The Secrets of the Rose β Research and Inspiration
Like so many of my books, The Secrets of the Rose started with a place, and an inspiring woman from the footnotes of history.
The most famous historical heroine associated with Bamburgh is Grace Darling, the lighthouse-keeperβs daughter who in 1838 helped to rescue the survivors of a shipwreck. But I was interested in an earlier episode in Bamburgh history, that of the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.
We often think of the Jacobites as being Scottish rebels fighting for their cause against the overwhelming might of England. However, in the early eighteenth century, many Englishmen and women supported the Jacobites too. They wanted the restoration of the Stuart monarchy and there were numerous plots in all parts of England.
One of the places where plotting was rife was in Northumberland. In Bamburgh Castle you can read about Dorothy Forster, whose brother Thomas was the local MP and a leading Jacobite. When Tom was arrested and thrown into Newgate Gaol, Dorothy rode 340 miles from Bamburgh to London to help him escape. She smuggled in a key to his cell and had a boat waiting to take him to France.
This story of adventure and daring really fired my imagination. I was even more impressed with Dorothy when I discovered that she had also arranged a fake funeral for Thomas to throw the authorities off the scent! Yet it was curious; none of these stories about Dorothy had actually made it into the official records about the Jacobite rebellion. Was this because the actions of Dorothy, and so many other women in the 1715 uprising, had been overlooked? All the official histories were written by men. Had they ignored them, or considered them not to be important? It wouldnβt be the first time the role of women had been written out of history.
In the end I was forced to conclude that a lot of the stories about Dorothy were folk tales. They might easily have been true; I couldnβt prove it one way or another. But that is the great thing about writing historical fiction. You can find a heroine like Dorothy and fill in the gaps in her story with imagination. One thing is sure about Dorothy Forster β she was a brave and daring heroine of her time.
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