The winner of a signed copy of The Winter Queen is…Leona! Please send us your snail mail address at riskies@yahoo.com
The winner of a signed copy of The Winter Queen is…Leona! Please send us your snail mail address at riskies@yahoo.com
Many of the trappings of the holiday we would definitely recognize from our own deck-the-hallsing. Anything that was still green was used in copious amounts, such as holly, ivy, yew, and bay (hence the rhyme “Holly and ivy, box and bay, put in the house for Christmas day!”). The wreaths and swags would be tied up with ribbons and hung around the house, with the Yule log kicking things off on Christmas Eve. The men of the house would trek out into the woods to find the largest log possible and it would be paraded into the Great Hall, decorated with wreaths and ribbons. A bit of last year’s log was always saved to light the new one, and it was a tradition to sit around the fire and tell tales of Christmases past on that night.
We would also recognize the food! (Though maybe not all of it–how many of us have roasted peacock, redressed in its skin and feathers, on our holiday tables?) Roasted meats were big, of course–pork, beef, chicken, and the boar’s head of the song, along with stewed and spiced vegetables and fine white manchet bread. Queen Elizabeth, unlike her father, was a light eater, but she did love sweets, which were prominent on her Christmas table. Candied flowers, hard candies in a thick syrup called suckets (eaten with special sucket spoons), Portugese figs, precious Spanish oranges, fruit tarts, gingerbread, and the famous figgy pudding. The grand feasts ended with the parade of the subtlety, a sugar art sculpture. (In 1564, it was a candy Whitehall Palace, complete with a frozen sugar Thames). All this was washed down with rivers of wines (malmsey, Gascon, and Rhenish wines were the most popular at Court), beer, and ale, with lots of singing and goofiness predictably ensuing. In 1564, though, they could work off all this eating by skating, sledding, and hunting, thus keeping their fine figures to attract the Queen and other courtiers.
On my website I have a few Elizabethan-era recipes for the holidays, but this was my favorite (the famous roasted peacock):
“Take a peacock, break its neck and drain it. (Super easy, right?) Carefully skin it, keeping the skin and feathers together with the head still attached at the end of the neck. Roast only the bird with its legs tucked under. When it is roasted enough, (how do we do this without pre-heating??) take it out and let it cool. Sprinkle cumin on the inside of the skin, then wind it with the feathers and the tail about the body. Serve with the tail feathers upright, its neck propped up from within, and a lighted taper in its beak. If it is a royal dish, cover the beak with fine gold leaf. Carry the bird to the table at the head of a procession of lower dishes for to be sampled first by the monarch. Serve with ginger sauce.”
What are your favorite holiday traditions??? Any special foods you like to serve (besides peacock?). Would anyone else besides me like a time machine to go back and have Christmas in Tudor England (or any other period), just once?
Today, Amanda launches her newest book, The Winter Queen (November ’09, Harlequin Historicals) with the help of interviewer Megan! Comment for a chance to win a signed copy, and be sure and visit Amanda’s website for more behind-the-book info…
Sent to Serve…
Seduced By A Master!
With the coming of the glittering Frost Fair,
they are tangled in a web of forbidden desire and
dangerous secrets. For in this time of desperate
plots and intrigues, Anton is more than just a
handsome suitor–he may have endangered the life
of the woman he is learning to love…
“A delightful holiday gift of romance and intrigue! McCabe mixes in historical fact with fiction to create a fascinating page-turner of a novel” –Fresh Fiction Reviews
Amanda: As anyone who reads RR knows, I am a history junkie! Regency is my oldest love (thanks to all those Heyers and Regencies by Marion Chesney, Joan Smith, etc I read as a kid), but I also love the Restoration, the Italian Renaissance, and 18th century France. The Elizabethan era has a special place in my heart, since Elizabethan poetry was my specialty in school (very useful in the job market, too!). It’s an era full of such unbelivable raw, bawdy energy and high emotion, more so than any other I’ve found. England was expanding as never before, becoming a real player on the world stage, sending explorers such as Drake and Hawkins around the globe on voyages of exploration. It was also a great time for the arts, maybe THE greatest time in literature and theater (though music and painting were no slouches, either). Poets and writers who would have been giants in another, less crowded time were overshadowed by the “3 S’s” (Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser), and almost everyone was “into” theater and poetry.
It was also a good time for women, and not just because the country was ruled by a woman. Much like salon society in 18th century France, women, while technically powerless, wielded a lot of influence “behind the scenes.” (On my own blog, each Heroine of the Weekend for November is going to be a fascinating Elizabethan woman–Lettice Knollys, her daughter Penelope Rich, the Countess of Pembroke, and Amelia Lanyer). Plus the clothes are great, especially in the time of TWQ (1564), before high Elizabethan nonsense like drum farthingales and wagon-wheel size ruffs took over! It’s just a very sexy, energetic, exciting period. And obviously I get very carried-away talking about it!
Megan: Your story is very Christmas-specific. What fun facts did you learn about the Elizabethan celebration in doing your research?
Amanda: If anyone knew how to party at Christmas, it was the Elizabethans! I’ll have a longer post tomorrow on some of the celebration traditions, but for the 12 Days of Christmas there were endless celebration. Banquets, masquerades, dances, plays, fox hunts, lavish gift-giving (the courtiers all tried to outdo each other with fancy presents to the Queen, of which detailed inventories still exist!). There was also a great deal of general, and probably drunken, silliness. One popular holiday game was called Snapdragon, which involved a bow of raisins covered with brandy and set alight. The players had to pull out the raisins and eat them without burning themselves. (We won’t be doing this around my house for the holidays…)
There are several good sources for the parties and holidays of the period, including Maria Hubert’s Christmas in Shakespeare’s England; Alison Sim’s Food and Feast in Tudor England; and Hugh Douglas’s Right Royal Christmas.
Megan: What made you cast a Swede–and a dark-haired one at that–as the hero?
Amanda: Well, he had a very unusual inspiration–Dancing With the Stars! I always knew my love of that show’s ridonkulous costumes and hilariously inappropriate music would be useful someday. A few seasons ago the winner of the mirror ball trophy was Olympic speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno. I had really liked him in the Olympics, but on DWTS he was so cute and charming, and also so fiercely determined to win that fugly trophy. I couldn’t figure out how to get a skating hero into an historical romance, until someone said, “Maybe he could be Dutch or something? Didn’t they skate?”
That’s when I remembered two things: 1) The winter of 1564, when Queen Elizabeth had been on the throne for 6 years, was the coldest in memory. The Thames froze through, and at Christmas there was a Frost Fair on the river, complete with booths for food and merchandise, sledding–and skating! 2) In this time period, every eligible bachelor in Europe was after Elizabeth’s hand in marriage, including King Eric of Sweden (who later went insane and was deposed by his brother, but that’s another story…) He sent delegations to London to woo Elizabeth. And Swedes skate, right? So Anton Gustavson was born. (And since he was half-English, he has dark hair. I didn’t know Alexander Skarsgaard then…) Anton is also a soldier, a spy, and a man with secrets.
Megan: The heroine, Rosamund, is a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Would you have wanted this job?
Amanda: No way! From everything I read, Elizabeth was very strict employer with a fiery, uncertain temper. (She regularly threw things at her ladies if she was impatient, and used her fearsomely witty tongue to make fun of them). If one of her ladies dared to fall in love or want to get married, they usually found themselves in trouble (The queen’s cousin, Katherine Grey, even went to the Tower for secretly marrying!).
On the other hand, positions at Court were really the only way ladies of the upper classes could wield a measure of influence or make any money of their own (the stipends were not much, but bribes from those who wanted the ear of the Queen were always possible, and they often had gifts of cast-off, very valuable clothing and furnishings). There was travel and exotic visitors from other countries. And the Court was the center of everything–culture, power, gossip, etc. (Plus, again, the clothes…) (A good source for the life of the Queen’s ladies is Anne Somerset’s Ladies in Waiting: From the Tudors to the Present Day)
Megan: Who would you cast as Rosamund and Anton?
Amanda: Well, we already talked about Anton! I kind of pictured Rosamund as looking like Abbie Cornish in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (a big, dull snooze of a movie, but beautiful costumes!)
Megan: Do you know how to skate? What would you have wanted to do at the Frost Fair?
Amanda: I’ve tried ice-skating, but more often than not end up on my backside on the ice! Plus it’s cold. If any hunky Swedes wanted to teach me, though…
I think I’d like to have some hot apple cider to drink, ride in a sleigh, and buy some satin ribbons! All things Rosamund gets to do.
Megan: And what are you working on now?
Amanda: I just finished writing my second Laurel McKee book for Grand Central Publishing! Its title is Duchess of Sin, the sequel to the February ’10 release Countess of Scandal, and it will be out next December. (It also features Christmas, though this time in Ireland 1799). Now I have to dive into the next Harlequin book, a Regency spin-off from the Diamonds of Welbourne Manor anthology, and start researching an Elizabethan theater book where we move into seamier environs than the royal Court.
Megan: In your writing, do you feel like you’re taking risks? How?
Amanda: I don’t feel like I’m being “risky,” though I guess by stepping into a lesser-used time period (for romances, anyway–historical fiction is chock-full of Tudors!) that is a bit risky. I also like characters who are a bit out of the ordinary, both as a writer and a reader. And I’m currently working on a proposal for a book set in World War II Paris, possibly the riskiest thing I have yet attempted! 🙂
BTW, TWQ is available in the UK in a two-in-one called Christmas Betrothals (along with Sophia James’s Mistletoe Magic).
And I have another “Undone” short story coming out in December called The Maid’s Lover, which is connected to The Winter Queen! We get to see what’s really going on with Rosamund’s friend Anne Percy and her suitor Lord Langley (hint: it involves nookie in the snow, and maybe a little light bondage, LOL!). I just got the cover and I love her purple velvet gown…
The book is now available at eHarlequin.com, and my mother reports it was on the shelf at Wal Mart yesterday!
Deadline Status: Done! (Almost–the writing-writing is done, now I’m hammering it into some kind of coherent shape. Lucky for me my editor is on vacation until the 3rd…)
Movie Status: Good! I saw two excellent movies in the last couple of weeks, which is much higher than average for me. After Diane’s review, I had to go see Bright Star, which was beautiful. (I must have a ballgown with a standing ruffled collar! I did a little post about the movie on my own blog, too). And I went with a friend who writes reviews to see a preview of An Education, starring Carey Mulligan who was so great in Bleak House and Northanger Abbey. This was the best movie I have seen all year. I predict both movies will see Best Actress noms when the Oscars come around (and probably Best Costumes, too!)
And in honor of Halloween, my subject for this post are the ghosts of the Tower of London! Needless to say, there’s no shortage of haunted places in England to talk about (see info on Borley Rectory, the “most haunted place in England” here, and info on London ghosts here), but when I went to the Tower last year there was such a sad, melancholy feeling about the place. I suppose that’s inevitable for a spot so old (over 900 years) and so full of sad, tragic stories. Here are just a few of the tales (which the Beefeater guides are happy to expound on at length!):
The first reported sighting of a ghost at the Tower was, surprisingly, Thomas a Becket (who was killed far away at Canterbury and, as far as I know, was never imprisoned at the Tower!). During the construction of the Inner Curtain wall, it’s said Becket was angry about the construction and appeared to reduce the wall to rubble with his cross. It was the grandfather of Henry III, who had ordered the wall built, who was responsible for Becket’s murder, so maybe that was his problem? Who knows. But Henry ordered a chapel built at the Tower and named it after Becket, and there were no more problems from the Archbishop.
The Bloody Tower (possibly the most obvious building name in all England!) was the scene of the disappearance of the Two Princes, Edward V (age 12) and his brother Richard, Duke of York (age 10) who are thought to have been murdered in 1483 (possibly on the orders of their uncle, the Duke of Gloucestershire, later Richard III). Late in the 15th century, two guards passing the Bloody Tower saw two small figures gliding down a staircase clad in the nightshirts they had on the night they were last seen, holding hands. They faded into the stones. These apparitions are still sometimes seen.
The most commonly seen ghost is Anne Boleyn, beheaded at the Tower in 1536. She’s seen in the Queen’s House, where she stayed before her death (probably the most haunted spot in the whole place; along with Anne, Jane Grey, Catherine Howard, and Arbella Stewart hang around there, too). In 1864, a guard saw her float out of the Queen’s House, and charged at her with his bayonet only to have it go right through her before she disappeared. He fainted, and was court-martialled for dereliction of duty. Luckily, 2 others saw what happened and he was acquitted. Anne can sometimes be seen gliding across the execution spot, or leading a procession down the aisle of the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, ending at her resting place under the altar. I did not see her, though I wouldn’t have minded if she wanted to show herself to me!
Lady Jane Grey, who was 17 when she was executed at the Tower (after being queen for 9 days), is often seen as “a white shape, forming itself on the battlements.” She was reportedly last seen in 1957, though, so maybe she has moved on. Her husband, the unfortunate Guildford Dudley, is sometimes seen weeping in Beauchamp Tower. Catherine Howard is said to scream in her old room at the Queen’s House (though how they know it’s her screaming and not some other poor spirit, I don’t know)
One of the worst stories of the Tower is that of the Countess of Salisbury, Margaret Pole, friend of Katherine of Aragon and one of the last of the Plantagenets. When she was in her 70s, her son Cardinal Pole (who was safe in Rome, and would later be Queen Mary’s chief advisor) started mouthing off against Henry VIII. In retaliation Henry brought Lady Salisbury to the block. The feisty elderly Margaret refused to put her head on the block like a common traitor, and the inexperienced, flummoxed executioner chased her around the scaffold, hacking at her until she was dead. It’s said every day on the anniversary of her death this gruesome, ghostly scene is reenacted.
At one time, the Tower also housed the Royal Menagerie (lions, leopards, bears, monkeys, etc). One night in January of 1815 a sentry saw a giant bear emerge from a doorway. He lunged at it with his bayonet, which passed right through the (understandably) enraged ghost bear. The sentry passed out with fright, and later died of the shock.
The Salt Tower is one of the oldest and most haunted spots in the Tower. It’s said dogs won’t enter there, and neither will the guards at night, after one was nearly throttled to death by an unseen force. There are also reported sightings of phantom funeral carriages, and “a lovely veiled lady that upon closer look proves to have a void where her face should be.”
Happy Halloween, everyone! This is my favorite holiday. What are you going to do to celebrate? What’s your costume? (I may get a blond wig and pull out a cocktail dress and call it Betty Draper…)
And be sure and join us this weekend as I launch my Elizabethan Christmas book, The Winter Queen! (The Tower makes a brief appearance, but no ghosts). Megan will interview me about the book, I’ll have a post about Christmas traditions of yore, and there will be a book giveaway…
Amanda’s Deadline Status–Moving forward! Two weeks to go! I’m still alive! I think!
And one more quote came through this week, too, I am so excited! (Can you tell I’m living on tea and chocolate? The caffeine/deadline diet!)
“COUNTESS OF SCANDAL captures your heart and won’t let go.”—Cathy Maxwell, New York Times bestselling author of The Earl Claims His Wife
As for today’s blog, I recently read Flora Fraser’s fascinating new biography Pauline Bonaparte: Venus of Empire. What a naughty woman that Pauline was! She might have to reform a bit to make a good romance novel heroine (and a story of that reform would be lots of fun to read…). And I found out today is her birthday–October 20, 1780.
Pauline was born in Ajaccio, Corsica to Marie-Letizia and Carlo Bonaparte, the third youngest of their many children. She received almost no formal education, and her young life was abruptly disrupted when she was 13 and had to flee with her family to the French mainland. She was a famous beauty even before she was 16, attracting legions of admirers (much to her strict mother’s dismay!). Around this time she fell passionately in love with a man named Stanislas Feron, a brave solider in her brother’s army but also a 40-year-old, syphilitic philanderer who never did much in his life. She ended up marrying Colonel Victor Emmanuel Leclerc on June 14, 1797 at Napoleon’s command (he had caught them in a compromising position, natch!). Young marriage proved no impediment to Pauline’s affaires.
In 1801, Leclerc was given command of the army in Haiti, where Pauline and their young son Dermide (who died at the age of 8) went to join him. Leclerc died of fever there in 1802, and Pauline hotfooted it back to Paris soon after. She married again within 8 months, in August 1803. Prince Camillo Borghese was one of the richest men in all of Italy, but money couldn’t keep Pauline at home (though she did love spending it!). The prince tried putting her under house arrest; that didn’t work, either. She shopped, gave big parties, had love affairs, and posed famously nude for the sculptor Canova. Her brother gifted her with the duchy of Guantalla, which she promptly sold to Parma for 6 million francs (but kept the title Princess of Guantalla), thus demonstrating a distinct lack of interest in ruling anything but herself.
When her brother was exiled to Elba, however, she liquidated her assets (including a wide array of jewels) and went to stay with him, the only sibling to even visit him. After his escape and final defeat, Pauline went to stay with her mother in Italy. When she tried to move back into the Palazzo Borghese, her estranged husband ended the marriage and she bought her own lavish estate near Rome. By this time she was suffering from ill health, though she tried to maintain her lavish lifestyle of lovers and parties until she died in 1825, age only 44, of cancer. She had become reconciled with Borghese near the end, and he allowed her to be buried in the family chapel among popes and saints (ha!)
Who are some of your favorite “bad girls” in history? Do you enjoy novels with naughty heroines? (I do!!)
And on Thursday I’ll be at the Pink Heart Society blog talking about favorite childhood reads and The Winter Queen! Be sure to pop in and see me there…