The New Murrey and Blue blog

We’re all fascinated by and drawn to medieval castles. Whether, like Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, they’re still intact (albeit much “improved” over the centuries) or (like Harlech in Wales) simply some dramatic ruins that have us wishing to see their original complete selves in whichever period interests us the most.

But although we see many illustrations of elegant lords and ladies in sumptuous clothing, they were the very few. For the vast majority of people clothing was completely basic and covered the bare essentials, so to speak. Warin the Ploughman didn’t wear rich fabrics. Indeed not, his were coarse garments. Nor did his wife Bessie tend the family cow in a gown that was exquisitely embroidered. There was no hawking or hunting for Warin, rather would he sneak out at night to poach whatever he could in the lord’s warren from which his name evolved. And unless he and Bessie were free, their lives were tied completely to the lord on whose land they lived. What he said, they did. Pdq. And if they were unfortunate enough to be born deformed or without anything at all, well….tough.

That was the reality of medieval life, yet we like to think of the lords and ladies in their finery. At least, I know I do. It’s the lives of royalty and the aristocracy that draw me like a pin to a magnet. Not that I go as far as to imagine myself in the castle of the illustration above. I spent forty years writing novels set in the Regency period, and the fine houses and castles then were more like the illustration. And the more I look at the painting, the more I think of Rivendell, the palace of the Elf king in the Lord of the Rings cycle of movies. Romance, romance, romance….

Medieval castles were there for a reason that had nothing to do with romance. They were sturdy, imposing, there to intimidate people into submission, and the only part of their interior that was in any way luxurious was the portion lived in by the lord and his family. Otherwise, forget all thought of comfort and a decent diet.

But still we like to imagine. We don’t want Richard of Gloucester’s Middleham to be too rough and ready. Or him to be either, come to that! Perish the thought. But when it comes to the likes of Henry Tudor, I confess to being quite capable of imagining fifty ways of disposing of him! None of them pleasant. And I’d steal all his money first, of course.

I’d like him to have lived in a grubby, dilapidated castle and to have finally got his just deserts. Wishful thinking is a fine thing.