By Susan Holloway Scott
“World building” is a trendy term among writers and readers right now. A long-time favorite with paranormal and sci-fi aficionados, it refers to the convincing creation of a setting of the writer’s invention: a fictitious place made so vividly real that readers can believe in its existence.
We historical writers do this, too. While our worlds are based on the actual past, we still have to sift through the mountains of research to find the exact details to bring our stories to life. Just because we’ve learned tons about a specific time or place doesn’t mean we have to inflict it on our trusting readers. We’ve all groaned over the infamous “wallpaper history” that can smother characters and bring a good plot to a grinding halt. Long descriptions of gowns, politics, or the exact rules governing Almack’s are deadly. The trick is to integrate all those facts into the story seamlessly, and to make the reader feel as if she, too, were at the character’s side, feeling how that gown swirled around her ankles when she danced, or the mortification she felt when those grim matriarchs looked down their noses at her. As writers, it’s our obligation to make it real.
Yet sometimes all this reality gets a little, well, spooky. Most writers have wicked good imaginations, and
when the Muse is happy and the story’s ripping along at a merry pace, the line between the world being built and the world that exists can get fuzzy. I’ve been in the grocery store and seen my current hero over by the bananas, and I’ve looked at a modern river and seen it filled with sailing ships, not tankers. Because I’m currently writing historical novels based on the lives of people who actually lived, the line’s blurrier still. With the exception of a convenient footman or coach driver here and there, all my characters did walk this same old earth as the rest of us, albeit 350 years earlier.
My July book, The French Mistress, is based on the life of Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth and Duchesse d’Aubigny. Louise had a great many excellent qualities for a heroine: shy but determined, she was a beautiful outsider with many enemies, and unable to trust anyone except the man she loves. She was born to a poor but noble family, and went to seek her fortune (i.e., make a good marriage) at the French court. Instead of a husband, she found considerable intrigue, serving as a spy for one king, Louis XIV of France, and
becoming the much-loved mistress to another, Charles II of England. She was apparently accomplished in both areas, and richly rewarded by both kings. And in an era remarkable for its faithlessness, Louise’s only lover was Charles, and she remained loyal to his memory even though she outlived him by fifty years.
I adored writing about Louise, and building her “world” from her humble beginnings in Brittany to the grand palaces of Versailles and Whitehall. Though I’ve written about Charles’s raucous court three times before –– in Duchess, Royal Harlot, and King's Favorite –– this time I saw it through Louise’s eyes, comparing it (unfavorably, of course) to the French court at Versailles. Before long, Louise's world became a real world to me, too.
But there’s real, and then there’s REAL. One of my favorite scenes in the book revolves around the night Charles gives Louise the Letters Patent that officially legitimizes and ennobles their three-year-old natural son. No matter how much in favor, royal mistresses are always in a precarious position, and rightly desperate to ensure their children’s security for the future. I’d researched descriptions of 17th century Letters Patent, and knew they were imposing documents, scribed by hand on parchment, threaded with gold ribbon and only made official with the imprint of the Great
Seal on a fat blob of red wax. With that seal, the three-year-old bastard became Duke of Richmond, Earl of March, and Baron Settrington in the peerage of England. (Here he is in all his splendor, by William Wissing; I'd love to know how the painter was able to make a boy that age sit still bedecked with so many ribbons and laces.) Soon after, little Charles was also created Duke of Lennox, as well as Earl of Darnley and Lord Torbolton in the peerage of Scotland. As can be imagined, Louise was pleased by the king’s generosity, while he in turn was pleased that she was pleased, and that was how I wrote it.
Then, to my amazement, I stumbled across a photograph of the Letters Patent of the first Duke of Lennox on the internet. THE Letters Patent, with the seal still dangling from it, exactly as Louise would have known it. (Here’s the photograph, Goodwood Ms 10, by courtesy of His Grace the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, and with acknowledgments to the West Sussex County Record Office and the County Archivist.)
A few emails back and forth with the archivists at the West Sussex County Council (where the papers of the Dukes of Richmond are kept, not far from Goodwood House, the family seat) only made everything
more real still. The present duke is the tenth of the line that descends directly from Louise and Charles. His Grace is now styled the Duke of Richmond and Gordon (the sixth Duke of Richmond and Lennox was also created Duke of Gordon in 1876), as well as the tenth Duc d’Aubigny: the only duke in the realm to hold four distinct dukedoms. How pleased Louise would be by that!
To Louise, the Letters Patent was the ultimate symbol of Charles's devotion to her and their son. To the ten Dukes of Richmond, the Letters Patent is the basis of their rank and good fortune. To the archivists in West Sussex, it's a fascinating document, a rare piece of local history. But to me, it's one more thing that brought Louise de Keroualle to life for me as a writer –– and, I hope, for readers as well.
I don't have copies yet of The French Mistress, but I do have a few of Duchess, Royal Harlot, and The King's Favorite that are looking for good homes. I'll select two names from those who leave a comment for this blog by Sunday noon, and the winners will have her/his choice of a book. You don't have to wax philosophical on royal dukedoms (unless you want to!) Just your name will be enough to be entered in the drawing. I'm not picky. I'm cleaning house. *g*
And here's another mini-contest with a specialized giveaway book: a large-print, hardcover edition of The Duke's Gamble, one of the last historical romances I wrote as Miranda Jarrett. This is a Mills & Boon 100th Anniversary edition, too, which I suppose makes it collectible. The give-away drill's the same. Leave me a comment saying you're interested in the large-print Miranda Jarrett, and you're entered.
Post away!