Judging the Crowns by Maggie Brookes

Have you ever said yes to something without really knowing what you were agreeing to? I've just taken on a marathon, though it also resembles a sprint. I was honoured to be asked to be one of the 9 judges for this year's Historical Writer's Association Gold Crown award for the best historical fiction novel published between 1st April 2024 and 31st March 2025. Lots of lovely books to read, I thought. I've been reading historical fiction all my life. I've had two historical novels published world-wide by Penguin. I have opinions. How hard can it be?

The coveted HWA gold crown award.

Well, first of all, there are 131 entries, from more than 40 publishers, big and small. And I know that each one of those novels has been meticulously researched, painstakingly written and rewritten, edited, proof-read and finally published. I sympathise with all that effort, angst and joy. At a modest estimate of 2 years to research and write each one, that would be 250 years of work. A more realistic estimate of 4 years per book is a staggering 500 years of labour! It's a big responsibility, but also a opportunity to learn so much – about history, about publishers, about structuring and pacing narrative, about stories that jump out at readers, and also about what's being published right now.

The hard copy books waiting to be read.

The first thing I notice is gender. Judging by the first names of the authors, more than 95 of the 131 appear to be women (and perhaps some of the tantalising initials are women too.) History girls are alive and flourishing! Are women writers particularly drawn to history, I wonder? The judges are also predominantly female, with 8 out of the 9 of us being women. (Are women more inclined to agree to take on these kind of roles?? Answers on a postcard.) We are Louise Hare (Chair), Ellen Alpsten, Mark Ellis, Louise Fein, Alison Joseph, Amy McElroy, Carolyn Kirby, Linda Porter and me. Louise says: 'I love seeing how broad the category of historical fiction is, encompassing so many different genres. This is my third time of judging the Crowns and I’m always fascinated by the trends that emerge within each cycle. I see our role as vital in rewarding literary merit within historical fiction, but really it’s about celebrating great reads, those books you want to tell all your friends about.' Under her guidance, we  have until September to agree a longlist, October a shortlist, and November to choose a winner. Yikes!

Louise Hare, chair of judges, with HWA member Jim Burge at the award ceremony.

Gender is also noticeable in the protagonists of the novels. Taking a straw poll of the 93 books I've been sent so far in hard copy, there is a massive predominance of books about women, particularly pioneering women whose names have been forgotten, but also enslaved women, witches and detectives. Perhaps this isn't surprising when a Guardian article from 2019 says that women readers account for 80% of sales in the UK, US and Canadian fiction markets – far more women than men are literary festivalgoers, library members, audio book readers, literary bloggers, and members of literary societies and evening classes... and form book clubs.  

MA Sieghart's book The Authority Gap found that 'men were disproportionately unlikely even to open a book by a woman. For the top 10 bestselling female authors (who include Jane Austen and Margaret Atwood as well as Danielle Steel and Jojo Moyes), only 19% of their readers are men and 81%, women. But for the top 10 bestselling male authors (who include Charles Dickens and JRR Tolkien, as well as Lee Child and Stephen King), the split is much more even: 55% men and 45% women.  In other words, women are prepared to read books by men, but many fewer men are prepared to read books by women.'  I suppose that's just as well for male writers! Ian McEwan once wrote: 'When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.'

The books I've received seem to divide into four main sub-genres: 1) extraordinary women from the past, both real and imagined; 2) crime / mystery / thriller / gothic (some a mixture of those) ; 3) mythical re-tellings and fairy-tale inspired historical fantasy. And then there's 4) war, from the Trojan wars to the Napoleonic wars; WW1; the interwar years; WW2 and the cold war. I've written three novels about women in war not because I'm interested in war but because war brings out the worst and best in people, and that gives plenty to write about.  Writing about the past has always seemed to me to be a way of writing about the present.

There are also stand-alone stories from across the centuries, which can't be slotted into those categories. All human life is here.  Authors too, range from the ultra well known to debut novelists. Only three of the books I've received so far have been in translation, though many are set in other countries, from the Americas to Africa and Japan. I'm learning so much! There are several dual or triple time-line stories. The biographical fiction shows the historical range of the first 85 books I was sent in hard copy, from the first century AD to the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 18th and 20th centuries.  Many are about powerful women in royal families, perhaps because there is more about them in the historical record. Just one of these books has a male protagonist, although at school I was only taught history about men. The bias of history is being slowly re-written, page by page and book by book.

The HWA flag.

As I read, I bear in mind not only the effort of the writers, but also what it means to win these awards.
Elizabeth Fremantle, who won the 2024 Gold Crown Award with Disobedient, her extraordinary novel about Artemesia Gentileschi, says 'Disobedient, of all my novels, is closest to my heart, so it meant a great deal that it was the one to be recognised by the judges. I was truly humbled, and on the night utterly astonished, that my book was chosen from a short-list of such calibre.'

Disobedient by Elizabeth Fremantle

In 2022 AJ West won the Debut Crown award with The Spirit Engineer. He says 'Winning was a complete shock and – un-English as it may be to admit it – a source of proud vindication after years of struggle to get published. Recognition from the HWA prevents me from being too pessimistic when things feel heavy and impossible. It reminds me that, though I'm not yet a wealthy author, nor necessarily an author with his book in high street windows, nor even an acclaimed author, I am something much more smug and satisfying: an author who benefits every day from the support of his fellow writers, whom I admire in greater measure.'

And so I dive in. Eight weeks till the longlist. How hard can it be?

 Maggie Brookes, novelist and poet. Author of  historical novels The Prisoner's Wife and Acts of Love and War. As Maggie Brookes-Butt: Wish, New and Selected Poems.

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The Sacra Infermeria: Malta by Kathryn Gauci

The Sacra Infermeria from the Entrance Fort Elmo

Many visitors to Malta these days visit The Malta Experience at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, situated opposite Fort Elmo in Valletta, unaware that this building, which overlooks the Grand Harbour, once housed the most important hospital in the Mediterranean – the Sacra Infermeria – built by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem. I visited this remarkable place one year ago, and was disappointed to see that most people only went for the Malta Experience film portraying the island's history, yet only a handful chose to do the second tour of what was once described in the 17th Century, as the best hospital in Europe,

The hospital was built in 1574 by Grand Master Jean de la Cassiere (1572-82) after the previous great Knight, Jean de la Valette, embarked on building Valletta, making it the capital of Malta after defeating the Ottomans in the Great Siege of Malta in 1565

Grand Master Jean de la Cassiere

The Knights of the Order of Saint John, or Knights Hospitallers as they are also known, were a Catholic military order founded in the 12th-century in Jerusalem and were known for their care of sick and injured Christian pilgrims. By the time of the success of the First Crusade in 1099, the Hospital of St John was already well-known among pilgrims and regarded as a separate organisation from the monastery of St. Mary. The brothers at the hospital saw it as their duty to provide the best possible treatment to the poor. The monastic Hospitaller Order was formally created when the Pope issued a papal decree, Pie postulatio voluntat, on 15 February 1113 to the head of the Hospital of St John, Blessed Gerard de Martiques.

Pie Postulatio Voluntatis

The document is in the National Library in Valletta

The Pope subordinated the hospital to his authority and exempted it from paying tithes on the lands it owned. He also gave the right to its professed brothers to elect their own master and placed several other hospitals and hospices in southern Italy under the governance of the Hospital of St John in Jerusalem, as they were located at port cities from which pilgrims travelled to the Holy Land. The Knights Hospitallers were in Jerusalem until 1291, and then moved to Cyprus (1302–1310) and afterwards to the island of Rhodes (1310–1522). After an attempt to defend themselves against Suleiman the Magnificent’s Ottoman Forces, a siege that lasted six months, the Knights were allowed to go freely to Malta in 1530. There, they were administered as a vassal state under the Spanish viceroy of Sicily and became rich through trade and what was deemed a lucrative profession of the day – becoming fine corsairs, or pirates. Yet at their heart was a philosophy to care for the sick and wounded of all religions including their Muslim captives.

Entrance from street level to the infirmary.

The Great Ward

The Sacre Infermeria has 6 levels and the first level, once used for the poor, is now used for events such as CHOGM ‘67, the Malta Regatta Dinner, and other prestigious events. Halfway down this room, there is a ramp where the poor entered. The Old Ward was later extended during the years 1660 to 1666 under the rule of the Cotoners. During this time, arches were spaced between the beds. Grand Master Nicholas Cotoner (1663-80) also founded the School of Anatomy and Surgery here; the forerunner of the Medical School of the University of Malta. The Great Ward is 155 metres long by 10 1/2 metres wide and could house 300 single beds and 914 patients with each bed allowing for 3-4 people. Interestingly, the rich still received the same service, True to their faith, no one of another faith was turned away. There was also the Phalangue, an irregularly shaped section of the infirmary reserved for patients suffering from contagious or venereal diseases. Some with contagious illnesses were later sent elsewhere, usually to the area in Marsamxett Harbour which was primitive and provided little accommodation and comfort, although the area was used when plague afflicted Malta in the first half of the seventeenth century. Quarantine was forty days, representing the forty days of Jesus in the desert.

Valletta in 1801. The hospital can be seen next to St Elmo's Fort

It should be noted that fear of contagious diseases was rife at the time. Passengers and goods arriving on ships, even with a clean bill of health, were required to remain under observation for a short period of quarantine. The site selected was very convenient. It was on the south side of the new city below the Castille bastion and the Lower Barracca, along the Valletta wharf of the Grand Harbour. There was a row of stores and warehouses, above which was residential accommodation for passengers and crew kept under observation. A special loggia was also built for the benefit of distinguished passengers. A few yards away from the isolation quarter a row of bollards formed a barrier to keep away unauthorised persons from entering the quarantine. That barrier gave rise to the name by which the wharf is now known - "Il-Barriera". From here they could safely approach the hospital.

Five rooms were specifically sectioned off for venereal disease patients needing mercury inunctions. The Great Magazine Ward consisting of 109 beds for sailors and soldiers of the Order, as well as galley-slaves was located in the basement of the infirmary. On the second basement level, was the Magazine Ward with 36 beds for the mentally ill.

To clean the wounds, vinegar was used. Sea salt and honey were also used for infections as an antiseptic. It is said that kidney stones could be removed safely within a matter of minutes and amputations were swiftly dealt with by the sword.

For all this goodness, women were not admitted. If a woman was rich, a doctor would personally visit her home. For all other women, a cross was painted on the patient’s door and a nun would pay her a visit. Normally all nuns acquired some medical education. Women were not even allowed to visit their male relatives at the hospital.

The garden at St Catherine's Monastery

In the Great Ward, one can still see ventilation holes along the wall facing the inner walled garden, which is where the auditorium for the Malta Experience now stands. In its time, the garden would have been large and built after the style of Arab gardens, containing citrus fruits and many medicinal herbs. The scent would have been wonderful. Such gardens still exist in Malta but on a smaller scale. The Monastery of St Catherine’s is one of them. It shows that they processed their own rose and orange water and had an abundance of honey.

Towards the closing stages of the 18th century, there was a general decline in the Order. Life had changed and the Knights of St. John were losing their raison d'être. Liberal ideas were spreading throughout Europe and to make matters worse, the French Revolution led to all the rich estates of the French langues being confiscated, pushing the Knights to the brink of bankruptcy. This decay was reflected in the administration of the Sacra Infermeria, where conditions were vastly different from those of its former days. In 1786, the noted English philanthropist John Howard, visited Malta's hospitals and recorded his impressions in a book titled 'An Account of the Principal Lazzarettos in Europe'. His account of what he saw in Malta was anything but flattering and is one of the first indications of the decline of the Order's hospital. According to his report, doctors doing their rounds were forced to press a handkerchief to their faces to ward off the unbearable stench.

When the hospital was used as a garrison, horses were tethered to the arches. Note the iron ring.

The building was used by the British Military Forces as the Garrison Hospital (1800-1920) At the time, British soldiers suffered an outbreak of what was called the Malta fever. The disease caused undulant fever in men and abortion in goats. It is transmitted by goat milk. In 1886, the medical facility became well known when Major-General Sir David Bruce, (29 May 1855 – 27 November 1931), became chairman of the Malta Fever Commission that investigated the deadly disease, by which he identified a specific bacterium as the cause. Bruce was born in Melbourne, Australia, to Scottish parents, engineer David Bruce and his wife Jane Russell Hamilton, who had immigrated to Australia in the gold rush of 1850. He returned with his family to Scotland at the age of five. Sir David discovered the bacterium, now called Brucella, in 1887 along with the bacterium and the disease it caused. Brucellosis, together with the protozoan Trypanosoma brucei, are named in his honour.

During WWII, the building suffered severe bomb damage but was later restored.

David Bruce

The members of the Mediterranean Fever Commission

The Streets of St Andrews by V.E.H. Masters

 St Andrews in Scotland is known worldwide as the home of golf as well as for its famous university where Prince William met Catherine – but it's also a town with a lot of history.

My first historical novel, The Castilians, closely follows the long and dramatic siege of St Andrews Castle in 1546-7. Since St Andrews is my home town, I had a very clear picture of the streets my characters walked and the destruction wrought by the siege, since some of it is still visible almost five hundred years later.

Pictured above are the remains of Blackfriars Chapel damaged by the castilians – which is what the men who took the castle, killed its cardinal and held it for the next fourteen months called themselves – and hence the title of my book. Blackfriars sits in the grounds of my old school and I walked by it every day without a second glance.

St Andrews is so named because bones purporting to be from the apostle Saint Andrew once rested here. The town was a centre of pilgrimage from the 1100s with pilgrims coming from as far away as Russia, whose patron saint the apostle was.

A certificate of pilgrimage to St Andrews was found in France a few years ago. This particular pilgrim had been required to undertake the journey as a penance for killing someone, as well as making recompense to the man's family. 

Pilgrims travelled in groups for safety. They arrived by sea, usually further down the Fife coast and walked the last twenty or so miles to St Andrews. The townsfolk were understandably fearful of pilgrims bringing the plague so pilgrims were held in quarantine outside the city boundaries and permitted entry through a controlled pilgrim's gate.

The cathedral, once the largest in Scotland, was built in the 1100s. God was said not to have looked favourably upon this over grand edifice when the west end was blown down in a storm in 1270 and the building partly destroyed by fire in 1378.

St Andrews is a very early example of town planning built with its main streets fanning out from the cathedral, as pictured below in the Geddy Map of 1580 (with permission of the National Library of Scotland). Those streets, wide and straight, were laid out to facilitate the processions for the many holy days of the Catholic calendar. These would include carrying the reliquary containing the bones of Saint Andrew, presumably on Saint Andrew's Day 30th November and performances of the mystery plays. 

When Mary of Guise, mother to Mary Queen of Scots, arrived from France her first meeting with her new husband, James V, was in St Andrews. Forty days of jousting, plays and street pageants followed which must have been hugely exciting for the folk of the town.

The siege of the castle took place only eight years later. James V was already dead and Mary Queen of Scots, aged four in 1546, was now queen. The siege was ostensibly because Cardinal Beaton, Scotland's most powerful man, had the Protestant preacher George Wishart burnt at the stake outside the castle while he, and the people of the town, watched. A few months later a group of disaffected Protestant  lairds crept into the castle disguised as stone masons. They killed the cardinal and hung his naked body from the parapet so the townsfolk were in no doubt who now controlled the castle.

Inevitably the siege was not only about religious differences. Henry VIII of England was funding them as one amid many tactics to force agreement to the marriage of wee Queen Mary to his son Edward. The castilians expected Henry to send a relief force to rescue them but he did not, although he did send funds and supplies by sea.

The government troops tried to break the siege by tunnelling in but the castilians were wise to siege warfare and they mined out to meet them. The purpose of the tunnel was to set explosives and undermine the curtain wall which the troops were prevented from doing. Both sides were tunnelling through rock which is why one of the best preserved mine and counter mines to be found in Europe can still be visited in St Andrews.

Eventually Scotland's auld alliance with France was called upon. The French galleys bombarded the castle from the sea unsuccessfully however they had among them a master tactician in Leon Strozzi, Catherine de Medici's cousin. He ordered the dismantling of St Salvator's (pictured below) then wooden spire and had cannon hauled up to the top of its tower and one of the cathedral towers. The resulting bombardment quickly ended the siege.

In 1559 John Knox was preaching in St Andrews and incited the congregation to such a pitch that they destroyed all the imagery in the church, smashed the stained glass windows, toppled the saints from their pedestals and continued on to the cathedral, which they looted. Other towns followed and Scotland became a Protestant country. St Andrews, which had been Scotland's ecclesiastical centre as well as home to the country's first university, gradually fell into decline. Rubbish piled high in the streets and the town became so rundown there was even a proposal that the university be re-sited to Perth.

Both castle and cathedral soon fell into ruin and were systematically quarried for several hundred years. The good citizens of the town used the stone to build and repair houses and to replace the wooden piers at the harbour with stone.

Eventually St Andrews was re-purposed as the home of golf. Golf had been banned by James II in 1457 because he observed the young men were playing it rather than practising archery. James IV was a keen golfer and re-instated the game and his granddaughter Mary Queen of Scots played golf too.

V.E.H Masters is the award winning author of the best selling Seton Chronicles. The first book in series The Castilians tells the story of the siege of St Andrews Castle in 1546. You can find out more at her website https://vehmasters.com/where there are three short stories available for free to download.