  There, she had an audience with Edward II.  In the end, Elizabeth was released as part of the ransom for Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford (Edward’s brother-in-law), who had been captured after Bannockburn on 29th September 1314.  In exchange for Hereford’s release, Edward was forced to give voice that Robert was the legal king of Scots, and to return Elizabeth, Christian, Mary and Marjorie, along with the aging Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow.  Isabella Macduff was not mentioned in the transfer, but as I expressed in my article for her, I believe she was dead by that time.

After being reunited with Bruce, Elizabeth gave birth to daughters Maud, Margaret and Elizabeth.  There were no more children for seven years—miscarriages?—and Bruce likely feared of ever having a son and heir for the throne when Elizabeth became pregnant again.  This time, on 5th of March, a son was born.  They named him David, and he would go on to be David II, king of the Scots. Another son, John, was born in early October 1327, though little is recorded other than he died soon afterward, likely a short time before Elizabeth’s own death.

Rumors were Elizabeth might have been pregnant again when she was out riding near Cullen Castle in Banffshire when she was thrown from her horse.  The circumstances were an eerie echo of the death of Robert’s daughter just ten years before, almost as if Bruce were cursed. Whether it was from illness pertaining to the birth and death of son, John, or perhaps the miscarriage of a child she was carrying, Elizabeth de Burgh closed her eyes on the night of  October 27th, 1327 and slipped away from a world that hadn’t been too kind to her. Her entrails were buried in the Church of St. Mary of the Virgin at Cullen and her body was interred at Dunfermline Castle.  She was forty-three years old.

Deborah writes Scottish Medieval Historical Romances set in the time of Robert the Bruce in a series, The Dragons of Challon.

coming in July - Women of Bruce - Part Four
The Sisters of Robert the Bruce

The History of Making Soap by Sarah J. McNeal #TheWildinsSeries

 

SOTW BLOG AUGUST 2014

Pioneer Soap

 

In one of my Wildings stories titled "When Loves Comes Knocking" which is now included in the boxed set of Wildings stories, THE WILDINGS: A Family Saga, Penelope Thoroughgood takes in laundry from the Iron Slipper Saloon and Bordello as well as from the bachelors in the town of Hazard, Wyoming. This is the only way for her to eek out a living after her husband was shot dead cheating at cards. Washing laundry in 1912 was a far cry from the convenience we have today.

I remember my grandmother washing clothes and linens on the back porch of her Victorian farm house in Pennsylvania. She had an old wringer washing machine. At least she had electricity. She talked about the lye soap she used and how it made her hands raw. Having never used lye soap myself, I had no idea what the soap was made of or why it made her hands raw, so I dug into some research about the history of soap.

I found some very complicated chemical analysis of how soap works that made my eyes cross and my brain numb. Suffice it to say, it basically lifts the dirt and oils away from the fibers in the cloth, emulsifies the fat (makes it water soluble), and allows the whole mess to be rinsed away. Soap has been around a very long time in its various forms. The earliest on record is around 2800 BC in ancient Babylon. A formula for soap consisting of water, alkali, and cassia oil was written on a Babylonian clay tablet around 2200 BC.

 

The Ebers papyrus (Egypt, 1550 BC) indicates the ancient Egyptians bathed regularly and combined animal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts to create a soap-like substance.

In the reign of Nabonidus (556–539 BC), a recipe for soap consisted of ashes, cypress oil and sesame seed oil.

The ancient Romans used oils messaged into their body which they then scraped off along with the dirt with a special instrument called a strigil. In Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis, he mentions the manufacture of soap from tallow and ashes, but he only sites its use as a pomade for hair. Aretaeus of Cappadocia, in the first century AD, noted that among Celts, men called Gauls, used alkaline substances that are made into balls called “soap.”

Galen describes soap-making using lye and prescribed washing with it to carry away impurities from the body and clothes. According to Galen, the best soaps were Germanic, and soaps from Gaul were second best.

In the Middle East, a 12th-century Islamic document describes the process of soap production. It mentions the key ingredient, alkali, which later becomes crucial to modern chemistry, derived from al-qaly or “ashes.”

In Medieval Europe, soap-makers in Naples were members of a guild in the late sixth century. By the eighth century, soap-making was well known in Italy and Spain. The royal will of Charlemagne, mentions soap as one of the products the stewards of royal estates were to keep an account of. Can you imagine being given soap via a will?

By the second half of the 15th century, France began the semi-industrialized, professional manufacture of soap concentrated in a few centers of Provence— Toulon, Hyères, and Marseille which supplied the rest of France. By 1525, in Marseilles, production was concentrated in at least two factories, and soap production at Marseille tended to produce more than the other Provençal centers. English manufacture of soap was concentrated in London.

Finer soaps were later produced in Europe from the 16th century, using vegetable oils (such as olive oil) as opposed to animal fats. Many of these soaps are still produced, both industrially and by small-scale artisans. Castile soap is a popular example of the vegetable-only soaps derived from the oldest “white soap” of Italy.

Until the Industrial Revolution, soap-making was conducted on a small scale and the product was rough. Andrew Pears started making a high-quality, transparent soap in 1807 in London. His son-in-law, Thomas J. Barratt, opened a factory in Isleworth in 1862.

Robert Spear Hudson began manufacturing a soap powder in 1837, initially by grinding the soap with a mortar and pestle. American manufacturer Benjamin T. Babbitt introduced marketing innovations that included sale of bar soap and distribution of product samples. William Hesketh Lever and his brother, James, bought a small soap works in Warrington in 1886 and founded what is still one of the largest soap businesses, formerly called Lever Brothers and now called Unilever. These soap businesses were among the first to employ large-scale advertising campaigns.

Liquid soap was not invented until 1865, when William Shepphard patented a liquid version of soap. In 1898, B.J. Johnson developed a soap made of palm and olive oils. His company, the B.J. Johnson Soap Company, introduced "Palmolive" brand soap. This new kind of soap became popular to such a degree that B.J. Johnson Soap Company changed its name to Palmolive. At the turn of the Twentieth century, Palmolive was the world's best-selling soap.

But, of course, pioneer women had little access to all these wonderful manufactured soap products. They had to make soap themselves and it was a difficult and nasty process. Twice a year, in spring and late fall, probably for the good weather since soap was generally made outside in a huge cauldron.

Making soap was one of the hardest and nastiest of chores, but also one of the most important. Soap was made from ashes, water, and fat. Early spring and late fall were the most popular times for making soap. People saved table scraps and lard all winter for use in spring soap-making. Soap-making required skill in judging correct proportions and temperatures and the process was not always successful. First, water was poured through wood ashes to produce lye. According to the domestic manual, one made soft soap by boiling the lye until it was strong enough to "eat off the soft part of a feather." The grease and lye were then boiled together to produce soap thick enough to form cakes at the bottom of a cup of cold water. This produced a soft, dark yellow paste for washing clothes. To make hard cakes of soap, the lye had to be strong enough "to float an egg." Grease was added to the lye and the mixture boiled until thick, when salt was added. The mixture hardened for a day, then was melted down again before forming hard cakes of soap for bathing. 6 bushels of ashes plus 50 pounds of grease yielded 1 tub of soap.

Of course, modern soap is made with different ingredients such as palm oil and olive oil and the alkali is obtained from a more refined, sodium hydroxide. Essential oils or herbs are added for a delicious scent to make it perfect for a luxurious bath.

If you want to learn how to make soap, here is more information:

http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/soapmakingbasics/a/How-To-Make-Soap.htm

Resources:

Wikipedia

Wood Ridge Homestead

Country living in the northern Shenandoah Valley in Virginia

http://woodridgehomestead.com/2010/09/09/pioneer-soap-making/

All photographs are free domain from Wikipedia and Amazon.com

 

 

Sarah J. McNeal

Author of Heartwarming Stories

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Fantasy and Dreams (sarahmcneal.blogspot.com) 

 

 

 

Murder and Mayhem in the Crowsnest Pass by Elizabeth Clements

            Coal mining was not the only activity thriving in the Crowsnest Pass of the Canadian Rocky Mountains in the early 1900s. The enforcement of prohibition in Alberta from 1916 to 1923 escalated another industry: bootlegging. The whiskey and rum-running trade along the Canada/U.S. border had kept the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) busy in the previous century.  Prohibition, WWI, and the departure of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (NWMP) from the prairie provinces left a gap in police enforcement to handle the heightened criminal bootlegging activity thriving in southwestern Alberta. Thus, the Alberta Provincial Police (APP) was hastily created on March 1, 1917, to fill that need. The APP operated until 1932 when it was disbanded due to tight financial times created by the Great Depression.

            In 1916 Alberta was mandated dry but not British Columbia, thus making the Crowsnest Pass and its dense forests and mountainous terrain a tempting hot bed of illegal liquor smuggling for entrepreneurs.  And one man knew all the tricks to protect his lucrative new sideline.

           

Emilio Picariello was born in Capriglia Irpina, Italy in 1879 (or 1877) and at age 20, immigrated to the United States in 1899. The next year he met and married Maria Marucci, a housekeeper at a boarding house where he lived. Two years later they moved to Toronto, Canada where he worked at being a laborer and an electrician, saved his money and purchased an Italian grocery. It is unclear from my research what prompted Emilio in 1911 to move his family across Canada to Fernie, British Columbia (B.C.), where he found work at a macaroni factory. When the owner relocated to Alberta, Emelio rented the building and hired women to roll cigars.

Always the entrepreneur, the larger-than-life Emelio began manufacturing ice cream. In the summer of 1916 he sold ice cream from his wagon. His frozen treat became so popular that he expanded his operation by establishing ice cream parlors in Trail and in Blairmore, Alberta. At one time he manufactured ice cream at an incredible rate of 400 imperial gallons per day. When people couldn’t afford to pay, he accepted empty bottles, which he resold to bottlers in British Columbia. He became known as “The Bottle King” and even advertised in newspapers that he’d pay top prices to buy bottles. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

About this same time, prohibition was mandated in Alberta in 1916, although alcohol could still be legally imported. Never one to miss an opportunity, Emelio used two Ford Model T’s to begin transporting alcohol from B.C. to the small Alberta mining communities in the Crowsnest Pass, and even as far as Lethbridge. Then when British Columbia also entered prohibition in 1917, Emelio moved his operation to Blairmore, Alberta, because of its proximity to Montana, a state that did not ban the sale of alcohol. This location was also close to the distilleries in B.C. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Emelio bought the Alberta Hotel in Blairmore and made it the base of his rum-running operation. As luck would have it, Alberta banned the importation of alcohol in 1918. So, much like Al Capone’s secretive tunnel operations through the train station in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Picariello went underground, literally, by excavating a hidden room under his hotel. A tunnel was dug out to a road where the smugglers could park, unobserved, and tote the alcohol through the tunnel. In case any noise should filter up into the hotel, Emelio hired a pianist to play in the hotel’s lounge.

By 1918, Picariello’s operations had grown to such an extent that he needed more vehicles and replaced his Ford Model T’s with three larger McLaughlins (numbering six by 1922). More than just a Bottle King now, he acquired the nickname Emperor Pic due to not only his wealth, but his generosity with his friends and giving to the poor. When the coal miners went on strike in 1918, he cashed in war bonds and distributed money amongst the poor. This generosity endeared him to his recipients, which may also have contributed to him being elected to a seat on Blairmore’s town council—despite it being widely known he was involved in bootlegging.

Owning a thriving hotel and several ice cream parlors in the Crowsnest area certainly gave Picariello some advantage—it would not appear unusual or suspicious to see his vehicles traveling about the area, making or receiving various deliveries. Despite his precautions, Picariello’s growing success did not go unnoticed and drew the attention of the newly-formed Alberta Provincial Police (APP). In an attempt to halt the smuggling trade, the APP set up road checks along the main route through the mountains. Picariello thwarted many of those efforts by lining the sides of his vehicles with sacks of flour and burying the alcohol underneath a couple of layers of flour sacks. He counted on the APP to do only a cursory check for booze, if any. After this successful ploy, he gave away the sacks to the poor. Another crafty manoeuver was to have vehicles travel several car lengths apart, with the first empty of illegal cargo and the second car loaded with hidden booze. If the police stopped to check the decoy car, the second car would either drive by while the police were occupied searching the first or they would keep enough of a distance that they could retreat undetected.

           

No doubt this is where Filumena Lossandro (nee Costanza) featured in the scenario. Born in Cosenza, Italy in 1900, Filumena immigrated with her family to Canada in 1909. In Fernie, B.C. she met and married her husband who was a chauffeur for Picariello and later became involved in the bootlegging operations. As an employee of Picariello, she’d perhaps be in the lead car, either driving or as a passenger, and using all her feminine wiles, would keep the police distracted. She was also rumored to be Emilio’s mistress, even though he was married and had six (or seven) children. She was definitely with Emilio on that fateful September day in 1922 when their world fell apart. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Earlier that day of September 21^st during a sting operation, Constable Lawson of the APP had been in a car chase with Stefan Picariello, Emelio’s oldest son. The policeman shot Stefan in the hand. Upon hearing the news and thinking his son was dead, Emelio, accompanied by Filumena confronted the policemen. During the argument, Lawson was shot and later died. Emilio and Filumena were arrested the next day and charged with murder. They pled not guilty and managed to be tried together (to supposedly save the Crown court costs) but in actuality, they thought they stood a better chance of being acquitted because of Filumena being a woman. After all, female murderers were rare. The police could not establish which of the suspects had pulled the trigger because they weren’t confessing and the only witness was the constable’s very young daughter. The trial was held in Calgary in late December 1922. The jury found them guilty and sentenced to hang.

Emelio and Filumena were executed on May 2, 1923 just a few months before prohibition ended. Filumena is the only woman to ever have been hung in Alberta.

Several books have been published about Emperor Pic’s life. When this writer visited the Crowsnest Pass, particularly the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre in the late 1990s, a play was performed there about Emelio and Filumena. Regrettably, I can’t recall for certain if I saw it, but the crime piqued my interest. I do recall watching the stunning short film made of Turtle Mountain’s massive rock slide. Even all these years later I recall the dark screen, the sound of a single rock tumbling through the darkness, then a second, a third and then a rush of rocks hurtling down the mountain and spilling thousands of tons through the valley. I wrote a blog about it last year.

The life-size cardboard cut-outs of miners and their wives displayed in the Interpretive Center haunt me to this day. It compelled me to write a book about it. That story I condensed a couple years ago into a novella and set it in a fictitious town in Colorado. It’s part of an anthology called Hot Western Nights published by Prairie Rose Publications. Below is an excerpt from Diamond Jack's Angel. Photo courtesy of Nicholas Clements Photography.

Excerpt: Diamond Jack's Angel

Jack Williams rode up the mountain trail to pick up his shirts. He could have had them done at the laundry in town, but he liked to give Angela a little help. He snorted. Who am I kidding? I just like seeing her. Too bad she doesn't feel the same.

Angela had made it quite clear she disapproved of him when more than once she had come into town to look for her grandfather in the saloons. For some reason the old miner preferred his saloon and often stayed too long. A few times when old Leopold got too deep into his cups, Jack had taken him home to the camp, afraid he’d fall off the mountain if he didn’t.

Coming up through the trees, Jack saw a woman and a dog standing at the edge of the clearing. No other women lived here, but he’d recognize Angela’s shape anywhere. She was the only female in Brookstown who wore her golden hair in a braided crown on her head, just like a princess would wear a tiara. Just once, he’d love to see her hair flowing around her shoulders.

“It’s me—Jack,” he called so she would know it was a friend approaching. At least he hoped she saw him as a friend.

 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.clements.549

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17898781.Elizabeth_Clements

https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Horse-Thief-Moon-Prairie-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B07BHQNBDW/ref=as_li_ss_tl?

https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Fugitive-Moon-Prairie-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B07SZ4LHVS

Link for Diamond Jack’s Angel/Hot Western Nights Anthology

https://www.amazon.com/Western-Nights-Karen-Michelle-Nutt-ebook/dp/B07T9F21B5/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_img_3?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sinspirations

 Post by Doris McCraw

writing fiction as Angela Raines

Photo property of the author

So what is 'sinspiratioin'? Well, it's what I call my inspiration for most of my antagonists. Perhaps some of you might like to see how my mind works as I develop the best 'villain' I can.

In my first novella, "Home for His Heart", my antagonist, Oliver, came from my work with juvenile delinquents. We had young girls who'd been convinced to work as prostitutes by men who would pretend to love these young girls, many of who were desperate to be loved. We also had a person who was probably a psychopath, and lastly a person who'd killed their best friend and partner in what was defined as a homosexual rage. These traits were used to compose my villain.

In the short story for "Hot Western Nights", one of the antagonists was a land-hungry rancher. Although a common trope in Westerns, I used the man who wanted to buy my great-grandparents property. While he was a really nice man, he was determined to purchase the land. I just made him meaner and a bit larger than life.

Photo property of the author

There are also many news articles about crimes and criminals from the 1800s.  A  retired police officer, and friend, has been compiling the homicides in the newspapers for the Pikes Peak Region and it is a constantly growing resource. I have studied those pages many times. I've drawn on the descriptions of people, their crimes, and how the public perceived them. Sometimes the crimes are exactly what I'm looking for so they end up, with a bit of editing, in my work.

I am looking for a way to create a villain from a compilation of a young man who slept with his girlfriend's sister, and another who felt it was his boss's fault for giving him money to deposit in the bank. (He kept it.) I simply haven't found the right story, yet.

Of all the characters I developed, the villain is probably the easiest for me to create. Not because I'm a bad person, at least most don't think so, but due to my work with delinquents, my research, spending time in cemeteries, and my fascination with human nature. I've always thought, although not always successful in creating, the antagonist is what makes the story worth reading. I do love a juicy villain who believes he's doing no wrong. The person who believes in their own truth.

So how do you find your 'sinspirations'? 

Doris Gardner-McCraw -

Author, Speaker, Historian-specializing in
Colorado and Women's History

Angela Raines - author: Telling Stories Where Love & History Meet

Books: Angela Raines Books

Website: Angela Raines - author

Angela Raines FaceBook: Click Here

New Release - Stella’s Time: A Time Travel Novel by Agnes Alexander

 

When Stella Hunt returns to the abandoned orphanage where she was raised for one last goodbye, she finds herself in the middle of a pouring rainstorm with a broken-down car and no gas. Homeless, with no job and no money, Stella has come for one final look at the only home she’s ever known before the beautiful old place is torn down to make way for progress.

Grieving the loss of one of the nuns who raised her here, as well as the impending destruction of the orphanage, Stella’s life takes an unexpected turn. As she explores a small closet, she suddenly finds herself thrown back in time to 1878—when the glorious old orphanage was the grandiose home of Trent Leighton, the owner of Leighton Ranch.

When Stella opens her eyes, she’s met with the none-too-friendly greeting of Mr. Leighton—a man who does not believe in nonsense like time travel. He’s certain she’s making up this wild tale—but why? Stella wants only to return to her own time, over 140 years in the future. But how can she convince Trent Leighton of that?

A jealous neighbor sets out to cause Stella and Trent trouble, but it’s the article in a newspaper from the future that lets Stella know what she has to do to make everything work out right to save the orphanage. Falling in love with a man from another time could be devastating—but if she wants to keep her heart from shattering, there might be no return back to STELLA’S TIME…

EXCERPT

Stella opened her eyes, then closed them quickly because the bright sunshine made her head hurt more than it already did. What was the matter with her? She never had headaches, but it was sure throbbing at this moment.

Coffee. That’s what she needed, but where in the world could she get a cup? Since she hadn’t had any in a while, she decided she might splurge and buy some this morning. It wouldn’t matter much if she spent a dollar, and surely, she could get a small cup for that if she used a fast-food drive-through.

Opening her eyes again, she glanced around and felt overcome with confusion. Where in the world was she? The last thing she remembered... What did she remember? Nothing.

She frowned and realized something else was wrong. Bad wrong. She was lying on a sofa wrapped in a knitted coverlet. It was comfortable and the cover felt good on her skin. Skin? Why was she not dressed? What happened to her clothes? She didn’t usually sleep in her underwear, but she was sure in it at this moment. How she got that way was a mystery.

Heavy footsteps outside the room reached her ears. Knowing there was nothing she could do but wait to see who it was, she froze in place.

     

The Spy Who Stole the President's Father

 The Spy Who Stole the President's Father

By C. A. Asbrey

John Scott Harrison

 John Scott Harrison is the only person, so far, to have been both the father and the son of a US president. On top of that, he was the grandson of the Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Harrison V.  He died on May 25th, 1878, in North Bend, Ohio, at the age of 73. As the grieving family were preparing to organize the funeral they were struck by another death as a family friend died of tuberculosis at a young age. But their problems didn't end there. The deceased friend, Augustus Devin's, body was stolen. The family were outraged and vowed to help the Devin family recover the corpse. Due to the theft of Devin's body, John Scott Harrison was interred in a heaving fortified grave.    

Although bodysnatching had been ended in the UK by the implementation of the Anatomy Act in 1832, it was still prevalent in the USA. The Anatomy act provided surgeons and their students with a ready supply of cadavers for dissection through the use of paupers. Their counterparts in the USA still had a problem with supply, and were still solving it the old-fashioned way.

Each state had a different approach and legislated accordingly. Under Ohio law medical students could use unclaimed bodies from public institutions, but that method provided nowhere near enough to satisfy the requirements of the growing student body. More than a thousand students attended Cincinnati medical schools each year, and they needed around three hundred corpses per semester.

Dr. Charles O. Morton

Bodysnatching was lucrative, and the money which it brought in meant that people were prepared to take the risks involved and perform the grisly tasks which were involved in stealing fresh corpses from graves. A single corpse could bring in more than a labourer could make in a year of honest toil, and burial suits could be sold. Medical schools generally had a network of contacts who supplied the bodies they needed. Bodysnatchers often worked in pairs, and also had a lookout in the form of a female who would attend graveyards to identify newly interred corpses, and distracted watchmen or other potential witnesses to the crime. Even when split, the money was still excellent, and the law of supply and demand meant that no grave  was safe until the flesh had started to decay. This didn't attract too much attention as long as the criminals kept to the poor. Stealing the bodies of the wealthy would bring far too much attention.

In 1878  Dr. Charles O. Morton was arrested in Toledo for conspiracy to steal two bodies from a cemetery. When he was taken into custody he was in the possession of letters proving he had an ongoing arrangement to supply bodies to the Ann Arbor Medical School in Michigan. A police investigation linked Morton to the supply of at least ten bodies from Toledo cemeteries. It soon became clear that the doctor was involved in stealing corpses on an industrial scale. And he wasn't just taking the bodies of the poor. He was getting his henchmen to take anyone's body, regardless of how rich and powerful their families were.

Shortly after his arrest, Morton developed the symptoms of smallpox. He went into isolation in a local farmhouse with an immune couple experienced in treating the disease. Anyone who had been in contact with him quarantined. Two guards were assigned to him, but nevertheless he escaped, leaving his bed stuffed to fake the look of a bedridden patient. He disappeared on a freezing January night, wearing only a nightshirt, so he clearly had some assistance.  It soon became clear that Morton had faked his symptoms using croton oil, and that he'd used his medical knowledge to fool the doctor as the oil creates small blisters on the skin. Despite a manhunt, he evaded capture. He was soon to resurface in Cincinnati.

Harrison's Grave

John Harrison, the son of the deceased John Scott Harrison, travelled to Cincinnati to search for Devin's body, and sought out the help of a private detective, Thomas Snelbaker. Harrison impressed on the detective that the theft of the body had a huge effect on them all, and explained the precautions they had taken to prevent it happening to his father. The coffin had been encased in metal, and buried far deeper than the usual six feet. The shaft was bricked up before and immense stone, so heavy it took sixteen men to lift it, was laid on top. More earth was shovelled on top, before cement was poured over the top. Pegs were then inserted as a way of identifying any disturbance of the ground. Even then, the family hired a man to guard the grave for thirty days. They were satisfied that their loved one would rest in peace, and wanted the same for the Devin family.  

There were six medical colleges Devin's body could have been taken to, but the detective had already been at work and discovered that witnesses had seen something be delivered to the alley behind the Ohio Medical College on Vine Street around three in the morning. It stuck in their minds as it was a passenger buggy and not a wagon. It was unusual activity, so that was their first port of call.

The bodies were delivered down a chute to the cellar, where staff then attached a rope to crank the bodies upstairs where they were embalmed for dissection. On investigation, Devin's body wasn't there, but they did find a body suspended on the rope which they thought was worthy of further investigation. They cranked the body to their level, and it was a naked white man with a cloth bound over his head. They knew this wasn't Devin as he had died of tuberculosis and this man was not emaciated. However, they decided to check, and pulled the cloth away. 

The detective had to catch Harrison as he backed away in horror. The body was his father's. The long white beard had been cut off, his face was discoloured, but there was no doubt it was John Scott Harrison. And he had managed to travel to the medical school faster than his living son. 

Even though resurrectionists were common at the time, it was an extremely unusual bodysnatcher who would steal the body of the son of a US President.

Other members of the Harrison family had discovered that the grave had been desecrated back in North Bend, Benjamin and Carter Harrison travelled independently to Cincinnati. They employed Snelbaker to continue the search for Devin, as well as looking into who stole their father's body. The Harrison family used their high-profile status to raise merry hell. The medical college denied all knowledge, but the carotid artery had been cut, and the body drained of blood in preparation for embalming. That meant that either a doctor or medical student had dealt with the body, and not a janitor. Snelbaker continued his investigation.

He found out that a doctor had moved into a house on the corner of Seventh and Main. The man was described as 'lithe as a cat', mid-thirties, short, slender, and well-groomed. The man presented to his neighbours as a doctor, but had no practice, and seemed to work at night. He also had a buggy which matched the one seen dropping off the body at the Ohio medical college. Snelbaker was on his trail.

And he was thorough. The detective turned over all the local medical colleges, and found Devin at Ann Arbour Medical College in a pickling vat. He also found a link between Morton and the college. Devin was returned and re-buried, and guards were hired to protect the grave. Snelbaker also managed to return several other bodies to their families, but the slippery Morton gave everyone the slip once more. Pinkertons were hired to find Morton.

Years passed, and Benjamin Harrison's political career took off. He supported James Garfield's climb to the presidency, became a senator in 1881, and was nominated to become president in 1888. Benjamin lost the popular vote, but was appointed by the electoral college. He took the oath as president on March 4th, 1889. He was the USA's 23rd president, which led him to become embroiled in Irish-American politics.    

Benjamin Harrison 23rd President

There was a lot of sympathy for the Irish cause in the many Irish societies in the USA, and Charles Stewart Parnell had become a leader of the movement for home rule in Ireland throughout the 1870s. He therefore had many followers in the country. As Parnell's  movement was also implicated in violent plots, it became part of an enquiry in both the UK and the USA.

A Dr. Henri Le Caron was deeply involved in the movement. He owned two successful pharmacies, had run for mayor twice, was active in Irish-American societies, and boasted of his Civil War record as a Union Major who fought at the battle of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He was an active politician in the Democratic Party too. As part of his involvement with the Irish societies, Le Caron stated that he had witnessed funds raised in the USA being used to buy guns for use in violent plots to overthrow British rule. The doctor became a key witness in the enquiry, one of a few prepared to speak out against Parnell.

Maybe he should have kept his head down, as this brought him under public scrutiny, but as a British spy against the Irish, that was hard for him to do. His full past was investigated, and it didn't take long before he was unmasked in a series of explosive revelations. 

Le Caron most certainly didn't lead the troops at Murfreesboro. Far from being a war hero, he had been part of a regiment who mutinied and refused to fight. Instead of being heroic on the field, he had been cooling his heels in a Nashville Prison. Many aliases had been used by this man over the years, and eventually, they got to the truth. Le Caron was really Dr. Morton, "formerly one of the most expert grave-robbers in the West.”

Morton/Le Caron was taken under the protective custody of the British, with Scotland Yard providing a guard for a while. The investigation into Parnell fell apart, and so did the case against Morton for grave-robbing - probably for political reasons, but ironically, under the watch of the president whose father's body was stolen by this slippery man. He faced no trials for multiple bodysnatchings and thefts in two countries. 

Thomas Miller Beach - British Spy

He supposedly disappeared into obscurity, but I have another theory. I get the feeling that a man like Morton had a problem with living quietly. I did further research. In a footnote, British Intelligence records show a man called Thomas Miller Beach, was a British spy who infiltrated the Fenian Brotherhood using the name of Major Henri Le Caron. He was born in Colchester, England, on 26th September 1841, and went to Paris when he was 19. He originally had been apprenticed to a draper, but studied Pharmacy and medicine in Nasliville. Skilled at sleight of hand, Beach was able to palm evidence and documents without people realizing. Espionage reports show that he frequently crossed the Atlantic, gaining information, and making close connections in Irish societies in both Canada and the USA. He was in close contact with the British Home Office at all times, reporting to Robert Anderson. He was paid by the British Government, his earnings coming to at least £12,000/$412,379.69 in today's money. There may be other payments I can't find. Beach's father was also instrumental in passing on information directly to the Home Secretary via his member of parliament. He did join the union army, was trained in medicine, and he was subpoenaed as a witness in England at the same time as the man exposed as Dr. Morton. Morton was not called as a wtness, but Beach was. The Times newspaper was being sued by Parnell for libel.  Although Beach stuck to his story, and could not be broken in cross-examination. The Times lost the case. He also testified against Parnell at the Special Commission on Parnellism and Crime held in 1888-1889. Beach was given protection by Scotland Yard.

Beach's career as a spy was at an end as he had been exposed. He wrote a book called Twenty-Five Years in the  Secret Service - The Recollections of a Spy, which was a great success, but he was in constant danger. On 1st April 1894 he died of peritonitis and was buried in London. His wife returned to America after his death. The book is still available. All the documents relating to the criminal cases of the bodysnatching committed by Morton, including the civil cases, have disappeared. All of them.

Is this the same man as the Doctor Charles O. Morton who stole the president's father? The photograph certainly looks similar. The track record and skills match. So do the need for criminal contacts, and the ability to constantly reinvent himself, adopt new identities, and face no consequences for his actions whatsoever. Beach was in all the right places, at all the right times, and had all the right skills to do everything ascribed to Dr. Morton. He was also the right age, and looked like the bodysnatcher, with the same deep-set dark eyes, hairline, and moustache. Morton and Beach spoke the same languages.

Thomas Miller Beach had friends in very high places. Who else could steal the president's father and end up with a police guard, and the cases buried? Whatever the truth, it must have been a very difficult piece of diplomacy for Benjamin Harrison.

EXCERPT

     “So, you want to pretend you’re a Pinkerton? As a female?” His eyes darkened. “I’ve questioned one before, although he didn’t know who I was. They’re trained real well on being both sides of interrogations. You don’t want to do this. Not as a woman. He had a real hard time. You’ll have it even harder.” 

     She sat staring ahead once more, her face impassive and stony.

     “You’ve nothing to say?”

     Her eyes flashed. “Beating the hell out of me won’t change anything but my view of you.”

     Nat reached out and entwined a hard fist in her hair and dragged her backward until the chair balanced on the back legs. He brought his face close to hers, his hot breath burning into her cheek.  “Think harder, lady. This isn’t a game. Who are you?”

     Abigail felt the dragging pain at the back of her head as shards of pain lanced across her scalp. He held her, balanced between his painful grip and a clattering fall to the floor but her stubborn nature wouldn’t let her acquiesce.

     “Others will come after you, no matter what you do to me.” She darted her eyes to meet his, unable to move her pinioned head. “I won’t be the last.”