Michelle Styles: Rediscovering People and voices Airbrushed from History

It is very easy to look at history through monochrome lenses but that would be a mistake. The trouble for a historical novelist is how to portray the world as it might have been, not as how generations of Hollywood movie makers have portrayed. For example, London in the 19^th century because of its worldwide empire had an ethnically diverse population. In fact British ports have always teemed with travelers, seamen and the like from  around the world but many of them have not made a lasting impression on the historical record.

For the avoidance of doubt, the written historical record has generally been written and published by men. As such they tend to concentrate on the subjects which interest them and sometimes for self-serving reasons discount or ignore the contributions made by women and ethnic minorities.

For example, take the pinnacle of Regency society – Almacks. It was controlled by the Lady Patronesses. When I last checked, there were no definitive biographies of any of them, despite their huge contributions to the Regency period. Lady Jersey ran Child’s Bank and was one of the highest paid bankers in her day. She literally had a license to print money. She also had the access to the financial information of those who wished to attend. The other Lady Patronesses were similarly well-connected in other areas such as foreign diplomatic circles. Does that sound like  fluffy-headed women who needed to rely on Beau Brummell, a man more famous for being famous than anything, for advice on if someone was suitable or not as his biographer (a well-known chancer himself) claimed? Yet the legend persists and the Lady Patronesses’ lives remain largely  unexplored.

Going further back to the time period I am currently writing in.  nearly all of the primary source documents were written by monks. They tend to have a certain misogynistic bias. But sometimes, you can find out wonderful things about people who have been airbrushed from history. 

On Friday, I happened across a blog which gave details about a Viking raid on Morocco and how the Vikings returned with a large quantity of slaves who were known as the Black men. Even more intriguing the blog highlighted the discovery of 3 Sub-Sahara African women’s graves in England (East Anglia) dating from the late Saxon period. There was no information about their status, but I feel that given that they were properly buried and not just thrown into some pit, they were more than likely high status. What they were doing there, I have no idea and someone needs to write their story (or stories!)  but they were airbrushed from history. Most  historians of the period do not mention the first grave which was discovered in the late 1980’s. The other two graves were discovered in 2013.  

What it means is that the Viking period, indeed the entire Medieval period, is open to multi-cultural storylines as there is hard physical proof that  people from varied ethnic backgrounds live in Britain and it is not some politically-correct fantasy to have them appearing in historical romance novels. I find that tremendously exciting. It is also a challenge for a historical romance writer to  somehow convey the different sort of cultures and peoples who were actually there without puling people out of the story. It is the little facts that are true but seem to be opposite of what standard history teaches that can cause the most difficulty for readers.

Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romance for Harlequin Historical in a wide range of times periods from Roman to Victorian but has lately been writing Viking. Her latest The Warrior’s Viking Bride was published in March 2018 featuring a woman Viking warrior (a creature thought to be a fantasy until archaeologists bothered to do DNA testing of bones)  and she is doing the revisions (due on Wednesday) for the next Viking. You can learn more about Michelle and her books at www.michellestyles.co.uk .

Michelle Styles: When history becomes fiction

When I first started studying history, one of the things I loved about it was that it was known. The past is unchangeable, written in stone. Sure different historians could highlight different things but the facts were the facts. Uh, no. Not when you go back to the early Middle Ages.

The history of the early Middle Ages is like doing a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing, and those which remain are mainly sky, sea and grass. To add to the complications, other people in earlier times might have invented their own jigsaw pieces and crammed them in. Disentangling those pieces can be an impossible task. For example, Sir Walter Scott romanticised the legend of Rob Roy. He did do some research and spoke to various people. Scott also didn’t get Gaelic humour. When he was told that Rob Roy’s arms were so long that he didn’t have to bend to put on his stockings, he duly reported it, rather than asking if it was a tall tale or exaggeration. Or Rosemary Sutcliffe wrote her Eagle of the Ninth about a missing British legion (wonderful book btw). The only trouble is that the so-called missing legion turned up in Germany afew years later when other excavations took places.

Sometimes we genuinely do not know. Take for example 7^th century Northumbria and its first Bretwalda or over king of Britain Aethelfirth. How many times was he married? Bede mentions him. He mentioned that he was married to a Picticsh princess and then a Deirain  princess called Acha. He takes over Deira and rules  fothere for 12 years. All well and good except towards the end of his reign, a major fort gets renamed after his queen Bebba. Who is Bebba (the modern day Bamburgh)? Is she the Pictish princess who bore him his eldest child? A third wife? Was he married to both at once? Bede doesn't mention two concurrent wives but Aethelfirth was pagan and so there is no reason why he shouldn't have had two wives. There again that sort of gossip about pagans is exactly the sort of thing Bede would have passed on. The answer is we just don’t know.

Also why did Bamburgh stay as Bamburgh or Bebba’s fort. It becomes the royal residence so why take the name of this queen. Amd it should be a great queen or at least the mother of a great king. The most influential king of the period was Oswui. He reigned for 40 years and was the only one to die in his bed.

Acha’s son Oswald wins a victory over the pagans, restores his kingdom and brings Christianity to Northumbria. His brother Oswui secures the throne after Oswald’s death in battle. Oswui then marries the daughter of the former King Edwin who also happened to be Acha’s brother who disposed his father. If you think Oswui is Oswald’s full brother, then he and his wife are first cousins and the Church at the time was generally against consanguinity. Oswui like his brother had become a Christian on Iona.   If Oswui had another mother (perhaps Bebba) then it explains in part why he might have married Eanfled. Except  Eanfled does a memorial to Acha at Whitby Abbey, not to Bebba. 

Does anyone have any suggestions? Because apparently nobody genuinely knows, people are just making best guesses.

The only answer is to write fiction because the facts do not give us a definitive answer. It is part of the fun of studying history.

In other news:

My trio of Victorians are released today as e-books in the North American Market. Victorian history is slightly easier than the 7th century but no less fun.

Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romances in a wide range of time periods. You can find out more about Michelle and her books on www.michellestyles.co.uk