When you write about historical people, it’s always a thrill to meet someone who is actually descended from them. Often, it turns out to be a cadet branch, but when you come across a Dudley, a Hastings and a Tyrell, who can trace their line back to the fifteenth century and further still, it’s quite mind-blowing.

What is especially spine-chilling for any historical novelist is to be contacted by the descendants of a hero and heroine in one of their novels. This has happened to me with Margery Neville and Richard Huddleston, the major characters of The Maiden and the Unicorn. Margery was the bastard daughter of Warwick the Kingmaker and sister-in-law to King Richard III.

A few years ago I had an email from a Canadian lawyer who was researching the Huddlestons. It turned out he is descended from Margery and Richard’s third child, Margaret (Huddleston) Salkeld. This triggered off an excellent email friendship between us, and in 2008 he and his daughter made an ancestral pilgrimage, if you like, through Cumbria.

More recently, I had an email from a lady in Australia who is descended from Margery and Richard’s oldest daughter, Joan Fleming. Her family tree also includes Archbishop George Neville’s illegitimate daughter

Can you imagine what a delight it was to put these cousins in touch with one another? Somehow it makes Margery and Richard seem more alive in my mind than ever, a validation that they lived and breathed.

In writing about a medieval clairvoyant in The Silver Bride, charges of witchcraft in Mistress to the Crown and more recently in my new mss on the death of Shakespeare’s patron, I have had to research sorcery in the Middle Ages and Tudor eras. That was how I came across the legal treatise Malleus Maleficarum.

Most people have never heard of this treatise but it is arguably the most important document in the history of witchcraft. It was first published in about 1486 and became a regular bestseller. At least 30 editions were published between 1487 and 1669. The literal translation of the title is The Hammer of Evil but the more common translation was The Witch Hammer and this document became the bible of inquisitors and witchfinders throughout the Christian world. Not just a fifteenth century All You Ever wanted to know about Witchcraft but were afraid to ask with FAQs such as ‘Whether witches can by some Glamour Change men into Beasts’. No, it was destined to become the legal procedure manual.

Malleus Malificarum was commissioned by Pope Innocent VIII, who was determined to take a strong stand against the witchcraft, especially in the Holy Roman Empire. The treatise was written by two professional experts, Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger. Kramer was a Dominican and inquisitor from Lower Alsace. Sprenger, who came from Basle, was a Dominican inquisitor, high ranking academic and a mystic.

Up until that time, churchmen probably used their common sense in cases of sorcery that came before them but once they had this document, officially sanctioned by the pope, things changed. While the treatise may have been intended originally merely as guidelines, once it was in print, its clauses were interpreted as standard procedure and any flexibility was stifled. Malleus Maleficarum became the handbook of inquisitors.

How to question a suspected witch, how to torture them, and the different types of sentencing, depending whether the charge was thought to be serious or light. The attempt to be objective and just in dealing with suspects is clearly present in the writing but the medieval ignorance of Kramer and Sprenger, highly intelligent men of their day, is chilling to a modern reader. Killing children, aborting babies, making men impotent, turning people into animals and summoning hailstorms are some of the issues that the authors eagerly discuss. They also ask why it is ‘Women are chiefly addicted to Evil Superstitions?’  Over the next two centuries, the misogynistic slant in Malleus Malificarum would sanction the torture and death of many innocent women.

Even before Malleus Maleficarum, there are incidences of men using accusations of witchcraft and playing on people’s fears to get rid of women who have become a personal threat. Kings’ mistresses and even duchesses and queens were not immune from such charges. However, the biggest witchcraft age of terror was the mid-seventeenth century when professional witchfinders journeyed throughout England.

During the war between King Charles I and Parliament, the central justice system fell into disarray and because the itinerant judges who usually listened to village trials with impartial ears were not doing their rounds, local magnates were able to exert more control over the district courts. For the most part, these men were definitely not impartial.

Late twentieth century academic research into many of the cases indicated that it was often the Puritan ‘lord of the manor’ and magistrate who ‘encouraged’ the witchfinder to seek charges against an aged busybody woman in the village.

If a local gentleman had been ‘quite a lad’ in his youth, he certainly wasn’t keen on some old village woman with a long memory muttering, ‘Ooooh, I can tell you some spicy tales about him that would knock that superior smile off his face. He maybe a holier-than-thou Puritan now, but there’s plenty of children around this neighbourhood with his ears and chin.’

If such an old woman had no son or husband to protect her, she was extremely vulnerable. Today, it is impossible to believe that the huge number of women found guilty in mid-seventeenth century England were witches. Agreed, it is likely some of them were amateur healers, who brewed up natural medicines, but the evidence suggests that many women died because the local gentry wanted them silenced.

Isolde Martyn 2021

Just north of Bristol is the modest town of Thornbury, and for most users of the M5 motorway, it’s just a name on the road sign. Beyond the town, however, lies a palace that was meant to rival Hampton Court. It belonged to Henry VIII’s cousin and rival, Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham. If Edward had his sights on Henry’s crown, his ambition came to an abrupt halt when he was arrested at Thornbury in 1521, taken to the Tower of London and beheaded for treason.

I was keen to visit Edward’s beloved Thornbury as he was one of the characters in two of my novels – the boy Ned – in THE SILVER BRIDE and THE DEVIL IN ERMINE. Some readers might be more aware of him as the duke beheaded at the beginning of Philippa Gregory’s THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL or in the early episodes of TV series THE TUDORS.

Today Edward’s palace is now a very up-market hotel but the public can explore the beautiful grounds. We were fortunate to meet a receptionist who not only appreciated the history but was delighted to show us round. She’d even read some of my novels!

There are no visible signs of the medieval castle that once stood here but archaeologists have excavated the fine tiled floor of the great hall. Because of cost to maintain it, the tiles were re-covered with about a foot of turf and, sadly, now lie unseen beneath one of the hotel lawns.

Edward Stafford made Thornbury his chief residence and began rebuilding in 1511. The central gatehouse, corner towers and newfangled brick chimneys have all survived but a much later building nestles behind the splendid oriel windows of what was Edward’s new hall. The luxury bedrooms of the hotel (for those that can afford them) offer fourposter beds and tapestried walls so tons of atmosphere. We had a peek into some of them.

Originally, a covered walkway ran atop a high wall that linked the duke’s apartments with the neighbouring church grounds and would have overlooked the gardens. The latter are beautifully maintained and still retain a lovely early Tudor atmosphere. It is easy to imagine a lady in a brocade kirtle strolling through one of the hedged archways.

Around the periphery wall of the grounds, Edward began to build lodgings for a great number of retainers. Probably many of them were mercenaries, who might be used in a rebellion against the king.  Maybe, since they were soldiers, it was considered better to lodge them away from the main palace.  At first glance, these buildings look like they’ve been ruined at a later date by Oliver Cromwell’s Roundheads but that was probably not the case. Because of the duke’s sudden arrest on Henry VIII’s orders and the palace being seized by the crown, they were never finished. The castle was returned to the Staffords in the reign of Mary but never reoccupied until it was taken over by the Howards who began its restoration in the nineteenth century.

The hotel contains a small Tudor Hall and kitchen. Even on a very cool day, these rooms have a lovely warm feel about them which is unexpected and which people remark on. However, like most ancient palaces, Thornbury does have ghost stories. The receptionist told us about the misogynist poltergeist who knocks things about when women are in the staffroom but behaves when there are no females present. The staff call it Jasper (after Henry VII’s uncle?) and it seems to respond when it is told off using its name. Then there’s a man in black and a woman in grey who have been seen in the bedrooms area and other people relate glimpsing a lady with greyhounds. Much less believable is the story of ghostly children who appear when the hotel enjoys a firework night.

Edward inherited Brecon Castle and Thornbury from his father, Henry Stafford, Richard III’s erstwhile ally and cousin, who was executed for treason in 1483. After the Tudor takeover in 1485, Edward’s mother, Katherine Woodville, married Jasper, Earl of Pembroke and Duke of Bedford, Henry VII’s uncle. In August 1486, wardship of Edward and custody of his inheritance was given to Margaret Beaufort, the king’s mother, and her right to revenues was made retrospective from September 1485. Thornbury, however, was retained by Catherine Woodville as part of her marriage jointure.

The crown levied extensive fines for Katherine’s remarriage in 1596 and then later when Edward entered his inheritance before he came of age. Because of his claim to the throne as a descendant of Edward III, Edward was always a potential threat to Henry VIII. He did hold the post of Constable of England and showed flair as an efficient administrator but Cardinal Wolsey blocked his political ambitions and increasing influence.  He managed to survive until 1521. King Henry must have maintained Thornbury in tis luxuriant state after that because  in 1535 he and Anne Boleyn enjoyed a honeymoon there for ten days. The dukedom was restored to Edward’s son  by King Edward VI.

Although Edward Stafford was not the most popular man, it is possible to feel sorry that he was never able to complete his palace and grow old enjoying its beautiful setting. The property was on the market in 2016 for £8.5 million. Fortunately, it has continued as a hotel so that visitors like us can still have access to the grounds and be able to appreciate its unquestionable splendour.