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Why set a fantasy novel in the Tudor era?

I think most people will agree the Tudor period holds a strange fascination. The antics of Henry VIII with his many wives, and the absolute refusal of Elizabeth I to marry, and indeed, Mary I’s determination to marry, make us focus on what should, by rights, have been a highly personal matter. And the need to marry, and have an heir who would rule after them, certainly drove Henry VIII to increasingly desperate measures, whereas tragic Mary I, thought herself with child only to discover she wasn’t. If Henry VIII’s son(s) had lived, the period would have been very, very different. An aging man’s obsession with having a son wouldn’t have seen both of his daughters cast aside, as well as their mothers. The whole world wouldn’t know England once had a king who was so callous, to marry six times, to the detriment of the majority of his wives.

In today’s world, we know there’s a terrible irony to Henry VIII’s actions. As we now know, it’s the man who determines the sex of the unborn child. It’s Henry VIII who was in many ways, the cause of his own downfall (although the lack of medical knowledge also went against the women involved, and the sons who were born to him and who perished). No matter how many wives Henry VIII had, he simply doesn’t appear to have been overly fertile. The one thing he wanted, was somehow, almost entirely beyond him. At that time, he wouldn’t have known it as anything but God’s will.

Equally, Elizabeth I, who was my first historical heroine, refused, for whatever reason, to countenance marriage and beget an heir. Yet, she certainly enjoyed playing the marriage game. But, she also thought herself a man in women’s clothing. She didn’t, from memory, do a great deal to raise her fellow women up and to disrupt a world where, by and large, men ruled and women were subject to their whims.

What if women ruled?

And so, what if women ruled as women? Would they make better decisions than their male counterparts did long ago? Equally, if they didn’t, could an arrangement be set in place that allowed greater freedom in choosing a partner who would father the much-desired daughters? Or, like the Tudor era, would a world where women ruled stagnate as it did when men ruled?

Those are the questions I’m exploring in The Throne of Ash trilogy. Much of the first book is concerned with the very act of ensuring the succession, which has, like the Tudors, passed somewhat erratically into the hands of our queen, Cecily. Determined to dispel the questions over her succession, she must rule firmly over the ambitious noble houses, and become a mother. But who will father that child, and what about the ambitious noble houses? How will they react to one noble house being raised above the others? Read on to find out.