Devon Chapter

I have recently joined the Historical Novel Society and on Thursday met up with some members of the Devon Chapter. Given the wealth of knowledge, experience and number of published books demonstrated by those present, I am now suffering severely from imposter syndrome. I’m just glad no-one is writing in precisely the same segment as I am, the closest being during the Civil Wars and from the Royalist side, as opposed to my Protectorate/Parliamentarian take on the period.
What a really interesting and kind bunch of people – I look forward to meeting them again.

The big issues for me are starting and stopping.

Starting is always a problem. Where do you look to see if there is a tavern or alehouse close to Queenhithe? Where do you find a plan of a the farmhouse of a prosperous Devon farmer?

London does have lots of resources, such as the AGAS map, which makes it so much easier to navigate the streets of the 17^th Century city.

Devon has relatively few (pun coming up!) resources which allow you to get down to the roots (!), but Janet Few’s books and Ivan Root’s work do help.

Stopping is an issue too. I’m really interested in the period my work is set in, so I will just keep reading and forget to do any writing. And once you have done all that reading, you have to resist the temptation to put everything in, particularly when you feel the pressure to keep the word count rising.

It’s a hard life writing 😏.

A question that is often asked of authors is, “Where do you get your ideas from?” It is, most of the time, one that is very difficult to answer, but I can tell you about one idea that is easy to pin down.

I was reading about the social history of the Early Stuart Era when I came across a reference to ‘The Holland House’ in Southwark as a brothel and the rules that prostitutes had to follow. I then looked for this establishment elsewhere and, after some initial confusion with ‘Holland House’, originally Cope Castle, built for Sir Walter Cope in 1605 in Kensington, found ‘Holland’s Leaguer’.

This was a moated manor house situated in Liberty of Paris Garden, probably close to what is today Holland Street, near the back of Tate Modern. Paris Garden was one of three liberties in Southwark which were still outside the purview of the City of London during the seventeenth century (the others being The Clink and The Mint). This meant that all sorts of activities that the City Common Council would not allow in the City, could be carried on in the liberties – one example being the construction of The Globe theatre. The manor house passed into the hands of Bess Holland around 1602 and she transformed it from a high-class gambling house to a high-class brothel. In late 1631 an attempt to eject Holland failed, but the authorities did not give up, but besieged the house and by early February it appears that Bess had gone. It was at this point that the house acquired the name Holland’s Leaguer.

Leaguer – a military camp, especially one under siege – from the Dutch leger, camp (like laager?) – compare ‘beleaguered’. There was also a play entitled Holland’s Leaguer.

So I had to use very little imagination to create The Dutch House and Ma Dutch, which, I’m afraid, don’t have half the history of Holland’s Leaguer.

I’m pleased to say that my novel, ‘The Spy and The Urchin’, is now available on Amazon as either a paperback or an e-book. All being well it should be available in proper bookshops eventually.

I am setting up new accounts on Facebook and bluesky to go with the branding :-), #daparsons.

I will update these regularly, so if you would like to hear about developments, please follow me on one of them. I don’t do single letter social media.

A big thank you to everyone who has encouraged me to finish and publish this book. I have two more in the pipeline.