Writing | Author, Jane Lark's stories

I walked around the rhododendron woods in the parkland of Bowood House yesterday. When the rhododendrons and bluebells are in flower the woods are an amazingly beautiful place. As you know, if you read this blog, the settings of scenes in my regency and even now my J.S. Lark thrillers are inspired by real places. I don’t think I have shared this one before, but at the heart of these woods is the Shelburne family mausoleum. When you look at the front, you will see that it is built in the style of a roman temple, and when you walk around to the back you will see that there is a steep slope to a crypt beneath this, where most of the family are put to rest. This slope meant that a horse drawn hearse could be steered to bring a coffin down.

This mausoleum was the inspiration for the funeral scenes in The Reckless Love of an Heir.

Topically, for the date I publish this, Queen Camilla’s closest friend, Fiona Petty-Fitzmaurice, Marchioness of Lansdowne, who stood by the Queen during the King’s coronation this weekend, owns Bowood House and Park. This is her family mausoleum.

Below as some pictures of the beautiful rhododendrons in the wood planted around the mausoleum in the 1800s.

Bowood’s Woodland Gardens are open for a short period each year Mid April/May until Early June, and are well worth a visit.

Woodland Gardens

In a Tudor household

By the time the House of Tudor took the English throne in 1485, Christmas was a big event in the calendar, and in the life of British people. Everyone was expected to stop their daily life and celebrate for the 12 days of Christmas. In 1541, Henry VIII banned all sports on Christmas Day except archery, to encourage people to focus on Christmas. In 1551 his son Edward VI, passed a law that everybody should walk to church to attend the services.

Feasting was an important part of Christmas day for every household, and with the manorial system across the country people dined on long trestle tables in the lord of the manor’s hall, or with the farmers they worked for, large gatherings were the norm. Turkeys were already in Britain, they had been brought to Europe from their native America in 1519, and sprouts appeared on record in festive cookery in 1587.

In a Cromwellian household

But then came the English Civil War, in the 1600s, commonly known as a battle between King and Parliament, it was equally a battle between moderate and radicle puritan Christians. As the Civil War progressed those that had begun the war, angered by the King’s desire to fight battles against other Puritan states while he defended Catholics and charged his people taxes to fight the wars they disagreed with, saw the tide turn. They had not begun the war because of religion, but those with radicle beliefs gradually took over Parliament, and in the end they arrested and disposed of anyone who disagreed with their extreme point of view. Over indulgences were frowned on, theatres were told to close, saints’ days were no long holidays and any form of recognition of pagan beliefs or religious images were frowned on and then finally banned by law.

In 1644 it was Christmas’s turn to come under Cromwell’s power. Any celebration of Christmas was banned by law. Cromwell called Christmas ‘an extraeme forgetfulnesse of Christ, by giving liberty to carnall and sensual delights.’ By law, Christmas was a work day, all merchants had to open for business by law, there were no church services – unless the day fell on a Sunday. Carols were forbidden and anyone caught cooking Christmas foods or singing Carols might be fined, or worse.

When King Charles II was restored to the thrown in 1660 these laws were reverted, but even so Britain had become used to a less raucous, extreme celebration.