Blog | Alison Morton Author

Disappearing medieval women and fate – Janet Reedman

I’m delighted to welcome JP (Janet) Reedman to my blog today. JP is is one of my fellow authors selected to write for a new collection of short stories ‘FATE’, commissioned by the Taw River Press.

Janet was born in Canada but has lived in the UK for over 30 years. Her mother was an English warbride, her father a Canadian tank driver. JP developed a huge interest in the past by the age of four, and wrote her first stories at five. One was about Cleopatra! At the age of eleven, JP decided to be a fantasy writer and in the 1980s published many fantasy stories and poems in the international small press. However, in the 1990s a change of country meant other things took precedence over writing.

It was in 2002 after JP suffered a serious viral infection that left her with ME that she discovered her passion for writing again, moving gradually into historical fiction and historical fantasy after being inspired by the finding of Richard III’s remains in Leicester. JP has written many books and series, featuring lesser-known medieval women, Richard III and the Wars of the Roses, Robin Hood, and even Stonehenge.

Over to JP!

For the new anthology, FATE, I was able to blend two of my favourite subjects together – lesser-known medieval women and the Wars of the Roses era. In a short story called Dame Fortune’s Wheel, Grace, the illegitimate daughter of King Edward IV, is the sole attendant of the Dowager Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, in her failing years at Bermondsey Abbey. Elizabeth may have been ‘encouraged’ to reside there by her son-in-law Henry VII for some misstep during the so-called ‘Lambert Simnel’ rebellion. (She had rented a London property long-term only a few months before the rebellion took place, which implies something happened that made her fall from favour; her son Thomas Grey was also sent to the Tower.)

Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville (Public domain)

Grace was one of several illegitimate children of the womanising King Edward, but her mother is unknown. After Elizabeth Woodville’s funeral, she completely vanishes from history. She must have known at least some of her half-sisters and appears to have been accepted by them, but there is no trace in any later records of a girl called Grace, which was a fairly rare name in this period.

Her brother or half-brother, Arthur, remained at the Tudor court, and eventually became Viscount Lisle, leaving the Lisle letters which give us a great insight into the turbulent times in which he lived. Unfortunately, despite initial closeness to his Tudor relatives, Arthur soon fell afoul of the volatile Henry VIII and ended up imprisoned. He kept his head, but when finally released, the poor man was so relieved he collapsed and died, most likely of a heart attack.

Many people seem rather surprised to learn that royal medieval bastards were not necessarily treated harshly by society or ignored by their fathers. Victorian writers often tried to impose their own idea of morality onto their medieval forebears, penning lurid tales of fallen maidens cast into the snow in disgrace and their babies given to the nuns, never to be seen again. In fact, many of the mothers of royal bastards became quite desirable as marriage partners, as the father often paid her a lifelong pension.

Some of the children were recognised by their fathers too, and given education and even important positions. The most famous, of course, were the Beauforts, the children of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, who were later legitimised.

In the Wars of the Roses period, Edward IV’s brother, Richard III also had several illegitimate children, two for certain and maybe three. The verified two, Katherine and John,were both recognised by their father, and appear to have lived at a nursery in one of his castles, possibly Pontefract or Sheriff Hutton.

Sheriff Hutton Castle

Katherine was married in 1484 to William Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon, while her brother or half-brother John was made Captain of Calais, although under supervision, for he was not yet of legal age. I featured Katherine in a novel, The White Rose Rent, but, like Grace, she vanishes from history; in Katherine’s case, not long after Bosworth Field. Her husband is noted as a widower in records a year or two after, and it is thought Katherine may have died during an outbreak of the Sweat or perhaps in childbirth.

For many years, no one even knew her burial place, but it now appears to have been St James Garlickhythe Church, London. A 16th century record exists mentioning the grave of ‘the Countess of Huntingdon, Lady Harbert’ by the herald Thomas Benolt. So Katherine’s last resting place had been ‘hiding in clear site’ merely because no one put two and two together for centuries.

And so Dame Fortune’s Wheel turned for both these young women, Grace and Katherine Plantagenet, raising them up, then bringing them down – although I am hopeful that perhaps Grace, unlike her cousin, merely left the realms of the ‘great and good’ behind her when her mistress died and went on to a new life far from court.

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Find out more about JP Reedman

Blog: https://stone-lord.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Eleanor.TheLostQueen/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jpreedman.bsky.social
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@janetreedman8
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jpreedmanhistoricalfiction
Twitter/X: https://x.com/stonehenge2500

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A ‘lost’ queen? My Fair Lady

Married to King Henry III at a young age, Eleanor of Provence navigates a world fraught with court intrigue and baronial wrath. A devoted mother, she defies the monks to care for her ailing son, future king Edward I.

A loyal friend to family members, she incurs the jealousy of the nobles, the anger of the common folk.

As Simon de Montfort’s popularity rises and Henry’s wanes, Eleanor must decipher friend from foe.

Will her son Edward free his captive father at Evesham? Will Eleanor’s own legacy endure, or fade away like whispers in the wind?

Buy from mybook.to/EleanorQueen (multiple retailers)

And FATE?

If you had a crystal ball to predict what lay ahead, would you be tempted to use it? Or would you leave the future to the turn of Fate?

Tales of history, mystery and magic – some comprising just one of these popular fiction genres, others, a mild mixture of all three.

Our aim, as well-known popular authors, is to entertain you – the reader – but also to share a smorgasbord of short stories that delve into different eras and different locations via different characters and events.

The common theme? Fate! And we should never try to out-do Fate, whatever her form…

Check out and buy the book HERE! https://mybook.to/FateAnthology

Stories by Annie Whitehead, Jean Gill, Marian L Thorpe Helen Hollick, Alison Morton, Elizabeth St. John, R. Marsden, Anna Belfrage, J.P. Reedman and Debbie Young

Watch the (rather fabulous) FATE book trailer: https://youtu.be/M9pSrDX8PTQ

Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is now out.

Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines and taste world the latest contemporary thriller Double Identity… Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. As a result, you’ll be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.

Death and the Poet - Fiona Forsyth

I’m delighted to welcome another scribe of Roman fiction to the writing blog today – Fiona Forsyth – as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club tour.

After reading Classics at Oxford, Fiona taught it at a boys’ public school for twenty-five years. A family move to Qatar provided few opportunities for Latin teachers, so she seized the chance to write.

Now she’s back in the UK, all the questions she asked herself about the Romans over the years are turning into novels about Ancient Rome. She’s currently working on her seventh novel.

Like all writers of Roman fiction, she has had to tussle with the challenge of trying to delve into the ancient mind when the sources are distinctly random and often biased.

Over to Fiona!

For essay 3 in Mrs Griffin’s Cicero and Catiline course, the essay title was simply “Was there a First Catilinarian Conspiracy?”

I soon discovered that this meant taking five or six contradictory sentences from ancient historians who seemed to me to be casual in the extreme and giving a careful judgement on these precious few words, considering the writers’ known biases. Secondary reading included articles from a range of scholars whose views went from “Yes, probably” to “Maybe not”, except for the one who said that not only had there not been a First Catilinarian Conspiracy there hadn’t been a Second Catilinarian Conspiracy and he was utterly fed up.

Five closely scribbled sides of A4 later I decided that no, there hadn’t and carefully I began my final paragraph with “The picture is a foggy one”. Mrs Griffin laughed.

The very essay on the First Catilinarian Conspiracy

This is the curse of the ancient historian – as the great Ronald Syme said, “In matters of literary and historical appraisement, one cannot operate with the methods of a laboratory or furnish the proof to be demanded in a court of law. The best is only the probable.”

In other words, after weighing up all the evidence carefully, you make your best guess then argue about it with another historian for the rest of your academic life.

And this, I reckon is where my novelist self has an advantage over my student self. Once I have read the sources and weighed up the evidence, I can then make it into a story, without having to put in the annoyingly clunky caveats – “it seems unlikely that all Roman historians genuinely thought Livia poisoned everyone including her own son…” or “when Tacitus tells the reader he will write without anger or passion, there is always the possibility that he is lying…”

I think I have obligations to both history and my story, which means that a lot of the time I choose a particular interpretation based on what my story needs.

Consider I, Claudius by Robert Graves – a masterpiece of historical fiction so grounded in the sources that everyone wondered if it was true. Graves’ superb portrait of Livia as the evil stepmother comes straight from the ancient historians Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio – and, come to that, the witches found in poems by Ovid and Horace. For my Roman History paper in Finals, I admit that I wrote an entire essay on Tiberius based on I, Claudius, my justification being that Graves was a considerable Classics scholar and the translator of Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars for Penguin Classics. And yes, I did fine on that paper, thank you, it was the Plato that let me down.

When I wrote my Poetic Justice and Death and the Poet, I did not follow the path of Tacitus or Suetonius in my portrayal of Livia, because the Roman historians were downright misogynists. It was common to accuse a powerful woman of sexual excess and murderous tendencies. Given that Livia protected her sexual reputation extremely carefully, it is not surprising that the male historians concentrated on poison instead, attributing deaths from disease to Livia’s machinations.

Roman doctors were good, but many diseases were beyond their skill and illness strikes me a far more likely explanation of a death than to imagine Livia creeping around the garden at night so that she can smear poison on the figs. I think of her as a very clever and tough woman who managed to combine being a traditional modest Roman matron, weaving and deferring to her husband in public, with being a true partner to Augustus in the immense task of running the Empire. He was extremely fortunate to have her.

The ultimate obligation is to myself and the reader.

I am passionate about the world of ancient Rome despite its horrible side. If you study history, you will be faced with appalling people doing appalling things. If we deny that, we are not facing up to humanity’s capacity for cruelty. I want my readers to love the exploration of an alien environment and I write what I think will make them passionate about the awful, violent, intriguing world of Rome.

Wise words, Fiona! Ancient Rome was no sunnily-lit picnic on a summer’s afternoon. I’m with you on Livia’s character assassination by the Terrible Trio – Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio. Perhaps the Sky series ‘Domina’ might jolt the public to reframe their image of Livia.

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Connect with Fiona
Website: https://substack.com/@fionaforsyth1
Twitter: https://x.com/for_fi
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fionaforsythauthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fionaforsythauthor/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/fionawriter.bsky.social
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/fiona-forsyth

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Death and the Poet

14 AD. When Dokimos the vegetable seller is found bludgeoned to death in the Black Sea town of Tomis, it’s the most exciting thing to have happened in the region for years. Now reluctantly settled into life in exile, the disgraced Roman poet Ovid helps his friend Avitius to investigate the crime, with the evidence pointing straight at a cuckolded neighbour.

But Ovid is also on edge, waiting for the most momentous death of all. Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome, is nearing his end and the future of the whole Roman world is uncertain.

Even as far away as Tomis, this political shadow creates tension as the pompous Roman legate Flaccus thinks more of his career than solving a local murder.

Avitius and Ovid become convinced that an injustice has been done in the case of the murdered vegetable seller. But Flaccus continues to turn a deaf ear.

When Ovid’s wife, Fabia, arrives unexpectedly, carrying a cryptic message from the Empress Livia, the poet becomes distracted – and another crime is committed.

Ovid hopes for a return to Rome, only to discover that he is under threat from an enemy much closer to home.
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Buy Death and the Poet here: https://books2read.com/u/brx0WY (multiple retailers)
Also available to read on KindleUnlimited.

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Are you a pantser or a plotter?

Photo courtesy of Jessica Bell

Do you sit down at the keyboard and just write, a vague idea of the characters and their story swirling around in your head? Do you just throw stuff at the characters and see what happens? Then you’re a pantser* who writes by the seat of your pants.

But perhaps you plan each scene and chapter in meticulous detail – after having constructed detailed pen portraits of your characters – and pay careful attention to the rules of structure used by your genre. Undoubtedly, you’re a plotter.

Well, I’m not entirely sure these extremes exist, in the same way that Elinor and Marianne Dashwood don’t, but are symbols for extremes of Sense and Sensibility.

When I write, I usually start classically: a character who is suddenly faced with a terrible dilemma, but I only discover how she’s going to resolve it once I start writing her story. However, sensible hat back on, I do like to know the point she’s going to reach at the end. The story has to have some definite purpose otherwise it becomes a soup of pure muddle.

But if I don’t have free rein to develop the story, let the characters spark off each other and encounter and deal with setbacks, then I don’t enjoy the actual writing. There’s no point in creating a story if you can’t have fun doing it! Nor do you have the dedication to keep going through weeks and months of typing slog if you aren’t intrigued by what happens in the story.

I’ve just published the third book in my contemporary thriller series and have written ten novels in my alternative history thriller series so I think I’ve learnt how to resolve this dilemma for my own writing process. Yes, I’m acquainted with the main character in each story and I want to find out what happens next to her and the people around her.

But that’s it.

I let her (usually a ‘her’) run around in my head a bit, to have some adventures, get into trouble, struggle to get out, land in more – you know the rest. More than anything, I have to get to know her, to find out what she wants, what’s stopping her, what she has to do, or Goal, Motivation, Conflict, as creative writing tutors call it.

My way of doing this is to make myself jot down 30 lines of plot. Less an outline, more of a wireframe as I like the 3D analogy better.

Line 1: The beginning – the inciting incident/kick-off
Line 2: Impact and realisation of that event/situation
Line 3: The plan to resolve it
Line 6: First enormous set-back (turning point 1)
Line 15: First glimmer of light (turning point 2)
Line 21: Gritting on in face of terrible odds and sacrifice (turning point 3)
Line 25: Despite developments, we might be getting there – the false dawn
Line 28: Catastrophe/black moment – do or die
Line 30: The end – the resolution and loose-end tying-up

I haven’t put all the lines in, but you get the idea. It’s not fixed but it gives you a skeleton which holds the whole thing together but which will become absorbed into the finished product and never be seen by the reader.

Once you have these thirty lines and accept that you will inevitably change or omit some of the lines and substitute new ones, then you can release your inner pantser, and create and imagine to your heart’s content.

*If you want a more high-flown expression instead of pantser, you can use ‘discovery writer’. But it means the same thing. 🙂

Defeating copyright scams

The other week, I received a very legal seeming email for a German based company called Copytrack alleging that I had breached copy right of a photographer they represented and demanding the following:

Image license (valid for 1 year from date of purchase) 389€
Compensation costs (past usage) 350€
Payment due June 5 2025

(Can’t even spell licence correctly, I grumped to myself.)

It was a very cross email beginning:
We, COPYTRACK, are writing to you on behalf of our client YayImages, who has assigned us the monitoring and protection of their licenses and image rights. On April 4, 2025 we have been informed that Alison Morton is likely using an image without permission and the client has exclusively commissioned us with the clarification, administration of the image rights for the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany and, if necessary, the enforcement of any copyright infringement through our partner lawyers. Images are protected by copyright law almost worldwide and infringements are actionable under the respective national law.

It was this one I used in a post over ten years ago.

The image in question

After a few seconds of panic, I scoffed at the email. I knew where I had bought it. My reply ran:

What an interesting email you’ve sent me.
I’m sitting here looking at the licence I purchased from iStockphoto for this photo in March 2015.
The rights holder certainly isn’t the person you mention in your email below.
I think you must be confused.
I do not expect to hear from you again.
Goodbye
Alison Morton

But back they came with more legal faradiddle demanding proof of my licence. Er, no. I was under no obligation to provide this. I asked them for theirs.

Dear Ms Fischer,
I am under no obligation to provide you with any documentation as your request is bogus.
If you really feel you must continue this charade, please provide proof of your so-called claim. Please name the photographer, the date the photo was taken and in what way you acquired the rights.
Alison Morton

CopyTrack returned an impressive-looking self-certificate:

Confirmation of ownership
I hereby declare the following statement for DOUBLESIX LTD. , WORLD TRUST TOWER UNIT D, 11 , N/A HONG KONG, HONG KONG SAR CHINA to the best of my knowledge and belief as authorised representative. the author of the image below [picture of image] is mrodlan8
On the basis of the license agreement concluded with the author, DOUBLESIX LTD. is entitled to assert claims for damages arising from the infringement of copyright in the image(s) in its own name.
DOUBLESIX LTD. has not permitted the use of the image(s) on the alison-morton.com website.
Should I be called as a witness I will bear testimony to these facts in court.
Signed by an Alex Golke.

Scary, eh? No, intimidating and complete bollocks.

I knew they had no leg to stand on, but I was becoming bored and this was eating up my time. I called in iStock. They obviously had a commercial interest. They, in the form of Jean-François, were wonderfully supportive – polite, unequivocal and a big gun. Their ultimate owner is Getty Images. The email from their legal department to Copytrack telling them to get lost was wonderfully succinct:

May 22, 2025, 17:57 GMT+2
COPYTRACK,

I write to you from the legal team at Getty Images on behalf of our client regarding case CE844B. Getty Images distributes the image in claim on behalf of the copyright holder, who is not YayImages.

https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/police-car-gm160108951-5794012<https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/police-car-gm160108951-5794012>

As YayImages is not the copyright holder, we are unaware of any basis for YayImages to be pursuing this matter on their own or through the services of COPYTRACK. Moreover, the alleged infringement is a valid license from Getty Images to our customer of the contributor’s content.

Please confirm to Getty Images as well as the recipient of this notice that this case will be closed.

Thank you,
Chloe Colwill, Legal Claims Data Specialist

Brilliant!

Copytrack couldn’t resist sending me one last salvo, probably from sour grapes:

Copytrack Z (COPYTRACK GmbH)
May 22, 2025, 18:55 GMT+2

Dear Sir or Madam,
We have received your payment for compensation and will now close this claim.
Thank you for your cooperation.

No further usage rights are granted by this settlement. By the terms and conditions of the settlement the image must be fully deleted from the website, if you have not done so already, make sure that it is fully deleted right away.
Best regards,
Legal Department
COPYTRACK GmbH

Payment? What planet are they on? And no way was I going to delete the image.

A minute later, a second, rather meek email zinged into my inbox:

Copytrack Z (COPYTRACK GmbH)
May 22, 2025, 18:56 GMT+2

Dear Sir or Madam,
We appreciate your message.
We have reviewed the provided information and decided to close the claim.
Thank you for your kind cooperation.
Best regards,
Legal Department

COPYTRACK GmbH
Saarbrücker Straße 18, 10405 Berlin, Germany

Phone: +49 – 30 – 809 33 29 10
Fax: +49 – 30 – 809 33 29 99

Registry: AG Berlin Charlottenburg
HRB 173269 B
Domicile: Dresdener Str. 31,
10179 Berlin
CEO: Marcus Schmitt
VAT-ID: DE305466114

iStock were terrific as soon as I had contacted them and confirmed they had wrapped this up. Ten out of ten to them!

Key takeaways

Make absolutely sure you can follow the audit trail of the images you use. iStock keeps a record of everything I’ve downloaded over the years so I could see instantly when I’d bought the image. I also keep the image number on the original download in my file system.

Challenge anybody alleging infringement if you know you are bulletproof. This kind of scam is fairly common, and usually brushed off with a “go away” email or can be simply ignored. I’ve never come across one as persistent as this Copytrack one, I must admit. Their legal terminology comes across as aggressive and bullying.

Protect yourself by acting ethically

Buy a licence and download from reputable providers like iStock, Deposit Photos, Dreamstime, etc. (Other providers are, of course, available.)

Licences can have restrictions such as ‘editorial use only’ which means you can only use the image in a news media or blog post, but not in PR material or cover of a book. Always best to read the licence agreement! Sometimes I download from a free library; no fee and I have permission to use the image as I wish, but the image is not mine. It’s still a form of licence.

Photo courtesy of Britannia www.durolitum.co.uk

I often use my own photos, or public domain images and wide licences like Wikipedia’s Creative Commons Licence or Gnu but you should always acknowledge that and link to the image originator.

Sometimes you can contact a photo owner and ask permission to use their image, but you should always annotate it “Courtesy of XXX” or “With kind permission of YYY”. This is why you see the caption under the picture of the gladiatrix which I use now and again.

The copyright remains with Durolitum as they took the photo at one of their events. The benefit for them is that more people become aware of them.

Even if a friend says, “Sure, lift it from my Facebook page,” it’s best to acknowledge it. And in reverse, if you let somebody use an image you originated, e.g. a photo, you should stipulate that they should credit you – with a link to your website or wherever you originally posted it.

Much more about the nitty-gritty of copyright in this post.

Rory Marsden – Heraldry explained

Today I’m welcoming Rory Marsden to the writing blog. Writing as R Marsden, he’s a fellow contributor to Fate, a collection of short stories to be published by Taw River Press next month. Rory is an author and musician and passionate about the Middle Ages. He plays the gittern, a beautiful medieval stringed instrument, ancestor of the guitar; and a thirteenth century recorder, a replica of one which was excavated from medieval ruins in modern-day Poland. He also plays the piano, and there’s nothing medieval about that!

His Tales of Castle Rory are Medieval fantasy adventures, in which the demesne of Lord Rory of Hambrig is brought to life. Set in the latter part of the thirteenth century, these stories have adventure, mystery and magic at their heart, not forgetting relationships, romance, friendship and the forging and breaking of ties between people and nations. Running through the Tales are themes of family, loyalty, trust and resilience, together with the other sides of those coins: abandonment, betrayal, loss and disempowerment.

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Symbols of battle, loyalty and family connections have been very important through the ages as well as the need to demonstrate these publicly. This was particularly important when most people couldn’t read or write. Even today we like to think we belong to a sports club, interest group or community. The least sporty of us cheer athletes in the Olympic Games. Many of these events involve waving flags and team colours especially if there’s a dollop of patriotic or regional fervour. Armed forces wear the insignia of their regiment, corps or squadron with pride – all signs of belonging. Heraldry is a formal historic way of expressing this sense of belonging. Over to Rory to tell us more.

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Before countries had flags and anthems, before men had surnames and passports and ID, and before armies and regiments had cap badges and insignia – there was heraldry.

In the Middle Ages, there were no armies as such. Each nobleman could (and was expected to) raise a few bands of archers, pikeman and mounted men-at-arms. They came from the nobleman’s demesne or territory, and they were trained to fight and hit their target, kitted out with armour and weapons at their lord’s expense and contracted to follow him into battle.

These small bands of archers and pikemen needed to be able to recognise their lord in the mêlée, in the heat of battle, no matter what else was going on. Instant recognition was vital for survival and for cohesion. The lord depended on his retinue, and they depended on him.

And so the lord painted his shield. Perhaps just one colour, perhaps more than one. He had the design stitched into his surcoat too, the outer garment worn over his chain mail. A red shield or a blue one, a green shield with an eagle on it, these were the first insignia of knights who rode into battle.

So, the first designs were simple ones. One colour or two, perhaps with an animal or a bird, a tower or a cross. Anything drawn on top of the base colour needed to be in a contrasting colour, or it would not show up. But – there were only so many combinations that worked. And when the nobleman married a noble lady, whose father wanted his own design to be continued, there was a merging or combining process to be gone through, resulting in a design of two halves. Then again, elder or younger sons must show their father’s special insignia, but somehow make it clear they weren’t actually him…

And so the blazon is born. A blazon is two things: first, it’s the design itself. And then it’s the description of the design, which has to be worded in such a way that all can recognise or reproduce it.

Colours are called tinctures. Big shapes are called ordinaries, and they usually divide the shield into two or more parts. Animals, people, creatures and smaller shapes, superimposed on the main colour(s) are called charges.

Some colours are metals: silver and gold, for example. Metals shouldn’t be placed next to or on top of other metals, and non-metals should not touch other non-metals. This is to make the blazon easier to see, especially in the chaos of the battlefield. The blazon is all about communication and recognition.

So how do we describe a blazon? We start with the field, which is the background. Then come any ordinaries, and finally the charges. First the number, then what it is, and finally, its colour.

Here’s an example of a simple blazon:

Gules six roundels or.

Gules = red, and or = gold. So the background, called the field, is red, and on it we’ll find six golden roundels, which are the charges.

And another:

Per pale azure and argent two lions sejant or and vert

Per pale means divided in half vertically, and each half is a different colour: azure = blue, and argent = silver (notice the metal, silver, is next to the non-metal, blue). On top sit the charges, two seated lions (sejant = sitting), coloured gold (or) and green (vert).

I had a lot of fun designing and creating the blazon for my hero, Lord Rory of Hambrig, in my series Tales of Castle Rory. His colours are red and gold, which you know by now are blazoned as gules and or. He has a lion on his shield, and it’s rampant, which means standing on its hind legs. At the bottom of the shield are some flames, in a pattern known as rayonny.

The field is red, apart from its base, which is flaming with gold. This part would be blazoned: Gules a base rayonny or. Now we have the gold lion standing on its hind legs. A lion rampant or. And then we describe its claws and tongue, which are blue: armed and langued azure.

The entire blazon: Gules a base rayonny or a lion rampant or armed and langued azure

I hope you agree it’s a great blazon for the Lord of Hambrig!

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Connect with Rory
Website: https://talesofcastlerory.co.uk
Newsletter and readers’ club: https://talesofcastlerory.co.uk/the-household/

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The Box of Death – A box that should never be opened. A secret that could destroy them all.

It’s 1263, and Lord Rory of Hambrig presides over a castle that towers above the treacherous River Hurogol. Beyond the fast-flowing waters live a Celtic tribe, who claim the right to live in Hambrig. The ancient treaty has vanished, and tensions simmer as the tribe yearns to reclaim their ancestral lands.

When the king and his son arrive unexpectedly at Castle Rory, the delicate balance of peace begins to unravel. The son bears a gift from the tribe’s chief—a large, mysterious box, rumoured to contain a deadly lizard whose release spells doom.

But that is only the beginning. A strange minstrel appears at the castle, with an eerie knowledge of things yet to come and abilities that defy explanation. His warnings are cryptic and his presence unsettling. But the Box of Death cannot be ignored.

Lord Rory is torn between loyalty to the crown and whispers of inevitable death that follow the Box. With ancient grievances resurfacing and the lives of his people at stake, he must decide whether to open the Box of Death—or let the fate it holds remain sealed.

Will opening the Box unleash unspeakable horrors, or is it the only way to prevent greater destruction?

As ancient grudges and deadly secrets close in around him, Rory realises that some doors, once opened, can never be closed…

Find The Box of Death here: https://mybook.to/TheBoxOfDeath