Tudor History Lovers discussion

The Black Caravel Tom FleckI've just published 'The Black Caravel.' The story is set in 1536, the year of the Pilgrimage of Grace (the rising in the North of England against Henry VIII's seizure of the monasteries and Abbeys). A Durham farmer must travel to London with his blind daughter through the chaos of the rising. At the same time, his sons are struggling at sea, in fog, off the Goodwin Sands.
The Black Caravel is the sequel to 'Tom Fleck' set in 1513 (The year of the Battle of Flodden) in which our farmer bears witness to that conflict as a young, headstrong and rebellious archer.

This sounds wonderful!

Yes, Skye it does - for once some Tudor history that doesn't take place at court. I think this way of looking at history brings a dynamic element to the same stories we've all heard again and again. This story sounds refreshing - just because it looks at a lesser known fact of the Tudor period: the "Pilgrimage Of Grace" yet at the same time combines historical fact with the lives of ordinary farmers and how things might have looked from their angle. I'd be interested in reading it; I think I'll check it out.

Sabrina; I never thought of Tudor history in those term, but it does make sense to me.
I will put it on my TBR list.

I've done a guest post: https://8greatstorytellers.wordpress....
Putting together a piece like that does help to bring perspective on story-telling.

The post is about the forerunner of 'Black Caravel'. Tom Fleck

Harry, I would love to read your book.

Skye wrote: "Harry, I would love to read your book."
Dear Skye, the wind is straight off the North Sea today and I'm chilled, but your wish to read Tom and Rachel's story warms me. I hope that someday you will enter their lives. In the meantime here is a snippet from chapter 1:

The milking would take an hour. He washed and dried the udder of the first cow. Seated on a stool he rested his forehead against her warm flank and wrapped his fingers around just two of the four teats; the other two quarters were for her calf. He drew down the milk with a steady rhythm, first on one teat and then on the other. Squirt, splash, squirt, splash - the milk spurted into the wooden bucket. The smell of cow hair, mixed with the vapour of foaming milk, drifted around his face. After humming for a while, he sang in a lilting voice:

'I cannot get to me lass
her freckles to see,
for the flood o' the Tees
gans between her and me.

I maun wait on the moon
when the heron gans yem,
and the shiv'ring salmon
has done her last run.


When the watter o' the wath
drains down to the sea,
then I'll sharp gan across
and she'll sit on me knee.

We'll sing the words fluted
since Adam was born,
like the coo o' the cushat
from yonder blackthorn.'

He sang to help the cows let down their milk and because his sister enjoyed his made-up songs. As the buckets filled, his mind wandered, sometimes back to the marsh, sometimes to imaginings of the future.
The cows waited meekly, in a row of stalls, with their heads swung towards the end of the byre where a group of tiny calves peered out between upright slats.

It would be a joy if someone could recommend Tom Fleck for the group read. As the author I'm probably excluded. It is firmly Tudor, but is a tale of the common folk of Northern England who must do the bidding of those who set nations against each other..

It’s been five years since the last post about this, but I am checking out Tom Fleck’s work for sure.