Tag: Revolt

Publication of ‘Elizabethan Rebellions: Conspiracy, Intrigue and Treason’!

~ Helene Harrison ~ Leave a comment

I’m absolutely delighted to be able to announce that my debut book ‘Elizabethan Rebellions: Conspiracy, Intrigue and Treason’ is available to order in the UK RIGHT NOW.

You can order it direct from Pen and Sword here.

If you have pre-ordered it from somewhere like Amazon, Waterstones, or Foyles, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until the official release date of 30 January. But if you’ve been thinking about buying it, now is the time and Pen and Sword also have 20% off as an introductory offer!

If you’re in the US or anywhere outside the UK I believe the official release is 7 February, so only a couple of weeks to go, though you can get it through Book Depository with free worldwide shipping if you can’t wait the extra week.

I don’t think I’ll quite believe it until I hold a copy of it in my hands, it still feels quite surreal! New business cards arrived today and I’m having a celebration with friends and family in just a week and a half, and a few other things lined up so watch this space!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been so supportive throughout the whole process; everyone at Pen and Sword, and all of you who read my blog, follow me and comment and social media, and everyone who has already bought my book! You guys are awesome.

But special thanks have to go to my amazing friend and editor, Laura, as well as friends Mark, Ben, and Hattie. And my sister, Matilda. You all know I couldn’t have done it without you.

This has been a lifelong dream for me, though I haven’t liked to admit it to myself, believing it would never actually happen, and now it has. I’m two-thirds of the way through writing book two now, so look out for that, also from Pen and Sword, in July 2024. Ideas for two more books are floating around in my head, including one based around the research I did for my Masters dissertation way back in 2013.

As I write in the dedication of this, my first book, it’s “for everyone out there facing trials that get in the way of your dreams”. Keep persevering. I’m not saying it will definitely happen, I mean I don’t know the future. But. If you work hard and put the effort in, you’re much more likely to get there.

See some early reviews below:

Elizabethan Rebellions – Writing Update!

~ Helene Harrison ~ Leave a comment

For those who don’t know, I am writing my first book to be published by Pen and Sword History, on Elizabethan Rebellions.

When I first started writing this book I was intending to write at least fortnightly updates on my blog, but the time has just overtaken me! If you follow me on social media, you’ll probably have seen some updates, but I have been struggling to write anything at the moment aside from my book, hence the lack of posts on this blog.

I am over halfway through the writing, having written 50,000 words. I like to edit as I go along so my process is to write a couple of thousand words and then edit what I’ve written. The manuscript deadline is January 2022 to get it to the publisher.

I’ve had some problems with sourcing images, however. Wikimedia Commons was suggested as a way to get images that are in the public domain. However, images on Wikimedia Commons are only public domain in the US, the rules for the UK are less obvious, described as ‘inconclusive’.[i] Rather than risk any copyright infringement I have looked into images under the Creative Commons License.[ii] It’s interesting because there are images that I maybe wouldn’t have looked at, but are quite intriguing – I’m using the Wellcome Collection at the moment to source images.[iii]

Understanding Elizabethan Rebellions takes quite a bit of brain power I’ve learnt. There is so much plotting and conspiracy that people get confused and the exact order of what happened. There is also a lot of missing evidence or propaganda replacing the real story.

It has been a real eye-opener working on this book and now I have all kinds of ideas running through my head for things I’d like to write in the future.

[i] Commons:Reuse of PD-Art photographs – Wikimedia Commons

[ii] CC Search (creativecommons.org)

[iii] Collections | Wellcome Collection

What were the Aims, Causes and Consequences of the Tudor Rebellions?

~ Helene Harrison ~ 1 Comment

Lambert Simnel / Perkin Warbeck 1487-1499

Henry VII 1505 at the National Portrait Gallery.
Henry VII 1505 at the National Portrait Gallery.

The aims of the Simnel and Warbeck rebellions were to replace Henry VII on the English throne with what the people saw as the “true heir”.[1] Henry VII was a usurper, and the only Lancastrian claimant left since the death of Henry VI in 1471.

The cause of the Simnel and Warbeck rebellions was the fact that Henry VII was a usurper with no real claim to the throne. He had taken the throne from the Yorkist Richard III, who had usurped it from the rightful heir, the son of Edward IV – Edward V – and supposedly then had Edward and his younger brother, Richard, killed in the Tower of London. Henry’s claim to the throne came through his mother, Margaret Beaufort, who was descended from the illegitimate line of John of Gaunt and his mistress, Katherine Swynford. The Beaufort line had been legitimised but barred from succeeding to the throne.[2] The people of England weren’t entirely convinced that the Princes in the Tower were dead and, even if they were, the Earl of Warwick was another contender with a claim to the throne. Simnel pretended to be the Earl of Warwick, the son of Richard III’s elder brother, George Duke of Clarence.[3] Warbeck pretended to be Richard Duke of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower.[4] Neither were entirely convincing. Continue reading “What were the Aims, Causes and Consequences of the Tudor Rebellions?” →