Thanks to Carolyn for filling in for me yesterday!  We are taking over each other’s identities this week (though I would probably get her fired from her day job, so maybe that’s not such a good idea…)  It’s been a little crazy getting caught up around here after RWA and my much-too-short beach vacation after.  I have to turn in my second Elizabethan mystery, “Murder at Westminster Abbey” on (gulp!) the 15th, the weather is ridiculously hot here just as my car AC decided to die, and I have no ideas for fun, clever blog posts.  Nada.  Naught.

But there is fun going on, too!  I have been reading lots of good stuff.  Just finished CW Gortner’s The Queen’s Vow, about Isabella of Castile.  I love Gortner’s historical fiction, and was so excited to start this one.  Have not been at all disappointed!

I’ve also been watching some TV.  I just discovered that one of my favorite mystery series, Kerry Greenwood’s 1920s “Phryne Fisher” books, have a TV series that goes along with them!!!  I got them on Netflix and have been glomming episodes all week.  The stories are truncated into an hour format, of course, but the actress is spot-on right for Phryne and the costumes are to-die.

I’ve been researching for the next WIP, my Brazil-set Regency!  I found this book, “Tropical Versailles,” on ABE Books and it’s proving invaluable.  I can’t wait to start writing this one!  (though I still think I need a little research trip to Rio, just to be sure…)

But life hasn’t been all work!  Last weekend I went with some friends to a Murder Mystery Dinner at a local b&b.  The story was set in the 1940s, so out came my aunt’s velvet vintage gown (sadly, the house’s AC also went out that night, so velvet–yeah, not a good idea), character assignments were studied, and mysteries were solved.  I learned some stuff about plotting that night.  1) Too many characters (there were over 50 in this story) gets really confusing, and not everyone can play a real part…  2) Making your murderer characters who are “out of sight” and not talked about in the story is a bit of a cheat 3) Wine and summer humidity make people punch-drunk 4) This is a ton of fun!!

But fun is over for now, and I am off to finish this book!  What have you been doing this week?

I’m in the middle of 1) finishing a novella by Friday, and 2) packing my 1000s of books for a move (ugh!).  But I’m also over at the Pink Heart Society blog today for a Pets And Their Authors post, talking about my bossy Poodle Abigail!  In honor of that, and to save my sanity, I am reposting a blog from August 2009 about some famous dogs in history.  My question still stands–how do I get rid of Pug hair???

I wasn’t really sure what to blog about today! I’m still working on the same projects I was last week (“Irish book 2,” etc), I couldn’t find anything interesting that happened on this date in history (though I’m sure there must be something somewhere!), and the heat and humidity of August has me stupefied and seeking the arctic AC of movie theaters and shopping malls (tax-free weekend on clothes last week, woo-hoo!). Then I found some interesting websites on famous dogs in history, and since I love dogs I decided to talk about that!

Mary Queen of Scots was well-known for her love of animals, bringing several small dogs with her from France when she returned to Scotland as a young widow. She had greyhounds and spaniels, as well as cages of songbirds. Her most famous pet was a Skye terrier named Geddon, who was devoted to her in her last years and accompanied her to her execution. Her cousin Elizabeth I was also fond of spaniels (her father, Henry VIII, had tried to cut down on the stench of his palaces by banning all dogs indoors except for ladies’ lap dogs–and monkeys). Elizabeth II, of course, is well-known for her love of Corgis. (A friend of mine has one–they are adorable, but they shed like crazy! I always wonder if the queen has someone following the dogs around Windsor with a ShopVac…)

Charles II loved his little spaniels so much that they are now named for him–Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. (He even passed a law saying these little dogs could go into any public place, even Parliament! I’d love to see if that is still in effect).

In later years, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were well-known for their troop of Pugs (11 altogether, including Dizzy/Disraeli, Davy Crockett, Trooper, Winston, etc) who traveled with them equipped with their own jeweled collars and silver, monogrammed water bowls.

(Pugs have always had their champions! Prince William of Orange was said to have been saved by his Pug Pompey when the dog barked in the night to warn him of the approach of the Spanish in 1571. His descendents William and Mary brought Pugs with them to England when they assumed the throne in 1688. And an aunt of Catherine the Great, Princess Hedvig Sophia of Sweden, had 16. I cannot imagine the amount of Pug hair there must have been in her palace)

No other British monarch was as well-known for their affinity to dogs than Queen Victoria. Starting when she was a princess and she acquired her first dog, a spaniel named Dash (a gift from her bete noir Sir John Conroy–the puppy didn’t improve her opinion of him, but she adored Dash, and was heartbroken when he died in 1840), she always had a troop of dogs following behind her. She owned about 15 different breeds–mastiffs, border collies, greyhounds, Pugs (Bosco was her favorite Pug), greyhounds, Japanese chins, Skye terriers named Islay and Cairnach, a Scottie named Laddie, etc. Her favorite dogs were Pomeranians. Poms were actually introduced to England by Queen Charlotte, who brought them with her on her marriage in 1761.

Queen Victoria bought her first Pom on a trip to Italy in 1888, a red-sable named Marco (who later won Cruft’s). Her last Pom was Turi, who comforted her on her deathbed.

Dash the spaniel
Princess Vicky with Laddie
Queen Victoria’s Dogs and Parrot, by Landseer
Poms were also beloved by many other figures in history. Michelangelo had one (who watched him paint the Sistine Chapel from the comfort of its silk cushion!), Isaac Newton, Mozart (whose dog was named Pimperl), and Chopin (who did not have one of his own, but loved a friend’s dog so much he wrote “Valse des Petits Chiens” for it).

And Marie Antoinette always had a coterie of little dogs trailing around Versailles behind her, including the Poms! She also adored Poodles, Papillons (including one named Thisbe), and Pugs (such as the famous Mops, an Austrian Pug who was taken away from her on her entry to France–but later returned).

Madame de Pompadour preferred the elegant and tres French Papillon, and had two named Ines and Mimi who went with her everywhere.

(I adore this breed, and if I had room in my house for one more dog–which I definitely don’t!–I’d have this one).

As it is, I have a Poodle (who doesn’t shed at all, but who is very bossy and opinionated), and a Pug (who is laid-back and agreeable, but sheds like crazy and eats a lot). I’d love to have footmen and parlor maids to clean up after them and their cat siblings, as Queen Victoria and Marie Antoinette must have!

What are your favorite dogs, either in history or in your own house? And do you have any tips for getting Pug hair off the sofa???

I am almost done with my second Amanda Carmack mystery novel, Murder at Westminster Abbey (due–gulp!–Thursday!).  It’s set around the events of the coronation of Elizabeth I on January 15, 1559, and at this point I sort of feel like I was there myself, I’ve spent so much time researching every detail.  (Who wore what?  How many processions were there?  Who carried the queen’s cloth of gold and ermine train?  Answer to the last: the Duchess of Norfolk, who was nearly knocked over when souvenir-seekers pushed her out of the way to tear up the carpet the queen walked on from Westminster Palace to the Abbey…)

Just for fun–here is a sneak peek at the cover of the book!  It will be out in April 2014, and the image is still being tweaked, but you can see what it will look like…

So I thought today I would take a very brief look at the history of Westminster Abbey!  It’s a vast, fascinating place, overwhelming for a history lover (Risky Diane and I once had a long, jet-lagged visit to the Abbey in a torrential rainstorm!).  There are over 3000 burials there, with over 600 monuments and tablets, many to famous (and infamous) people.  Over 16 royal weddings have taken place here, the most recent the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

But its history started a VERY long time before Kate Middleton walked down the aisle in a Grace Kelly-esque gown.  Legend has it a fisherman named Aldrich saw a vision of St. Peter on a plot of riverside land called Thorney Island (the Fishmonger’s Company still presents and annual salmon to the Abbey).  In the 960s/70s, St. Dunstan and King Edgar established an order of Benedictine monks on the site, then named after St. Peter.  (It eventually became known as “west minster” to distinguish it from St. Paul’s, the “east minster”).

In 1042, King Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St. Peter’s in the Norman Romanesque style.  It was consecrated on December 28, 1065, sadly just a week before the king’s death, and he was buried before the high altar.  The first coronation took place there a year later, of William the Conquerer (every royal coronation since has taken place there).  There is little left of the Confessor’s church now, just the rounded arches and support columns of the undercroft and the Pyx Chamber.  The present church was begun in 1245 by Henry III in the fashionable Gothic style.  There have been a few more additions over the years, most notably the beautiful Lady chapel of Henry VII, with its gorgeous fan-vaulted ceiling and the elaborate gilded tomb of Henry and his wife Elizabeth of York.  (Elizabeth I and Mary I are buried in a side aisle of the chapel, but Henry VIII is at Windsor.  His only wife buried at Wesminster Abbey is the rejected Anne of Cleves).

The medieval monastery was dissolved in 1540, and  Henry VIII erected Westminster into a cathedral church with a bishop (Thomas Thirlby), a dean and twelve prebendaries. The bishopric was surrendered on 29 March 1550 and the diocese was re-united with London, Westminster being made by Act of Parliament a cathedral church in the diocese of London. Mary I restored the Benedictine monastery in 1556 under Abbot John Feckenham. But on the accession of Elizabeth I the religious houses revived by Mary were given by Parliament to the Crown and the Abbot and monks were removed in July 1559. Queen Elizabeth I refounded the Abbey by a charter dated 21 May 1560 as a Collegiate Church, a Royal Peculiar exempt from the jurisdiction of bishops and with the Sovereign as its Visitor.  In place of the monastic community a collegiate body of a dean and prebendaries, minor canons and a lay staff was established and charged with the task of continuing the tradition of daily worship (for which a musical foundation of choristers, singing men and organist was provided) and with the education of forty Scholars who formed the nucleus of what is now Westminster School.

A couple books I’ve used in researching the history and floorplans of the Abbey are Tony Trowles’s Treasures of Westminster Abbey (2008) and James Wilkinson’s Westminster Abbey: A Thousand Years of Music and Pageant (2003).  I also watched a DVD of William and Kate’s wedding to study details of the church a little closer!

Next week, I will share some of my research of the 1559 coronation itself, and what we might look for when it comes to the future coronations of Charles III and William V.

Have you been to Westminster Abbey?  What was your favorite site there???