I have had a few requests for more poetry on my Blog.
Poetry was a great inspiration for me when I wrote The Shepherd Lord and I have turned to it again for the sequel – Barden Tower (working title).
This time Sir Walter Scott has come to my aid with his epic poem Marmion, set against the backdrop of the Battle of Flodden. I first came across the works of Scott as a 6 year old when I read his novel Ivanhoe, under the bedcovers at night by torchlight. A bit of a tall order for a young shaver you may think but there were not that many children’s books around that I had not read, so I started to borrow from my father’s collection of Scott and James Fenimore Cooper and I was hooked for life.
Scott is probably not that well remembered as a poet but that is how he had his initial success with works like Lay of the Last Minstrel before he was eclipsed by the comet that was Lord Byron. Having opened the door for poets like Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth and Coleridge, he then concentrated on prose and his novels found even greater success.
Here is an excerpt from Marmion that tells the rout of the Scottish army:

Tweed’s echoes heard the ceaseless plash,
While many a broken band,
Disorder’d, through her currents dash,
To gain the Scottish land;
To town and tower, town and dale,
To tell red Flodden’s dismal tale,
And raise the universal wail.
Tradition, legend, tune and song,
Shall many an age that wail prolong:
Still from the sire the son shall hear
Of the stern strife and carnage drear,
Of Flodden’s fatal field,
Where shiver’d was fair Scotland’s spear,
And broken was her shield!

Not only do poems stir the inactive soul. The magic of it gripped men of action also. At Torres Vedras, Sir Adam Ferguson made his company lie down as the French shot rang over their heads while he read to them the sixth canto of Scott’s The Lady of the Lake. Then we have the spellbinding account of Wolfe reading softly Gray’s Elegy, as his boats silenty scudded across the ink black waters to Quebec.

Scott truly “recalled poetry to action, and men of action to poetry”. On this day, the anniversary of Dunkirk, I cannot help but be reminded of my grandfather who was there as part of the British Expeditionary Force. He used poetry to calm him at a particularly tense moment, but that’s an entirely different story, for another time.

I received an e-mail today with a request to let any aspiring Writers out there know that there is a Website which covers, amongst other things, 50 Books Every Writer Must Read.
The url is:
http://www.onlinedegree.net/50-books-every-writer-must-read/

I perhaps should have read these before I became an author and perhaps I would be a richer one now.

I will add to the list and make number 51 on the list, the poem The Nut Brown Maid, by an anonymous author. As you can see from the introduction, this work was all but lost for posterity had it not been found by chance in a bundle of papers. A personage no less than Samuel Pepys, helped to promote it and it was one of the main inspirations for my novel The Shepherd Lord.

You can download the poem for free from my Website:

http://www.theshepherdlord.com/aStJohn_docs1.html

I hope you like it as much as I do

Some of my chickens are getting old and gradually dying off now, so recently I went down to the market to buy some new stock. I normally buy White Sussex as this is the breed we had on my Auntie’s farm when I was a boy. The trip to the market was disappointing as the specimens on view were a sorry looking lot. I am always concerned about introducing disease into the flock so I passed them over. What caught my eye though was a beautiful looking little blue bantam hen and her four chicks. They are called blue bantams but they are almost a dove-grey in colour and look very appealing.
I have always fancied rearing bantams so, on an impulse, I parted with 25 euros and took the clucking little clutch home in the truck and felt very pleased with myself. As I got nearer the house though, I started to get worried. Introducing new birds is typically traumatic as the “pecking order” is adjusted and some of my recent additions had had a hard time of it, even being excluded from the hen house at night until they could pluck up courage to impose themselves on the rest of the gang.
This little bantam was a third the size of the White Sussex and her chicks were not much older than a few days. How would they cope?
I gingerly let them out of the box in the chicken run and the little bantams soon made themselves at home. The rest of the birds were wary at first but when one of my other chickens strayed too close for comfort, the new arrival flew at her and an almighty fight ensued. I managed to separate them but was worried that I had made the wrong choice – surely these little creatures would not survive long against their giant counterparts?
When I went down in the late afternoon to feed them, the chickens were very subdued and cautiously waddled around the side of the perimeter fence to get to the wheat, rather than cross the bantam’s path. Even Arthur the cockerel, undisputed champion cock of the valley, gave them a wide birth.
It would be interesting to see where they all slept at night so I went back down at dusk but there was no sign of the bantams in the hen-house. I could hear them though, and when I looked closely, there was mother, roosting high in the elder tree with her four little chicks snuggled down securely atop her back.
Somehow, I think they will do rather well

For those of you who are wondering about what is happening to the sequel to The Shepherd Lord, I am in deep research mode. The next novel culminates in Henry Clifford’s key role at the Battle of Flodden and if you thought the Wars of The Roses were a complicated period in Britain’s history, then Flodden is more so.
I thought I might lose the thread of my family connection with this latest novel but trawling through some records, I found this tantalising piece:
“Rosamund Tempest survived her husband sixteen years, and took an active part in the management of her estates and furthering the interests of her family. From the muster roll of archers and billmen, “as well archers as other men on horse and fote”, viewed by Sir Robert Nevill and Sir Thos. Tempest, in the time of Henry VIII., we learn that the following constituted the

Howshold of Dame Rosamund Tempest late Wyffe of Sir Ric.Tempest Knyght.

John Tempest Esqwyer horse and harnes
John Lacy Esqwyer horse and harnes
Henry Tempest Esqwyer horse and harnes
Ric. Balderston horse and harnes
Edward Bollyng horse and harnes
John Bolland horse and harnes
John Sugden horse and harnes
Gefferey Russhton horse and harnes
Godfray Bollyng horse and harnes
Ric. Coke horse and harnes

It would appear that Dame Rosamund still retained two members of the Bolling family in her retinue. The following is the list of all the remaining inhabitants of Bolling able to bear arms viz :-

James Hogson, horse and harnes
Ric. Cordonley, horse and harnes
John Horton, a jake
Gilbert Hillhouse, a jake
Willm. Thornton, horse and jake
Thos. Horton, a jake
John Ogden, a bow
Thos. Hogson, billman
Omfrey Hogson, archer
George Bernes, archer
John Hillhouse, archer
Xtpher Smythis, archer
John Haldwurthe, archer
Brian Haldwurthe, archer
John Ffirthe, billman
Ric.Wode, billman
Willm. Cordonley, archer
Edward Jooett, billman
Edward Allerton, billman
John Haldwurthe, billman
Willm. Wright, billman
Pcyval Bertyll, archer
Robt. Coke, billman
Ric. Ogden, archer
Ric. Rhodes, archer
Ric. Dykynson, ”

So, it seems that Edward Bolling and his brother Godfrey were suitably thought of and equipped to be presented for muster. (A harnes, or harness by the way, is a suit of armour). John Tempest, was Rosamund’s son and therefore Edward’s nephew. It is not stretching it too much to presume that the Bollings would have fought at Flodden as Sir Richard Tempest commanded troops there in the Earl of Surrey’s rearguard. Or maybe, Edward served under Clifford’s banner in the centre battle, as there was no love lost between Edward and Sir Richard Tempest. Oops, giving too much of the plot away already. You will have to buy the book if you want to know more
Also, of interest, we have an Edward Jooett as a billman. Maybe this was an ancestor of the Jowett family of Bradford who later went on to manufacture redoubtable motor cars?
Another point of note is that we have a John Lacy Esquire, mounted, armed and ready to ride with the Bollings and Tempests. We have long speculated who the “original” Bolling was. Oral tradition has it that the Bolling family came to England with William the Conqueror. (DNA studies support this). At that time time, William gave large parts of the north of England, including the Bolling lands to Ilbert de Lacy as a reward for fighting at Hastings. We have speculated that the original de Bolling was a poor relation of his, or a fourth son who, by the rules of primogenitor, would not have inherited any of his father’s main estate. Maybe he granted the small manor of Bolling to one of his relations? If we are to believe the symbolism of heraldry, the Bolling coat of arms includes eight martlets – a bird which denotes a fourth son who has had to make his own way in life. There are links with the de Bollings and the de Lacy who founded Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds as we have records that a grant was made to the abbey. I wonder if Edward Bolling and John Tempest knew of this family link? One can only guess.