The Lady in the Tower by Lynne Benton

In 1503 Walter Hungerford III was born at Heytesbury, Wiltshire, the only child of Sir Edward Hungerford of Farleigh Hungerford, Somerset, and his first wife, Jane Zouche.  They lived in his family home, Farleigh Castle in Wiltshire, which I was lucky enough to visit recently.  And it was there that I learnt the story of the Lady in the Tower.

The remains of Farleigh Castle today

Walter was nineteen when his father died in 1522, and soon afterwards became squire to Henry VIII.  He married three times, but prospered only after his third marriage in 1532 to Elizabeth, daughter of John Hussey, first Baron Hussey of Sleaford.  Walter was keen for advancement, so he asked his father-in-law to recommend him to Henry VIII’s rising minister Sir Thomas Cromwell.  This Hussey did, and subsequently let it be known that Walter would like to become Sheriff of Wiltshire, a desire which was gratified in 1533.  Walter became Cromwell’s agent in the Farleigh area, a service which bore fruit in 1536 when he was created the first (and last) Lord Hungerford of Heytesbury.  Thus far his third marriage had served him well.

The Hungerford coat of arms

However, by that time his father-in-law, John Hussey, had fallen out of favour at court, so in punishment Lord Walter began to persecute his unfortunate wife Elizabeth.  His treatment of her was remarkable for its brutality.  He locked her in a tower at Farleigh Castle

The tower probably used for her incarceration

and kept her there for four years, during which time his chaplain, William Bird, brought her food and drink.  However, she didn't trust Bird, and in around 1539 she wrote an appeal for protection to Cromwell, saying that she was “continually locked in one of my Lord’s towers in his castle … these three or four years past … under the custody of my Lord’s chaplain, which has once or twice heretofore poisoned me.”  She claimed that she was often reduced to drinking her own urine, and that without the charity of “poor women of the country” who “brought me to my great window, in the night, such meat and drink as they had”, she would have starved to death.  Apparently they rigged up a basket and pulley system through a window in the tower, and provided her with food and drink.  This may have been the window they used.

The window in the tower

It is not known whether Cromwell ordered Elizabeth’s release on receipt of her letter, but by that time Henry VIII was becoming increasingly worried about uprisings in the country protesting about his break with the Roman Catholic Church and the Dissolution of the Monasteries.  For this reason Thomas Cromwell, the King’s Chief minister, also fell out of favour. 

Sir Thomas Cromwell

Unsurprisingly it was not long before the king also caught up with Cromwell’s protégé, Lord Walter, and in 1540 he accused Walter, together with William Bird, of sympathising with the so-called “Pilgrims of Grace”, a popular uprising that had begun in Yorkshire in 1536 and was spreading.  The members were protesting not only about Henry’s split from Rome and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but also about Thomas Cromwell’s policies and other political, social and economic grievances. 

On 28^th July 1540 both Lord Walter Hungerford and Sir Thomas Cromwell were beheaded on Tower Hill: Cromwell for treason and Lord Walter for treason, witchcraft and the then capital crime of homosexuality.  Contemporaries noted that Lord Walter had gone mad by the time of his execution, ‘for he seemed so unquiet, that many judged him rather in a frenzy than otherwise.’

After her husband’s death Elizabeth was finally released from the tower.  She survived, and subsequently married Sir Robert Throgmorton, with whom she had five daughters.  She died peacefully in 1554.

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Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey and Farleigh Hungerford Castle

by Marie-Louise Jensen

In honour of our July celebration of Jane Austen, I thought I'd draw readers' attention to the research done by Janine Barchas in her work Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location and Celebrity.
This came to my attention through some coincidences.

When I set my second YA novel The Lady in the Tower at Farleigh Hungerford Castle near Bath, I had no idea at all that I was treading in Jane Austen's footsteps. I had no idea until Janine wrote to me and told me that her daughter was reading my novel (bought on holiday in New Zealand, as far as I remember!) and she had realised that it was set in the very castle that she had researched in connection with Austen's Northanger Abbey.

All Austen fans remember Catherine Moorland's disappointing, abortive drive to Blaise Castle with the dreadful John Thorpe. In her book, Barchas points out that this was a ludicrous trip to a castle so far away when there was a very popular ruined castle within six miles of Bath - an easy drive. Farleigh was, according to Barchas, a popular day-trip for visitors to Bath, and full of the kind of gruesome Gothic history that would have appealed so much to Catherine Moorland. Barchas further proposes the theory that Northanger Abbey was based on Farleigh Castle. Once that connection is made, it seems blindingly obvious. Jane Austen's family, she tells us, had a guide book including Farleigh Castle and it is even annotated in her hand. It is very likely she visited the castle herself.

There are many dark tales connected with Farleigh Castle. Austen alludes to the murder of John Cotell by his wife Agnes. His body was allegedly burned in the kitchen range and she and two servants were later prosecuted for the murder. This is echoed in Austen's novel when Catherine Moorland suspects General Tilney of doing away with his wife at Northanger Abbey.

This incident had only a brief reference in my novel; I was more drawn by the tale of Lady Elizabeth, locked in the Lady Tower for several years. But it's strange to realise that I was inspired to write a story by the same location as Jane Austen without knowing it.

I can thoroughly recommend Janine Barchas' book on Austen. It's a fascinating read, and reveals many things, among others Austen's subtle sense of humour. Much is still amusing for a modern audience today, but other things require context. For example, Barchas points out that Thorpe was the name of the local map maker in Bath in Austen's time. Giving John Thorpe his name when he cannot find the way to Blaise Castle and doesn't know about Farleigh Castle is a little dig that only locals would have understood. There are many gems like this in Barchas' research.

Settings

by Marie-Louise Jensen

I love having a real place to set my books. It helps me see the story playing out if I know the place. I used real settings which I named in my first two books. A little tricky, because I was then bound to the real history of the place. I made freer with my Icelandic books. I knew the places, but I didn't name them. So I was free to visualise the bay and hillsides, but could play a little with them.

In Runaway, I needed a big stately home for my setting. I chose Dyrham Park, which was just the right era, built in the early Georgian period, but wary of my experience of using Farleigh Castle, I renamed it Deerhurst Park. Now I had all the freedom I could want, to explore the beautiful setting on visits and imagine it, but without tying myself to its actual history and the people who lived there.

I could imagine the horses and carriages travelling down the wide sweep of the carriageway into the picturesque park. I could place characters at the lodge house (now a ticket office). I could describe negotiating a team of horses through the sharp turn into the gates and the archway into the stableyard:

I even knew what the stable yard was like - though it's now a tea room and a shop; as mentioned in an earlier post:

Here, I was able to imagine tethering and grooming the horses, harnessing them, riding them in and out, even walking them when they had colic. And I could imagine and describe all the daily coming and going of a busy stable yard and the people who once worked there.

I even felt familiar with the gardens and the view of the back of the house, which the servants would have crossed to go to church on Sundays:

An image of Dyrham Park even made the back cover of the paperback. So it's an open secret, but I still got to invent my own people and story for the place. 

I'm sure other authors can successfully use imagined settings, but I definitely find real ones easier and more vivid. And it gives me an excuse to post all these lovely pictures. Perhaps the real secret is that when I visit these incredible places, I love to imagine what it must have been like to live there. I suspect that might be the basis of a lot of our historical fiction.

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