About
An antidode to literary cardboard cutouts.
The Nevills were a hugely powerful and important family in the middle decades of the 15th century. They saw the Wars of the Roses from both sides (Yorkist and Lancastrian), but mainly from their own. The Nevill men lived and died large and violently. The Nevill women married leading players on both sides. I’m hoping to present a point of view that goes beyond the one-dimensional stereotypes seen in a lot of historical fiction.
I’m also in the process of writing my own book, working title Nevill, that will follow the family through the reigns of four kings, though this isn’t primarily a blog about that. As I find things in my research, I will share them. There will also be the occasional update, tantrum, sulk etc etc etc.
I hope you enjoy.
Karen Clark
Hi! I’m quite impressed by the degree of detail and research you’ve put into this. I’ve been working for the past few years writing my own novel spanning the birth of Henry and Margaret’s Prince Edward to the birth of Henry VIII. It follows the basic omniscient narrator format of Luo Guanzhong’s ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms’ and will follow the authenticity that Luo Guanzhong’s used, ‘Seven parts fact, three parts fiction.’
The emphasis will be on each character’s personally driven motivations and it will be my sincere effort to portray each and every character, from John Clifford to Queen Margaret to Richard III, as ultimately sympathetic people… not wholly good and not wholly evil. Warwick, however, is a tough character to write for. Through in the views of his contemparies, his ‘treacherous’ actions were indeed justified, and he had popular support. Yet a modern reader would quickly apply their 21st century morality to his situation and quickly denounce him. He’s a fascinating man, infact… but I sometimes risk allowing him to hijack the whole novel!
As the whole novel spans a full 38 years and about three generations worth of characters, I find my time being stretched thin to do proper research and devotion to pondering the motivations of all the characters. I’d love to exchange ideas with you about the subject sometime, see things from a different perspective. I don’t exactly come from a place where the War of the Roses is common discussion, so I’m eager to talk to someone who knows more about it than what I tell them.
Thanks for your comments. Until very recently, I felt extremely isolated, but then I discovered Susan Higginbotham’s Medieval Woman blog and my world just exploded! Firstly, I was inspired to start this, then I found an extremely interesting and likeminded bunch of people on Facebook and at around that time read a perfectly dreadful book purporting to be about John Nevill, which inspired me to pick up the desultory work I’ve done in the past and actually lick it into shape. I like Warwick intensely (as you might have gathered) and have done for decades. The whole family intrigue me. I foresee this project as two, possibly three books – the first covering the time from 1453 to either Tewkesbury or the death of Anne Nevill (depending on how long it gets) and the last one (either 2 or 3) focussing on the Fitzhughs – Warwick’s sister Alice and her family – but not forgetting the Archbishop of York, the Clarences and the Gloucesters.
The more research I do, the more I realise needs to be done!
If you’re interested, George Nevill has his own FB page and there’s a group I’m a member of called The History Police full of fascinating people who are variously pleased and irritated by the current state of historical fiction. (If you find George or the HP group, you’ll find me not far away!)
The portrayals of Warwick by and large in historical fiction are appalling. His wife and children are regularly fashioned out of poor material, likened to ‘pawns’ and his poor daughters are stamped with ‘doomed’ from the get go. I think there’s a lot more to these women than most people realise. The Nevill women as a whole are a fierce bunch!
Karen
I am into genealogy and have working on the Fitzhugh family. I’m related through a de Parrs, Salisburys, Jourdaines, Coggan, Merrit line from England >Virginia > Tennessee > Arkansas.
My husband and our son-in-law both descend from a Neville line in Virginia.
I’ll be looking forward to your book about the Neville/Fitzhugh family.
Thank you, Aunt Annie!
I’ve developed quite a strong affection for Henry Fitzhugh – stupid I know when he’s been dead for centuries and I have no way of knowing what he was actually like! That goes for the Nevills as well, I suppose!
Hi Karen, thanks for your wonderful comment today on my site and for this treasure trove of detail. It makes me want to get a large poster sized sheet of paper and start drawing and scribbling. I look forward to the publication of your book, when it arrives. Meanwhile I have subscribed and will be coming back regularly to take a look….I suppose you don’t tweet? I keep in touch with several historical characters by subscribing to their ‘on this day’ stream….
Hi Kate! And welcome to the Feast. I don’t tweet, no. Just haven’t got around to working it all out just yet. I do facebook (and so does his Grace, the archbishop!)
Things have been a bit quiet over here in the last little while (except for my On This Days), as I’m working on a different project at the moment. Will be back in the 15th century shortly.
Hi.
Many years ago I completed a project on Warwick, which involved visiting and photographing as many sites I could that had a Warwick connection, even obscure places like Millom. I added my own take on Warwick history, as I felt the story should be told, at that time.
It is still on the web under http://www.warwick-the-kingmaker.co.uk feel free to look around – it is a very old project and parts such as the contact no longer work. I will be taking it down very soon as it was just an experimental piece of work – I may revisit it and remix, at later date.
Good luck with your project it is a big – but interesting – piece of work you are taking on.
Gareth
Thank for this link, Gareth. The black print on red was rather hard on my eyes, so I’ve printed it and will take a good look at it. The pictures are wonderful – I live rather a long way from all these places and it’s great to be able to see so may.
Thanks for your comment. It *is* a big project, but now I’ve chopped it into more manageable pieces I feel that I’m starting to make some headway.
cheers
Karen
Hello and hope this finds you well! Susan Higginbotham just showed me this site and I am pleased to write that it has quickly been added to my faves. I love to read (and hope one day to write) about the Middle Ages (particularly the 15th century), but I want to read about the people who populated them, as much as I can, on the terms they lived and not just the easily passed down “facts.” I love it when writers can give the people back their dignity, which doesn’t always mean telling the most flattering details as often as possible, but rather, restoring to them their realness, and to bring to people the awareness that these people–our ancestors–had the range of emotions and events in their lives as do we.
I am looking forward to getting to know this blog better and reading your posts (and books) in the future.
Well done! ~~Lisl
Hi, Lisl, and welcome! This blog really is a work in progress – I’ve been blogging as I’ve been researching, which is tremendous fun. I must thank Susan for sending you my way. I think it’s important for a writer to tell the story as it unfolds, rather than writing to a preconceived idea. Primary sources, and it’s surprising just how much is on the web, can provide little hints into people’s personalities, but making them real isn’t always easy! I’m hoping i can pull it off.
cheers
Karen