This week, we're pleased to welcome author LOUISE TURNER with her latest novel, FIRE & SWORD. The author will offer a free copy of Fire & Sword in ebook format from Amazon to a lucky blog visitor. Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's author interview for a chance to win. Winner(s) are contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb.
On the 11th June in 1488, two armies meet in battle at Sauchieburn, near Stirling. One fights for King James the Third of Scotland, the other is loyal to his eldest son, Prince James, Duke of Rothesay.
Soon, James the Third is dead, murdered as he flees the field. His army is routed. Among the dead is Sir Thomas Sempill of Ellestoun, Sheriff of Renfrew, whose son and heir, John, escapes with his life.
Once John’s career as knight and courtier seemed assured. But with the death of his king, his situation is fragile. He’s the only surviving son of the Sempill line and he’s unmarried. If he hopes to survive, John must try and win favour with the new king.
And deal with the ruthless and powerful Lord Montgomerie...
**Q&A with Louise Turner**
There are numerous historical novels set in
Scotland – so what makes Fire and Sword an ‘unusual historical’?
Scotland’s
varied history has long been a source of inspiration for writers – in fact, if
it wasn’t for Sir Walter Scott and his much-loved ‘Waverley’ novels, historical
fiction might never have achieved the popularity it has today.
But when
you think about it, the range of subject matter to be found in Scottish-based
historical fiction is often quite restricted.
Readers can choose between the Wars of Independence (with stories invariably
featuring Bruce or Wallace), the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, or the Jacobites. It’s unusual to find anything else, though just
recently the post-Flodden period (1513 onwards) has begun to receive the
attention it so richly deserves.
Fire and Sword bucks the trend because it doesn’t fall into
any of these settings. Its events unfold
during the late 1480s: we’re all familiar with the turmoil in England at this
time as the War of the Roses built up to a climax, but in Scotland this period
is often ignored. Occupying an awkward
hiatus between the Wars of Independence and the Reformation, it has been neglected
by both novelists and historians: in fact, renowned historian Jenny Wormald once
described it as ‘the bread-and-butter period between two layers of jam.’* Wormald herself considered this assumption to
be unfair, and certainly, when I was researching the novel, I found the history
of this time anything but dull and static.
* Wormald,
J, 1981. Court, Kirk and Community:
Scotland 1470-1625 (Edinburgh University Press), p. 3
So tell me more about the history behind the story…
The key
event which inspired Fire and Sword
was the Battle of Sauchieburn (originally known as the ‘Second Battle of
Bannockburn’) which took place on the 11th of June 1488. It ended with the murder of Scotland’s
reigning monarch, James III, by men loyal to his son. James’s heir then
succeeded to the throne, ultimately becoming Scotland’s well-known Renaissance
king James IV.
The period
of transition which marked the beginning of James IV's reign was certainly not
a comfortable one, with a great deal of unrest and tit-for-tat retaliation
taking place over the winter of 1488 and onwards into 1489. These unsettled times provide the backdrop to
Fire and Sword, the novel itself examining
the implications this regime change had for a member of the minor gentry who
had the misfortune to be fighting for the losing side.
And the story itself?
Based on
real characters and real historical events, it follows the changing fortunes of
a young man named John Sempill of Ellestoun.
When John’s father dies defending King James III at the Battle of
Sauchieburn, his heir’s future as Laird of Ellestoun and Sheriff of Renfrew is
thrown into doubt. John finds his lands
and titles coveted by others, men who have thrown their lot in with the winning
side and who are taking every opportunity they can to move against him.
Unmarried,
with no son to carry on his line, John’s situation is precarious. If he’s to prosper, he must find an ally
amongst the new government, but the only man who appears willing to help him is
Hugh, Lord Montgomerie, a local magnate who’s earned a dubious reputation for
violence and treachery. Accepting any
kind of assistance from Montgomerie is hardly a risk-free strategy: Montgomerie
is himself embroiled in a feud with the Cunninghame family which threatens to
escalate and engulf the whole of the Westland in violence. Caught between these two warring households,
John must somehow renegotiate his way into the new King’s favour, without
getting caught up in Montgomerie’s feud.
What inspired you to write it?
I was
inspired by the landscape and history of the area where I live in the West of
Scotland. John Sempill left us a
marvellous architectural legacy in the form of the Collegiate Church of Castle
Semple – you can still visit the ruins near my home. When I started to research the history of the
church, I stumbled across a reference to Sempill in one of the local historical
accounts. Only a couple of sentences
were devoted to him, but they intrigued me.
They related how his father died defending the king at Sauchieburn, and
yet a year later Sempill was made 1st Lord Sempill.
This rapid
transformation of fortunes seemed quite extraordinary, given that Sempill seems
to have made a deliberate choice to opt for peace in a time when feuding and
conflict was considered the norm. Writing a novel seemed like an ideal way to
explore how this situation could have come about, and in the end it allowed me
to travel to places where historians could not possibly tread without venturing
too far beyond the bounds set by the available historical evidence.
How did you go about transforming fact into
fiction?
It was an exhaustive
process. First of all, I looked in
detail at the local historical accounts and mapped out the genealogies of the
significant families: to begin with this
was quite a tedious exercise, because the local sources are full of fairly
banal stuff like ‘such and such was at feud with someone or other’, leaving
readers with the impression that late 15th century Scotland was full
of tetchy barons falling out over nothing and perpetuating feuds which
originated from nowhere.
It was
only when I started to consider the local picture in its wider political
context that things really became interesting.
The feuds that seemed so meaningless often had their roots in political
grievances, real and imagined. As I
pieced together the facts, I discovered that events which happened here in
Renfrewshire were key to the success of James IV’s reign. The real John Sempill and Hugh Montgomerie
had together played a fundamental role in these events, the story I’d unearthed
much more complex than I’d ever anticipated.
In the end, what started out as a fictionalized biography of the life of
John, 1st Lord Sempill turned into an exploration of how events
unfolded over a mere eighteen months of this life.
What do you find particularly interesting about
this period in history?
It was
clearly a time of transition. The end of
chivalry – if indeed, it ever existed – had come, while at the same time the
whole chivalric code was being mythologised by career knights and nobles who
knew that their time was coming to an end.
Progress at court by this time was as much dictated by political acumen
and legal dexterity as it was by force of arms.
Medieval
self-loathing was also giving way to a more relaxed, humanist attitude, thanks
to the growing popularity of Classical thinking, with transformative forces at
work throughout all aspects of society.
The middle classes were becoming increasingly powerful through the growth
of the burghs, artillery was changing warfare, and I haven’t even gone into the
changes in religion which were to become ever more prevalent as the 15th
century marched into the 16th!
I find this an immensely invigorating and
dynamic period of Scottish history: it’s a time when the country was beginning
to flex its muscles and making efforts to make its presence felt on the
European stage, thanks mainly to the energetic and charismatic leadership of
James IV. The great tragedy is that this
period of self-confidence was brought to an abrupt and catastrophic halt with
the death of James and much of the ruling class at Flodden in September 1513.
Sounds like this is mainly a novel about
politics – is there a love interest?
I’d like
to think that Fire and Sword is a
novel about life, and about trying to make ends meet during very difficult
circumstances. Marriage and the
continuation of the line is a fundamental part of the late medieval world, so
yes, there, is a love interest, but the relationship between John and his new
wife is a far from straightforward one! I wanted to explore what could happen when
wider issues impacted on the personal level.
John’s been betrothed in his youth to a young woman whose parents
support the winning side. In the
aftermath of the battle, her family are reluctant to release their daughter to
someone they perceive as a failure, but eventually, politics make the marriage
a necessity.
I wanted
to explore how a woman trapped in this kind of situation could make her
displeasure felt and understood, and I also wanted to find out whether it was
possible for two individuals brought together in such trying circumstances to
eventually settle their differences and work together as a team. Very little is known about the real Margaret
Colville: to try and recreate her story, I had to rely very much on analogy and
research into the lives of those real medieval women who have, thankfully, left
their mark on the historical record.
You’ve used real historical personalities and
real historical events – how much of the story actually happened?
I’d say the
novel’s about 20% fact, 30% educated conjecture, and 50% fiction. When I first embark on writing a historical
novel, my initial task is to create a fixed framework of events which can then
be used to establish the backbone of the plot.
Once this is done, I use the historical sources as inventively as I can
to recreate what might have been going on in the background. I’m quite fortunate (if that’s the right way
of putting it!) because for this period of history, there are great big gaps in
the evidence. That’s where the creative
aspect becomes vitally important, and this of course is the same territory
where any respectable historian is afraid to tread.
Have you any future works in the pipeline?
The sequel
to Fire and Sword was completed earlier
this year, and will hopefully be submitted to the publisher in the near future. Called The
Gryphon at Bay, it turns the spotlight away from John Sempill of Ellestoun and
on to Hugh, 2nd Lord Montgomerie, charting his very spectacular fall
from grace when he abuses his privileges and kills one Cunninghame too many.
There will
be more books in the series, but for the moment I’m taking a sabbatical from
late 15th century Scotland. My
current project marks a radical departure from the standard historical novel:
it’s a time-slip novel set partly in modern England and Wales and partly in
Ancient Sparta, and it follows the trials and tribulations of a young man from
Sparta who finds himself trafficked into the modern world and must learn how to
survive here. It’s an exciting project
which is far from straightforward to write, because there are two separate plot
strands detailing events occurring in two different timelines 2500 years
apart. It may end up as two novels, it
may end up in some other format entirely – who knows! All I can say right now is that I’m having
great fun working on it.
Learn more about author Louise Turner
Website: http://www.louiseturner.co.uk/
Amazon UK:-
Amazon US
