First, Do No Harm

C. A. Asbrey

Although the phrase, "First, do no harm," is attributed to Hippocrates, it doesn't actually form part of The Hippocratic Oath. It's from his work, Of the Epidemics. It's also a commonly held opinion that all doctors take the oath when they graduate. They don't. And those who do, take various versions of it around the world. One thing we can all agree on is that we all want doctors to do as much as they can to mitigate suffering, and not to increase it.

The various criminal trials and medical scandals that litter history show us that has not always been the case, not to mention the number of doctors and nurses who have been found to be serial killers. The most vulnerable are always the victims of such predators, and we thank those who have the courage to stand up and speak out against them. These whistle-blowers often have to deal with the powerful to do so.

The first doctor to do so was a remarkable man in so many ways, and spent his whole life confronting discrimination and abuse. He was also the first African American to get a medical degree, an ex-slave, and a member of the American Anti-Slavery Society along with Frederick Douglass. Douglass called him, "the single most important influence in his life."

He was born in 1814, a slave in Manhattan. Set free in 1827, his maternal grandfather was the man who owned his mother. He stated often that he had relatives who were both slaves and slave owners. He attended The African Free School at 2 Mulberry Street in Manhattan. Smith was taught by an English immigrant, Charles C. Andrews, who frequently stated that his pupils were every bit as smart as white children, if not brighter. James McCune Smith stood out as exceptional, but despite being showing obvious intellect, he was refused admission to numerous universities and colleges due to racial discrimination. He was encouraged to go to Scotland where no such bars existed, and he attended Glasgow University, gaining a medical degree in 1837. In the interim he received a licence from The Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in 1813, and served with the British Military as a surgeon in Sierra Leone. Glasgow University was on a par with Oxford or Cambridge at that time, and was a seat of The Scottish Enlightenment a few decades earlier. It had strong links with the abolitionist movement, and was far better than any American University of the time. In fact, it was one of the best in Europe. A fluent French speaker, Smith finished his residency in Paris.

The Glasgow Lock Hospital for Unfortunate Females

Smith was offered a position in the Glasgow Lock Hospital for Unfortunate Females. Many cities had these in the nineteenth century, places where women suspected of having a venereal disease were incarcerated until they were considered 'cured.' Low class women were seen as responsible for the contamination of the men they tempted into sexual liaisons, even if they were children as young as seven. The origins of its name are believed to have stemmed from the French word 'loques', meaning rags and bandages, or from the old English 'loke', meaning a house for lepers. Europe's first Lock Hospital had previously been a leper Hospital. The Glasgow building was constructed to look like the surrounding tenements in an act of Victorian discretion, and the conditions were dreadful. Women arrested for vagrancy, prostitution, or even having given birth outside wedlock were kept in reformatory conditions. The place was feared for good reason. Very few survived the treatments there.

On admission, their heads were shaved and they were thoroughly disinfected. The average stay was twenty-nine days, and they were given a number of treatments ranging from pills, ointments, salves, and eye-watering poultices and vapour baths. Most were ineffective at best, at worst they were fatal, and the women were given no say whatsoever on anything done to them.       

Smith's background and understanding of the powerlessness of the marginalised led him to publish a series of articles in The London Medical Gazette, in which he openly questioned the use of experimental treatments on patients without their consent. It was not only the first time this had been done, but he also published the testimony of two poor women and the impact of unethical misapplication of medical experimentation on them, making it triply unique: The first time an African American Doctor had been published, the first time medical ethics on experimentation were questioned in medical publications, and the first time poor women were given a voice and taken seriously. To understand how little these women were considered worthy of consideration, reports from the same hospital blame girls up to the age of eight for their own venereal infections.

As well as being a doctor, Smith was also a talented statistician. He compiled figures to prove that one doctor in particular was administering experimental, and fatal, treatments to bolster his own medical reputation. The easiest thing would have been to say nothing, but his own life experience informed his courage in not only speaking up, but in publishing it in papers read throughout Europe. It's especially telling that the doctor concerned knew what he was doing and tried to cover up the deaths and miscarriages by mis-attributing them to other causes. Smith was having none of it. He wrote:

"By this novel and ingenious mode of recording the Hospital transactions for 1836, [Prof Hannay’s team] keeps out of view the evidence of the severity of the treatment, and the amount of mortality, while, at the same time, the residence of the patients in the house seems shorted, the cost of each diminished, and the treatment made to appear more than usually successful."  

   

Professor Hannay's aim was that effective treatments could be found so they could used on men and the wealthy.

It's worth nothing that while at Glasgow University, James McCune Smith took philosophy classes from James Mylne, the theistic empiricist, who taught that the use of statistics could be an effective way to judge what is moral and ethical, based on the greater good. Smith not only used this approach in Scotland, but challenged the US Government on many occasions using the same method. He used statistics to prove that free black people were as intelligent, orderly, and employable as white people, that slavery shortened lives, and that the figures in the census showing that free black people died younger and had higher rates of insanity were corruptly added by those with vested interests in slavery. He was able to show that the census showed more black people in insane asylums in the north than the actual number of black people living in the states. John Quincy Adams called for an investigation based on his work     

James McCune Smith returned to the USA, and married in the 1840s. He had eleven children and never stopped fighting for the poor and the voiceless. He was a prolific writer, submitting articles to multiple scientific and political organisations and publications, and was the first black member of the American Geographical Society. He taught and practiced medicine, and in 1863 was appointed as professor of anthropology at Wilberforce College, the first African American-owned and operated college in the United States, but he was too ill to take up the position.

He died of congestive heart failure at the young age of fifty-two, a mere nineteen days before the abolition of slavery was ratified in the constitution. His children all married white partners, and the records show that his descendents gradually disappeared into white society, no doubt to escape discrimination.

Greta Blau, a white woman who wrote a paper on The Colored Orphan Asylum for a class at Hunter College in the 1990s, and recognised his name in the family tree in her grandmother's Bible. She had only ever known of him as 'the Scottish doctor', and had no idea he was black, or of his incredible contribution to the world. She arranged for a new headstone and found that many of the extended family were buried in the same graveyard without even realising they were related.

Sadly, some of those contacted by her to be told that they were descended by this clever, humane, and educated man were not happy at the news that they had a black ancestor. That tells us that his work is not yet over.     

James McCune Smith was the first African American doctor, but not the first black doctor. In 1809 Jamaican, William Fergusson, became the first black medical student at Edinburgh University, and he went on to become the president of Sierra Leone. 

     

Mackenzie's Raiders - A Show Taken From 'REAL' Life.

Post by Doris McCraw

aka Angela Raines

Photo (C) Doris McCraw

I am closing in on the end of the year-long at those little-known Western TV shows. A list of previous show discussions can be found at the end of this post.

This month the show I'm focusing on is "MacKenzie's Raiders". It ran in syndication for one season much like the previous month's show. It began in October 1958 and ended in July 1959. I've read the idea for the show was the book, "Mackenzie's Raid" by Russell P. Reeder. 

The premise of the show: Colonel Mackenzie receives orders from President Grant to pursue bandits across the border from the United States into Mexico to stop crime in that area of Texas. Of course, if captured across the border the government would deny all knowledge. The location: Fort Clark near Braackettville in southwest Texas in the 1870s.

Richard Carlson
Image from Wikipedia

The show starred Richard Carlson. Carlson, born in 1912 in Minnesota, Carlson received a master's degree in English from the University of Minnesota. He taught drama at his alma mater. He decided to pursue the craft eventually appearing on Broadway and then moved to California to continue the practice of the craft. He remained in California passing away in 1977 at the age of 65.

As a side note, there really was a Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie, 1840-1899. He was a Union officer who served in the Civil War and later in the West. 

The real Colonel Mackenzie
Photo from Wikipedia

If you would like to check out an episode of the show, here is a link to a YouTube option:

Mackenzie's Raiders - Episode 1

For more on the real Col. Mackenzie:

An article from the Texas State Historical Society

Links from previous posts:

Frontier Doctor

The Tall Man

The Adventures of Jim Bowie

"Overland Trail" - YouTube

Trackdown - Self-Defense

Cimarron City

Whispering Smith

Yancy Derringer

Range Rider

Amazon

Until Next Time: Stay safe, Stay happy, and Stay healthy. 

Doris

Viking Magic. A re-Issued blog for Halloween

The Vikings believed in magic. I used one of their beliefs in my "Viking and the Pictish Princess," the idea of a cursing pole.

Called a Nithing pole (in old Norse this means Scorn Pole), this was a long staff or pole, set into the earth and topped with a horse's head. It was meant to bring bad luck, and along with runes, was intended to create malice and trouble.

Such rituals and poles are recorded in the Viking Sagas, as in Egil's Saga. You can see what he did in this excerpt on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nithing_pole

(Illustration taken from Wikipedia)

My Viking warrior Olaf also uses a Nithing pole. Instead of a horse's head he uses a deer's head, to placate the spirits and gods of the Pictish kingdom that he and his new wife are striving to protect from invaders and rival ruler Constantine. 

Excerpt.

Up on the moor, beside the old ring of stones and facing

east, he had set up a cursing pole to anger and offend the spirits

of Constantine’s land, to give himself and his folk good

luck and to force bad luck onto Mongfind and her ilk. He had

slammed the newly felled and trimmed ash sapling into the

earth and snow, driving it down in his fury and frustration,

and topped the pole with the head of the roe deer, as sacrifice

to Loki, to Odin and to any Pictish god who would heed a Viking.

Man’s magic, for sure, but is it good to hold such secrets from my

wife?

It had to be, he decided. Eithne, these days, often looked

drawn and troubled. She had enough pain with her sister’s

malice. 

**************************************************************

As a strange writer's coincidence I wanted a Norse name for a small black horse, one that would roughly translate as "Sooty". I searched on the Internet and found a name: Saehrimnir, meaning sooty sea-beast. This fit nicely with Scottish and Pictish beliefs concerning water-horses and Kelpies.

THE VIKING AND THE PICTISH PRINCESS https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08LTGYTHV/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i20

https://amzn.to/3jA5bDvUK

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08LTGYTHV/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i13

Lindsay Townsend

Dance Scenes in Historically-Set Movies – October - Gone with the Wind #prairierosepubs #moviedancescenes

Join me here for a year of movie trivia fun as I post dance scenes from movies set in historical time periods. I will give a brief summary of the movie’s plot and an equally brief set-up to the scene.

Each month on the second Wednesday, I will post a movie clip and link back to previous movie scene articles here on the blog.

This is the criteria by which I’m choosing movie scenes:

•           In a non-musical movie, the dance scene is important to the storyline and not just visual and auditory filler.

•           In a musical drama, the characters in the dance scene don’t sing to each other.

•           In a musical drama, the dance scene is important to the storyline and not just visual and auditory filler.

•           The historical cut-off is 1960, because that date works for me. ;-)

Side note:  The article “Classic Literature is Not Necessarily Historical Fiction” on the BookRiot website offers an interesting explanation on what constitutes historical fiction and where various historical date lines are drawn. https://bookriot.com/what-makes-a-book-historical-fiction/

Movies to this point:

January – Cat Ballou

February – The King and I

March – Easy Virtue

April – Shakespeare in Love

May – Chocolat

June – Beauty and the Beast

July – Dirty Dancing

August – Cinderella

September – The Mask of Zorro

Name of Movie: Gone with the Wind
Historical Time Period: American Civil War
Location: Atlanta, Georgia c. 1862
Occasion/Purpose: Confederate bazaar hospital benefit dance
Types of Dances: Polka, Virginia Reel, Waltz

Set-up to the scene: 

Long before this hospital benefit bazaar, Scarlett O’Hara has married and been widowed. She is currently in mourning, as you can see from her black dress. She is beside herself with boredom at having to play the role of the widow for a man she didn’t love, and for whom she’s not a bit unhappy that he died. What she’s distressed about most is not being able to dance and be happy and flirtatious and be the 16-year-old girl who had no worries or responsibilities. She is no longer the bell of the ball, and she’s about to burst at the seams.

Rhett Butler knows this about her. In fact, he knows her better than she knows herself. They are more alike than different, and he’s told her that. She pshaws him.

Rhett and Scarlett’s banter leading up to the dance is sharp, witty, and hints of things to come.

This scene is Rhett’s way of liberating Scarlett (aka Mrs. Hamilton) from her widows weeds and to get her out from under the thumbs of the gatekeeping biddies who judge her and who also hold the key to her societal freedom from widowhood. Melanie Hamilton Wilkes is held in such high social esteem that because she approved the dance auction, the biddies have no choice but to approve.

We see the love mutually denied love growing between Rhett and Scarlett in this scene. We can tell this from Rhett’s bid for Scarlett to dance with him. He also holds sway in this society, because of his blockade running escapades. He is a scoundrel, but in her own way, so is Scarlett. The difference is, he’s a man in a male-dominated society, and she is a female who is also a young widow. She has virtually no societal sway. Rhett understands that all too well. His bid to dance with her is his way of bestowing social power on her, and Scarlett is no dummy. She takes it.

As he watches her come to him, his satisfied smile is also a smile of admiration with a tinge of love. He asks for one thing in return: for her to say the words he heard her say to Ashley Wilkes—I love you.

While Scarlett appreciates what he’s done to get her out of her widow’s trap, she covers her feelings with sarcasm and snark, and says, “That’s something you will never hear from me, Captain Butler, as long as you live.”

Rhett smiles, completely undaunted, because he knows she will eventually say she loves him.

At 4:14 in the clip, Rhett says one of the best lines ever written or spoken. “With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.” This is a moment of foreshadowing, because both of them will throw their reputations to the wind and find courage deep down inside that they didn’t know existed.

Movie Trivia: According to Olivia de Havilland, who played Melanie Wilkes, Vivien Leigh couldn’t dance, so the distance shots were a body double.

Image Note: The movie poster is a 1939 MGM promotional poster that is in Public Domain in the United States, because it was published in the United States between 1928 and 1977, inclusive, without a copyright notice.

Until next time,
Kaye Spencer
Lasterday Stories
writing through history one romance upon a time
www.kayespencer.com

Ahead of the Curve

Ahead of the Curve

By C. A. Asbrey

Many academics claim there are only seven basic kinds of stories when distilled down to their basic elements: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Rebirth, Comedy, and Tragedy. This is idea of reducing plots down to the essential essence was not new, though. In 1959, Foster-Harris claimed there were only three plots. Happy ending, unhappy ending, and tragedy.

Huge amounts of research have gone into frameworks, settings, characters, plots, outcomes, pacing and story arcs. With such a limited framework to work with it's amazing that human beings have managed to fill the world with tales of love, horror, tragedy, adventure, wonder, fantasy, and dystopia. But we have, and we still haven't told all our stories yet, because nobody can tell the same tale in exactly the same way. We are unique.

But what about those who got there first? Who invented our favourite genres before anyone else did, and what inspired them to go where writers had never gone before?

It's widely accepted that the first romance novel, in the sense we understand it today, was Pamela or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson, published in 1740. Written as a series of moral lessons, referred to as a Conduct Book, it was designed to inform and entertain. In a time when people, and especially women, were beginning to read for entertainment, Richardson attempted to ensure that a moral code was transmitted in a way in which people might not even notice they were receiving moral instruction.

These Conduct Books were not new, having precedents dating to ancient times. The change in the 18th century to melding them with works of fiction in the hope that readers will identify with the protagonist, and attempt to emulate their adherence to gender roles and moral conduct, was new. Pamela or Virtue Rewarded was an early attempt at this, but the problem lay with the fact that in order to give the righteous obstacles to overcome, the terrible behaviour had to be laid out—and people loved it—the bad behaviour was the biggest draw. Licentiousness and disregard for class barriers caught the public imagination, and a pamphlet denouncing it as pornographic only appeared to significantly boost sales. Even back then, there was no such thing as bad publicity.

Pamela, a mere maid, has to overcome the unwanted attentions of her employer, Mr. B. It is very much of its time, with Pamela facing stalking, scorn from society for daring to think herself above her station, attempted rape, abduction, and even her family being bribed. But Pamela was made of stern stuff, and none of that could overcome a righteous woman. By rejecting every attempt to defile her, Pamela wins everyone round, is seen as an equal by the upper classes, and is rewarded by an advantageous marriage (if you think that marriage to such a man is a reward). Written by a man, it was the first time the female servant was seen as something more than a mere object of male lust, chattel, and worthy of social elevation. It says a lot about society that much of the outrage it provoked centred around a poor woman daring to see herself as worth as much as her betters, and not the onslaught of unwanted sexual harassment and assault laid out in the books. It reads very differently to modern sensibilities, but caught the public imagination. Jane Austen admitted to being influenced by Richardson's second book, Clarissa. Austen was the first woman to write romantic books with female protagonists, and clearly did a better job of capturing a reality in the characterisations and social mores than Richardson, who admitted that he did not fully understand females until writing Clarissa. Many would argue that he did not understand them at all, but all agree that he changed novel writing forever. Austen's work still resonates today.

Horace Walpole

The first gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto, was published in 1764 by Horace Walpole, whilst he was a member of parliament in the UK. The elements of the gothic genre are generally agreed to contain some kind of castle or old mansion, suspense or mystery, some kind of ghost or monster, a hapless victim (often a damsel), drama, a tortured protagonist, nightmares, and death. Terrible weather often features, whether it be the lightening in Frankenstein, the storm when the ghostly hand appears in Wuthering Heights, or the mists of the Grimpen Mire in The Hound of the Baskervilles. They often feature creatures that are part-human, or who can pass as human, like werewolves, vampires, or ghosts.

The plot of The Castle of Otranto was said to be loosely based on the life of Manfred of Sicily, and Walpole was known to be a keen medievalist. The plot revolves around a prophesy that Manfred would die without an heir, and when his only son is killed, Manfred becomes increasingly desperate to prove the prophesy wrong, and then spirals into a cycle of desperation that ensures it comes to pass.

This was a threshold that opened up a whole new kind of literary fiction; mixing the fantastical with the suspenseful. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is widely considered to be the first science fiction book, as well as being a horror story. Vampires feature in ancient folk lore in many cultures and in epic poems of the 18h century such as the German poem The Vampire (1748), and Lenore (1773). The first prose version is a story by John William Polidori based on the life and legend of Lord Byron. Bram Stoker's 1897 book arguably became the most famous, but it followed on the heels of Varney the Vampire (1847) and Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu (1872).

Werewolves are another horror trope with roots stretching back to ancient times. Thought to have been inspired by people with hypertrichosis, the figure even features in The Epic of Gilgamesh dating from ancient Mesopotamia. The Scottish werewolf is actually a friendly hermit who left fish for people too ill to catch their own, but most are ravenous beasts with a taste for human flesh. Sutherland Menzies wrote Hugues, the Wer-Wolf in 1838. The Phantom Ship (1839) is said to be the first story that has a femme fatale who transforms into a wolf, and one of the earliest books was written by William Sabine Barine-Gould in 1868. You might be familiar with Sabine Barine-Gould's most famous work, Onward Christian Soldiers. I now challenge you to hear that without thinking about werewolves.

George MacDonald is widely regarded as the writer of the first modern fantasy novel. Like Sabine Barine-Gould, MacDonald was also a minister. He was also the mentor of Lewis Carroll, but his influences extend to Mark Twain, J.M. Barrie, G.K. Chesterton, even to Neil Gaiman, and many, many more. Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women was published in 1858. A young man is pulled into a dreamworld where he searches for his ideal of female beauty whilst undergoing numerous adventures. It's worth noting that Gulliver's Travels (1726) whilst being a fantasy, was written as a work of satire. Swift himself said that he wrote the book more "to vex the world than divert it". For that reason, I can't put it in the category of pure fantasy, but will rate it as the first political satire.

Jonathan Swift was a member of the Scriblerus Club, an eighteenth-century association of authors. And they they disliked the trend for adventure stories based on exotic travels and derring-do at the time. However, in a world where few had travelled very far, they were hugely popular, but seen as poorly-written and fanciful by many men of letters at the time. Books like Robinson Crusoe (1719) was one of such book, although that, in itself, was credited as being new way of combining realistic narrative with fiction.

We often forget how subversive Gulliver's Travels was at the time. Swift wrote many drafts, and had those re-written, then printed, then re-printed to ensure that his handwriting could not be identified. It was not just a work of Menippean satire (one that challenges mindsets and attitudes instead of individuals and entities), but Swift had been an active pamphleteer in Irish causes, and his Drapier's Letters, were seen as seditious. It was an open secret that Swift wrote them, despite their anonymity. The books could be read as tales of fantasy and adventure, but on another level they could be read as satire of the rivalries between European states, on religious differences hurting the ordinary people, and the cost to society of the dogma of certain types of government. Swift created another first in the world of fiction.

We have to go much later to get the first dystopian novel, although there's an argument for including Swift in that. My choice is a work that describes an apocalyptic pandemic wiping out huge swathes of humanity, and the impact that has on the systems of government and the structures of society. It also features religious fundamentalists who try to exert control over the country, and grab power through manipulating fear and using disinformation. Sound remarkably modern? Mary Shelley had The Last Man was published in 1826. She truly was ahead of her time.

Mary Shelley

The Murders in the Rue Morgue was a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, and was the first detective tale, but to get the first book, it depends on your definition. Wilkie Collins published The Moonstone in 1868—and that was a complete book. However, as so many books at that time were actually published in parts in periodicals (Dickens was famous for this), another good candidate is The Notting Hill Mystery which was published between 1862 and 1863 by Dickens' main competitor. It features a private investigator hired to investigate the death of a woman who has died after having huge life insurance policies taken out. It's practically unknown nowadays, but it was written by Charles Felix, the pen name of Charles Warren Adams. Finding Adams was a detective story in itself. Prof. Paul Collins from Portland university searched the archives, and although he could find the publisher, he could find no letters between the publisher and the author - until he hit upon a literary gossip column for The Manchester Times in 1864. There was no correspondence between the writer and the publisher because Charles Warren Adams was Saunders, Otley and Company. The author was the publisher.

The first Western novel again is a matter of interpretation. Many say it's The Virginian, by Owen Wister, published in 1902. It features a ranch hand in Wyoming, and was later to inspire a much sunnier version of the characters in a famous TV series. I say that The Administratrix by Emma Ghent Curtis takes that crown, as it appeared in 1889 and was the first to feature the current tropes outside of dime novels. It features a schoolteacher who dresses as a man to get revenge and justice after her lover is murdered. Another contender is Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper in 1826. Although not featuring cowboys, it is set in a much earlier American frontier, even if it's not in the west. As I say, it's all down to how much of a purist you are.

Illustration from the novel's 1896 edition depicting Hawk-eye 

I hope you've got some ideas and plot bunnies from this piece. New life can spring from the oldest material, which takes us right back to the beginning of this post. There are only so many stories, but the ways we can tell them are infinite.

Do you have suggestions of books that are firsts of their kind? Have I missed any? Feel free to comment and give me your opinion.

Have You Seen This One? Frontier Doctor

Post by Doris McCraw

aka Angela Raines

Photo (C) Doris McCraw

The nights are getting longer and the days shorter. Of course, this means that the year is coming to an end. Counting this post there are three more months left year of 2023 and three more old Western TV shows to explore.

This month I will be taking a look at "Frontier Doctor".

This syndicated show ran from September 1958 to June 1959. It stared Rex Allen as Dr. Bill Baxter, a turn-of-the-century physician in a small town in Arizona. He traveled in a horse and buggy treating patients and sometimes dealing justice. The show had 39 episodes and was a half-hour show.

Allen, who was known as 'The Arizona Cowboy' had been the star, as himself, in a number of Western films in the 1950s. He was also a rodeo cowboy, and singer/songwriter, in addition to acting. His later career saw him as the voice of a number of Disney nature films along with numerous other voice-over works.

Allen and his horse Koko
Photo from Wikipedia.

If you get the chance try to catch some of his films. Since singing cowboys were popular, Allen's voice fit the genre perfectly.

Born on a ranch in Arizona on December 31, 1920, he passed away on December 17, 1999, in Tucson, Arizona.

Here is a sample of a song from one of his movies: The Colorado Trail

Check out this episode from the series: Crooked Circle

For a look at the other posts in this series:

The Tall Man

The Adventures of Jim Bowie

"Overland Trail" - YouTube

Trackdown - Self-Defense

Cimarron City

Whispering Smith

Yancy Derringer

Range Rider

Amazon

Until Next Time: Stay safe, Stay happy, and Stay healthy. 

Doris

Phew! The streets of London, 14th-century style. Plus an excerpt from my London-based novella, "Mistress Angel".

Recently, I watched a BBC2 programme about medieval London and its sanitation problems. Dan Snow's vivid and interactive account - there was a small scratch-card, supplied by the Radio Times, which I sniffed at the right moment - told me much I already knew but it was overwhelming seeing and smelling it all at once. By the 14th century, London was a city of over 100,000, a teeming, dark, filthy smelling and sewerage-filled place. I was fascinated by the platform shoes medieval Londoners wore to try to wade through the sloppy streets and also by the work of the gong farmers - cleaners armed with rakes and shovels, working at night, trying to clean the streets.


This was a gruesome account at times, especially when Dan spoke of the medieval butchers and tanners, and then the horrors of the Black Death, which raged in London for two years (1348-50) but I shall be watching again, when the series recreates the stench of pre-revolution Paris.

For my medieval romances, I do not dwell on the stink of London (not very romantic!) but I do mention it, and the filth of the streets, in my novella, "Mistress Angel."

 My sweet to sensual Medieval Historical Romance "Mistress Angel" can be read for free with Kindle Unlimited and found at these places:

Amazon Com 

http://www.amazon.com/Mistress-Angel-Lindsay-Townsend-ebook/dp/B019AT3NAA/

Amazon Co UK

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mistress-Angel-Lindsay-Townsend-ebook/dp/B019AT3NAA/

You can read an excerpt below

Historical Note.

The scene where Isabella is inside a golden cage suspended over the cobbled streets of London is based on a real event.  In May 1357 Prince Edward, whom we now call The Black Prince, escorted the captured king of France through London in a glittering victory procession. Londoners flocked to see this and the London guilds vied with each other to add to the spectacle. The London goldsmiths placed twelve maidens in golden cages above the route where the princes would pass.  In my novella, I make Isabella one of the maidens.

Child betrothals and child brides were a part of the Middle Ages. One of the most famous is Margaret Beaufort, who was married at just twelve and who became pregnant just before her thirteenth birthday. After a long and difficult labor she gave birth to a son who as Henry Tudor would become King of England and Wales. Even at the time the early consummation of her marriage was remarked on with some censure.  Margaret later was keen to ensure that her granddaughter was not sent to her betrothed the king of Scotland too young in case the king consummated the marriage at once and so injured her.

Excerpt 

Chapter 1

London, May 1357

     Isabella was reading a scolding letter from her mother when Sir William's man-servant John stepped into the workshop and jerked his head to the outside, holding the door open for her.

     She tucked the scrap of parchment into her belt and hurried into the back yard, lifting her skirts clear of the cloying mud. It was raining still, a light spring drizzle that had lasted for days and stirred up the usual offal and dung stink of London. She wrinkled her nose and covered her mouth with her hand.

     “Hurry!” John urged. “The master does not like to be kept waiting.”

     Isabella picked her way round a deep cart track and made for the stand of cherry and apple trees against the back boundary wall of her husband's family house. The tall, portly figure waiting beneath these trees was unmistakable, as was his goldsmith's livery, worn by most guild members only on festivals and holy days but as a regular costume by him. She bowed her head.

     Sir William waved his servant away. “You are too brown,” he grumbled as Isabella approached. “Are you a washer-wench, to be so brown? That will not do.”

     Naturally I am tanned, through outdoor work. She had been instructed by her husband's family to weed the garden plot and gather greens daily, all work beneath her, but Isabella knew better than to protest.

“My son?” she asked quickly.

     Sir William dismissed her anxious question with a sharp shake of his head. “Later,” he snapped. “When you prove your worth to us.”

     Isabella fixed her eyes on the golden tips of Sir William's gilt-edged shoes and strove to appear calm. She had been hearing variations of this and other complaints for years, and they held no sting for her. The absence of her son was altogether different. When may I see my child? It has been months since Richard took him from me and his family still keep us apart. Had I the means I would go to law, for in this household no one listens to me. How does my son fare? Does Matthew think of me? She longed to ask all of these things.

     “How long have you been with us, Isabella?”

     “For six years, since I wed your nephew.”

     She had been married to Richard at twelve, made pregnant two years later and widowed three years after that, following a long and bitter apprenticeship of wedlock. I have been a widow for six months and I do not miss a moment of my marriage.

     She sensed Sir William staring at her, stroking first his squirrel-fur cloak, then his neatly-trimmed beard. She resisted the impulse to shudder.

     “You are much improved in looks of late,” he remarked.

     Yes, not being beaten nightly by a drunken brute improves a woman's appearance. Isabella raised her head. “May I see Matthew?”

     Sir William frowned at the second mention of her son. “Did I not say later? Have you a better gown?”

     Accustomed to his abrupt manner, Isabella said nothing. Sir William need only check the household accounts to realize she had three dresses. One was her bridal gown, a tiny, wrinkled dress, worn with such hopes when she was still only a child. She could scarcely bear to look at it now.

     “We must have you robed in brighter colors,” Sir William continued. “And you must stay indoors. Wash your face in whatever women use to whiten skin. You must shine like a jewel.”

     When she was first married, Isabella had been full of questions, until Richard's ready fists had silenced her. She nodded to show she understood and waited to be told more. Perhaps I am to be married again, she thought, and hoped this time the man would be kind. Please let him bring my son Matthew back from wherever he is living and safe into our home. If my new husband does that, I will love him forever.

     Sir William picked a spray of cherry blossom and held it alongside her face. “Yes, you shall do very well,” he rumbled. “Your dowry is gone, you failed in your marriage task, you have no great skills, but we can put that beauty of yours to work.”

     Abruptly, he seized the front of her bodice and yanked on the loose cloth, half-exposing her breasts. Isabella covered herself with an arm but did not resist or utter a sound. If feigning acquiescence brought her news of her son she would be as still and silent as a grave.

     “Good, good.” Sir William strolled around her, pinching her flanks, muttering, “She needs a touch more flesh here, but her breasts are still ripe, for all her nursing of that pup.”

     Surely he would tell me if Matthew is dead? She had not set eyes on her son for seven months, since Richard had spitefully sent him off to another household, somewhere in Kent. My husband did that just before he was killed, murdered in a blood-feud not of my making but for which I am still blamed. When will it end?

     “You will oblige me,” Sir William went on, and he took her roughly by her shoulder and half-turned her, back to the house. “There, look at your son now. Not one word.”

     Isabella blinked the drizzle from her eyes and stared at the small, thin figure standing with his back to her in the open doorway to the workshop.

     It was Matthew, clothed in the belted blue cloak and cap she had made for him last winter, his fair, curling hair a little longer and more sun-bleached than when she had last seen him. He was growing and carried himself very straight, she thought proudly. She took a step forward, closer to him. He was no more than a baby when Richard ripped him from me. Now he is a little boy of  four years old, just four.

     “No nearer,” warned Sir William. “That is enough.”

     He gestured to someone at the house and the door closed, cutting Isabella off from that too-brief glimpse. Heart-scalded, she swung round. “Please, let me speak to Matthew,” she begged. Let me hold him, embrace him, smell him, hug him. Relief that he was alive washed through her, making her weak when she had to be strong.

     “To business,” Sir William remarked dryly, watching her fumbling with her gown strings, his eyes bright, with the pitiless interest of a bird. “You have seen the boy, now heed my terms.”

     Isabella chewed on the inside of her cheek to stop a rising cry, glad that the rain hid her tears. She nodded in silence, bracing herself.

     Even now, Matthew must not know I am here. Surely if he did he would come to me? And will I see him again? How long will he stay?

     Sir William smiled. “You will do much, make great efforts to see your son again?” He did not wait for an answer. “This family needs to make good alliances, and you are available. Stephen Fletcher I thought. He is armourer to Duke Henry himself, and widowed.”

     His smile widened and his hard dark eyes sparkled with open malice. “I understand he is like you, the offspring of a commoner. Some would call him a blacksmith. You should do well with him.”

     Isabella felt her face flush with anger. “And how, pray, will I meet him?”

     “Use what wit you have, girl, and find out!” He pinched her cheek, hard, and moved away, tossing her final orders as he strolled off. “I shall expect strong progress in your suit, Isabella. Win him within the month, become his mistress, extract rich gifts and favors from him, or you shall not see your son again. I will adopt Matthew as my own.”

     He went inside, out of the rain, and slammed the door in her face.

                                                             ****

     Isabella ran after him, but Matthew was already gone. Her heart aching inside her chest and desperate to escape the ready complaints of her mother-in-law, she claimed that Sir William asked her to collect a parcel of herbs from the apothecary's. Outside again in the rain, she stumbled by way of the back lanes to the house and shop of her friend, Amice the Spicer. 

     Amice took one look at her and drew Isabella behind the curtain at the back of her shop, where she had a bed she slept in when guarding a fresh batch of cinnamon from burglars.

     “Get under the covers and warm up,” she said, in her brisk, managing way. “As you see, the shop is quiet now, so we can talk. Have you received another letter from that prating mother of yours, blaming you for a feud not of your making? I presume your own flesh-and-blood have not welcomed you back?”

     “No, they have not.” Isabella shook as she stumbled into the bed. I do not think they will ever do so. Like Amice she knew that, according to custom, she might have returned to her own family, now that Richard was dead. Her parents however had cast her off. Her mother still wrote letters, but only to instruct her and to complain. To my parents I am one of the Martintons now. It was a terrifying thought, one she dared not dwell on.

     “Is your mother-in-law expecting you to spin gold from straw or some other foolishness?”

     Amice’s ironic question returned her to the present. A present even harder than my past. “I saw Matthew,” Isabella burst out through chattering lips. “They would not let me speak to him. He did not even know I was behind him.”

     “Ah, that old cruelty.”

     The sympathy in Amice’s warm voice brought Isabella to tears. She shuddered violently as her friend swept the warm, coarse blankets up to her ears.

     “Rest first, then tell me everything.” Amice bustled out into the shop again, closed the shutters and returned to light a brazier. “What did you say to get out of that wretched den?”

     “That my uncle needs herbs.”

     “I have those. I shall give you a bundle when you leave.”

     Isabella closed her eyes for a moment, willing herself not to cry. Away from her reluctant family-by-wedlock and the thunderstorm tension of the household, she felt her constant headache begin to clear. It was marvelous, too, to be safe at Amice's, snug and warm in a low-gabled shop perfumed with spices. She sighed, sitting up with a pillow behind her head as her friend brought her a cup of warmed wine. “Thank you.”

     “None needed.” Amice batted aside her gratitude. “We both know what you did for me. It is my pleasure to help you in return, in any way I can.”

     Isabella knew she meant it. They shared the cup between them, Amice telling of a Flemish merchant in the shop that morning, seeking pepper and saffron. Her black, strong-featured, full-lipped face was animated as she mimicked the accent of the Fleming, kicking her long legs against the wall as she reached the climax of her tale.

     “Paid me a good fistful of gold and unclipped coins for a few threads of saffron and one of my kisses. The man seemed to think I was an Ethiope out of Egypt and said my mouth was a lucky charm. I kissed him once, on the cheek, and did not tell him I come from the back end of Cheapside.”

     She chortled, finished the wine and put her dark, handsome head to one side. “You smell calm again,” she announced. Amice was a believer in the scent of things. “Will you have more wine? I have peppermint to disguise your breath from your mother-in-law.”

     Isabella smiled and shook her head. Reaching inside her gown, beneath the drawstrings Sir William had so roughly parted, she found the three gold rings strung on a cord and handed the rings and ribbon to Amice.

     “Sell or pawn?” Amice asked.

     “Sell,” Isabella said firmly. These rings were the last of her dowry, hidden away by her and forgotten by Sir William, Richard's mother and her parents. “I need a good price.”

     Swiftly she explained why. “I have only weeks to secure this Stephen Fletcher, and through him my son,” she concluded.

     “A harsh undertaking,” Amice remarked. “They are unkind people, your husband’s kin.”

     Isabella could not disagree but, thinking of the seemingly impossible task, she began to feel a coil of hope.

     “The goldsmiths' guild is planning a great spectacle when Prince Edward brings the French king back with him to London. I need to bribe my way into it.”

     “A good place to see and be seen, for sure. And Sir William swore you would have new gowns for this?” Amice held a ring set with a huge square sapphire close to the twisting flames of the brazier and gave a small grunt of satisfaction. “This is fine.”

     “Sir William promises many things, but I find they do not happen.”

     Amice's keen eyes glittered. “Then you are blamed.”

     Isabella shrugged. “I cannot afford to wait to see if he grants me fresh gowns. I have my son to consider.” Matthew! How I wish I could have talked to you today, held you, kept you by me.

     “I will go today, before curfew.” Amice rattled the rings in her palm. “Is any of this work Richard's? Let me avoid questions, if I can.”

     “Have no fear on that score. I have and hold nothing of his.” Which is why his kindred keep Matthew, as the only hold they have over me.

    She flinched as Amice brushed her wrist. “I will bring the money tomorrow,” her friend said.

     “Thank you,” Isabella murmured, wishing she could stay where she was until Amice returned. Knowing she must leave before she was missed in the workshop, she flung back the covers and scrambled to her feet. “I do not know where I will be tomorrow. Sometimes my mother-in-law keeps me at home.”

     “I will find you.”

                                                            ****

     The following day it was raining harder and foggy, a thick gray miasma coating the city roofs and towers. Isabella fretted about Amice having to visit her in this dismal murk, but her mother-in-law found an excuse to dispatch her into it.

     “I have a fancy for oysters and malmsey,” Margery instructed, counting a few pennies into Isabella's hand. “You must go, girl, I can spare no other. Take the spit-boy with you as guide, though you do not really need one, do you? Not with your parents living so close by the docks.”

     “Honored mother.” Knowing Margery would be irritated by that form of address, Isabella followed it up with a bow and stalked out into the pouring rain. She and the spit-boy scowled at each other until the end of the street, marched around a corner, shook hands and parted ways. Nigel was her ally, although both knew he was meant to spy on her for the family. Now they were free for an hour or so and Isabella intended to make full use of the time.

     She called on Amice first, but her friend was also out and Amice’s limping apprentice had no idea where she could be found. Resigned to seeing Amice as God willed it, Isabella drew her molting fur cloak tightly about her shoulders and trod nimbly beneath the dripping jetties.

     She loved being out in the city, part of its vivid heart. She was always excited to be in London, even in the dreadful year of pestilence when Richard had taken Matthew and, with his kin, fled the city for their holding in East Ham. She and the prentices had been left in the workshop and it had been hard. When she did not dread the boils and bloody coughing she feared fire, or looters, but they had all come through—London had not failed her, even then. Now, slipping and sliding through the muddy alleys, avoiding shadowed corners, flicking a small coin to a beggar camped beneath a jetty, she heard a hundred different voices in the fog and a dozen different tongues and knew she was home.

     Matthew should be with me, learning these streets.

     She did not make for the docks. Oyster and wine sellers thronged the city, so she wasted no effort on the wharves where wine barrels were unloaded. She had no desire to encounter her father, although he had lately grown so rich as a vintner that he might not trouble to be out on such a day.

     Reflected in the pallid fog, a moving, closing shadow shimmered against the wattle wall of the house opposite. Frustrated by her small, female state, Isabella hunched into a doorway and waited until the creeping footpad vanished along another narrow lane. Amice stalked these alleys like a warrior but Amice was tall and knew how to fight with a knife. Shorter by half a head and allowed no decent blades, Isabella was constantly reminded of how easily she could be mauled. Had Richard not proved that, night after night?

     Hearing the bells of great Saint Paul's thundering above her, watching the hop-and-skip of folk darting in and out of the rain, she waited until she could make out the raucous calls of the street sellers again. Moving on, she turned off the house-step—straight into the path of a man leading a bay horse and eating a pie.

     “Hold there!”

     The stranger tossed his pie to a shivering urchin and caught Isabella as she slithered back, his grip firm but not cruel. “If you would be a cut-purse, girl, you need to be quieter.” He stared down at her while his horse chewed on a slither of hanging roof-thatch and a water-seller shouldered past them both, muttering curses.

     “Forgive me, sir.” Isabella did not recognize the man but she was keen to be on her way. He was taller than Amice and almost as dark, with a tanned, clean-shaven face and penetrating eyes. Green-gray eyes, she realized with a jolt, as he plucked her off the step and up onto the saddle of his mount with the same ease as she might lift a toddler.

     “Unhand me!”

     “Where are you going?” he asked, ignoring her protest. She began to slide off the back of the glossy bay but he anticipated that move and stopped her simply by catching her foot.

     “Sir!”

     “This is neither the weather nor the place for a decent maid,” he went on, his green-gray eyes sparkling with amusement as she glowered at him. “Let me take you where you need to be.”

     Isabella knew she looked like a servant. “Why would you do that?”

     He grinned and released her foot. “Even beggars deserve kindness now and then. Besides, you did not get those good teeth and fine accents on any midden heap. Now, where should I carry you away to?”

     They were moving, Isabella realized, the horse piling through a vast puddle with the man splashing carelessly alongside. Another moment and they would be within sight of the grand houses and palaces of the river, and, to the north, the goldsmiths' new guildhall, still being built.

     It would not do for him to escort her there with so many wagging tongues eager to take the news to Sir William. If need be, I shall tell my own gossip and, please God, be rewarded for it with a visit to or from my son.

     “Here,” she called, pointing to a small glover's shop tucked around the corner of a crooked alley. “This is my place.”

     The stranger reined in at once. Before Isabella could stir he swept her off his horse and lightly onto the cobbles, nodding to the wide-eyed glover. “I will see you safe within.”

     “There is no need.” Conscious of his height and breadth and easy strength, Isabella felt heat tiding into her face. She prayed she was not blushing. “Thank you for your help, Sir…?”

     He smiled, his eyes still bright with amusement, and answered readily, “Stephen Fletcher, at your service, Mistress Angel.”

     Isabella automatically gasped. The very man I have to win! All calculation deserted her as they stared at each other. What will it be like to be in Stephen’s arms? What will his kisses be like?

     Heedless of the prickling rain, Stephen studied her for a long moment, his eyes narrowing as if he guessed her thoughts. Isabella forced herself to bow her head, her breath threatening to stop as she waited, crucified by his silence. What now? Should I say more, do more?

     She felt a gentle touch, softer than rain, brush against her cheek.

     “I pass this way tomorrow,” he said softly. “I need new gloves.”

     “I shall be here.” Why did I say that? ‘Tis madness to promise anything!

     “Until tomorrow, Mistress Angel.” Stroking another raindrop from her flushed face and raising a hand in farewell, Stephen mounted his bay and cantered off in the direction of the river.