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To improve its annual Romance Through The Ages (RTTA) contest, the Hearts Through History chapter of RWA is asking for your opinion of contests in general, and the RTTA in particular. Please go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZQ35NVC to take our short survey and be entered for a chance to win a free online workshop from Hearts Through History.

Hearts Through History - Membership

The RWA® Historical Chapter Online:

Hearts Through History.

Chapter #189

The only Romance Writers of America© devoted to all genres of history Hearts Through History members gather and discuss different aspects of historical romance, how they fit into the genre and how we, as writers, can further perfect and promote romance fiction.

Hearts Through History is a tight-knit community of writers, both published and non-published, and we welcome new members of like mind and like passion to join us, www.heartsthroughhistory.com.

As an online chapter, we ‘meet’ and discuss history and the writing craft via a listsever. 

Membership benefits:

·         Online Support and Camaraderie

·         Online Resource List

·         Members only critique group

·         Members only writing challenge group

·         Hearts Through History Campus workshops at a discounted rate

·         Free online Bootcamps and Mini-conferences

·         Romance Through the Ages Contest at a discounted rate

·         Members Only Bard’s Scroll Newsletter

·         Access to post on the Seduced by History blog

Learn more about the chapter at www.heartsthroughhistory.com,  our Seduced by History Blog, Facebook and Twitter.

Sign up for the new Seduced By History newsletter, a monthly announcement of newly released Historical Romances by our members.  (You do NOT have to be a member of HHRW to sign up for this newsletter).

Membership is $25 for the first year, $20 for yearly renewals. Click HERE for registration information.

Additional information about the romance genre can be found at the Romance Writers of America® website.

YOU MUST BE A MEMBER OF ROMANCE WRITERS OF AMERICA TO BELONG TO HEARTS THROUGH HISTORY!

All Goodly Sport-The King of Music

The things you learn driving around lost in the Welsh countryside. Did you know that King Henry VIII was an accomplished musician? He played every kind of instrument. Recorder, crumhorn, lute, drums, bagpipes and even the organ. 

Southern Wales is the birthplace of the Tudor Dynasty. During my visit there I was fortunate enough to be able to listen to BBC Radio 3, one of their classical stations. They had all kinds of interesting information about the music they play.  I happened upon a show called In Tune.  The guests that day were a Choral group called Sirinu. I rushed right home (as fast as you can go while being lost) and bought their CD, All Goodly Sport.

Henry was first exposed to music as a young boy. Some believe that the tutor who taught the young prince French, also taught him how to play the lute and from that time forward, Henry was enamored of music. He spent hours a day playing the recorder and even later in life spent hours practicing the organ. But Henry’s favorite instrument always remained the lute.

The king was an accomplished lute player. Many times he played for court visitors who were amazed at his proficiency. One minister from Italy even said that the King took great joy in performing his music.

King Henry was also a composer. It’s been said that he composed several mass requiems for the organ and hundreds of songs for recorder and horn, some with words, some without. Many of his love letters to various wives were set to music. Today only the scores for thirty-four short songs remain. Here are the lyrics to one of the most well known of them. 

Past Time With Good Company

Past time with good company
I love, and shall until I die
Grutch who lust, but none deny
So god be pleased thus live will I
For my pastance
Hunt, sing and dance
My heart is set;
All goodly sport
For my comfort
Who shall me let?

Youth must have some dalliance
Of good or ill some pastance
Company methinks then best
All throughts and funcies to digest
For idleness is chief mistress
Of vices all: than who can say
But mirth and play
Is best of all?

Company with honesty
Is virtue, vices to flee;
Company is good and ill
But any man hath his free will
The best ensue
The worst eschew:
My mind shall be
Virtue to use
Vice to refuse
Thus shall I use me...

Music played an important part of life in medieval and renaissance times. Every court no matter how large or small had some kind of musician. The hero in my upcoming release, Widow's Peak, was able to get close enough to high level officials because of his skill with instruments. A man could go a long way with just a quill, a psaltry (that's a stringed instrument) and ... well other instruments of pleasure.

Do you play an instrument? Write songs about friends and lovers like Henry? Leave a comment about your musical life and I'll enter you in a contest to win a copy of the official guide book to Pembroke Castle (Where Henry VII was born).

Hanna

A bit about the history of food.

One of the things an author of historical romance must research is what food was eaten when. Fortunately for me, the history of food stuffs has always fascinated me. So here are some facts I’ve learned over the years.

If we go way back in history, there are some interesting things about the food consumed by the Israelites. Their rules, handed down from Moses and their religious leaders, make sense with what we know today. But considering their knowledge of science at the time, the rules are intriguing. For instance, they were forbidden to eat pork. At the time, pigs were the scavengers of the food chain. They were fed food scraps, in the dirt, and were often spoiled. Without proper care worms that could be transferred to humans were usually present in the animals.

Then there was the rule they couldn’t serve meat and milk from the same wooden bowls.
Today, we know that the bacteria from meat can become imbedded in wood particles,
spoil and effect food which comes in contact with that wood. Their meat was usually goat or sheep and they used the milk from the goats. Beef, the kind we consume today, was never cooked.

During the medieval ages, in Europe, the fare was venison, all kinds of fowls. People living close to water had the advantage of fresh fish and sea food. The food was served in bowls made of bread and the eating utensil was usually a small dagger worn at the waist. When spices were introduced, they were used excessively, to cover up the taste of tainted food. Lots of people died from what they called indigestion. Today we think they died of food poisoning.

Flour was stored in barrels and often contained objectionable objects. It was brown because they had yet to develop the means of refining it. The drink of the time was ale or wine, both made from their own produce. The serfs or servants usually drank ale. Vegetables were very limited but they did have fruit.

By the way, Whiskey was first produced in Scotland, way back in the 13th century and made it’s way to Ireland then to England.

When the pioneers came to the United States they were introduced to all kinds of new foods. Corn, of course was new, and squash. Even the artichoke was grown by the Indians. Surprisingly, they used a tremendous amount of pumpkin. They boiled it, baked it, put molasses on it, make a soup of it, and even baked it in pies. The Europeans considered pumpkin a peasant’s food, but many colonists survived because of it.

They also had sea food, fowl of all kinds, sheep, and of course the Indians introduced them to the buffalo.

Food preservation was always difficult. Food was dried, salted or smoked. If it had been properly dried it lasted longer than salted or smoked food. Like a fire which had to be tended to keep it going in very early days, the same was true of bread starter. Unless you wanted unleavened bread (cracker without the salt) you had to keep your starter going or make new. It took weeks to get a new batch of starter going.

Sugar has always fascinated me. The first sugar was stored in a cone and scraped or sliced from the cone to sweeten things. And raw sugar is not white. It’s a dirty brown.
Not that appetizing to my way of thinking.

Of course, tea was the drink in Europe which they began to trade with China. Chocolate became the ladies’ drink, especially in the morning, but it was not the sweet hot chocolate we know. It contained some water, milk and bitter chocolate powder made from the pulverized beans. (Ugh!)

I have to admit I’m sincerely glad I live today, when we have so much and such a variety.

Allison Knight
www.AllisonKnight.com
"Heartsong" Named Novel of the Year
"A Treasure for Sara" available now

When a History Teacher Goes to the Movies

When a History Major/Teacher Goes To The Movies.

It can be really tough when a history major/teacher goes to the movies. A basic part of going to the movies is the ‘willing suspensions of disbelief’, that is, you believe what you’re seeing. But I have trouble when I see things in the movies that I’m unwilling to accept as my BA and MA in History and BA in European Studies often get in the way.

I remember years ago when my sons went to see Braveheart and came home talking about the ‘evil English king’. I’m thinking evil English king, evil English king? Then I realize it was Edward I, who generally considered one of the great kings of England. Ok, I understand how from the Scottish perspective he’s evil. But when I saw the movie I found a lot of other problems.

First, while I believe Edward I (Patrick McGoohan) was the kind of a guy who would tip his son’s gay lover out the window, he would never send a woman, the princess Isabelle (Sophie Marceau) on a diplomatic mission. Aside from the fact that she would have been a child. Isabelle married Edward I’s son when she was 13 and this was after the execution of William Wallace (Mel Gibson).

The major battle of the movie, filmed on a wonderful big battle field rubs military/history people the wrong way – it’s the battle of Stirling Bridge. The fact the battle was fought on a bridge gave the smaller Scots army the advantage, which is why they won. Ok, it filmed better on a big battle field.

I don’t’ mind a little tweaking to make a better story, but what really bothers the history professor in me is when there’s a total lack of historical reality.

Such was the part that really bothered me is at the end, when the Princess Isabelle goes down to the dungeon to see Wallace (which wouldn’t have happened because she was child). The guard doesn’t want to let her in and she says ‘the king (Edward I) is dead’ meaning that she is now the queen as she’s married to Edward II, and the guard falls all over himself to let her in. At this point I’m trying not to yell at the screen. Everyone knew that Edward II was gay, and had no desire to please his wife. In essence, she just told the guard that she was a nobody and had no influence or authority. Aside from the fact that Wallace was executed two years before Edward I died, and before Isabella married the future Edward II.

Sorry, Mel, but Braveheart is not one of my favorite movies.

I did another double take watching Elizabeth when Elizabeth, (Cate Blanchette) already queen, is dancing with Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes) and she’s shocked and angry to find out he’s married. But I knew Dudley married Amy (he needed her families money) before Elizabeth became queen. And Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush) only wished he had that much power and influence with Elizabeth as shown in the film.

But don’t get the idea that I don’t like ‘historical movies’. I really enjoyed Gettysburg. My girlfriend, who’s the Civil War buff, took me and then I took my family. The best part for our family was when the Union Lt. Thomas Chamberlain (C. Thomas Howell) questions some Confederate prisoners and he says “No disrespect to you brave men, but why are you fighting this war?” The Confederate prisoner answers that he’s fighting for his ‘rats’. Lt. Chamberlain is puzzled, as is most of the theater audience, and asks “your what?” But since my husband is from Oklahoma, and has a little southern accent. I could see my son’s understood ‘rats’ as ‘rights’. Oh, and any movie that has Sam Elliot (as Brig. General John Buford) is worth seeing.

Another of my favorite historical movies is Mary, Queen of Scots. I used to show this to my class and then ask them to name three things that they thought were ‘real’ and three things they thought were ‘reel’. Most often one of things listed as ‘reel’, the blood red chemise worn by Mary for her execution, but that was ‘real’ (red being the liturgical color of martyrdom). Most student got the ‘reel’ for the face to face meeting of Elizabeth (Glenda Jackson) and Mary (Vanessa Redgrave) as the film show it to be a ‘secret’ meeting.
My son took me to 300 (three hundred), where I had to keep reminding myself it was based on the graphic novel, not actual history.

It’s not that I don’t like historical movies. Some of my favorites are A Man For All Seasons, Shakespeare in Love, Last of the Mohicans, The Train, and The Longest Day. I even like 1776 where John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson sing.

I can even enjoy a light heart historical even as I point out the inaccuracies. My favorite in this is The Mask of Zorro. While I enjoyed the movie and bought the DVD (not too tough to watch Antonio Banderas) here’s what the whispered conversation between me and my companions during the film.

Scene – the ship bringing Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) back to California lands in the middle of now where
Me (whispering) – why are they in the middle of nowhere? No town, pier, or anything?
Companions – shush!

Scene - where Captain Love (Matt Letscher) the American Army officer appears.
Me (whispering) – why is an American military officer acting with authority in Spanish Mexico. A military presence in a foreign county is like an invasion.
Companions – shush!

Scene – they go to the gold mine, all those cells and tunnels
Me (whispering) – they didn’t mine gold like that in California then, it was placer gold panned or washed out of stream beds.
Companions – shush!

Scene – in the fight at the mine there is a wagon load of gold bricks.
Me (whispering) – where did the gold bricks come from? There has to be a smelter to turn gold ore into bricks
Companions – shush!

Yep, life it tough when a history major goes to the movies.

So, what about you? Can you or do you have the necessary ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ when you see ‘historical’ movies? What are your favorite historical movies?

PS - sorry there are no illustrations - technical diffuculities (me) kept me from uploading.

Mothering Sunday

Today is Mothering Sunday in the UK. Since I arrived ten days ago, I have seen many signs of what a big holiday this is. All the bakeries encourage you to order your Simnel Cake and nearly every popular musician has a CD of songs with special meaning for your mum. All the shops carry cards and the supermarket is stuffed with all kinds of flowers. People are planning to leave home early in the morning to get to mums in time for Sunday dinner.

The earliest records of a celebration of mothers date back to the ancient annual festivals honoring the maternal goddesses. Rhea, Hera, and Demeter, were favorites of the early Greeks and  the Romans celebrated Cybele during the Hilaria, a three day festival that eventually got so wild that followers of Cybele were banished from Rome.

More Recently Mothering Day in England officially dates back to the 1600's, though many believe it is taken from the celebrations that the early Christians held in honor of the Virgin Mary. It is celebrated on the fourth Sunday of lent and the restrictions usually enforced during lent are relaxed for this day.

 

Mothers have been important in English history and literature for ages. They have been quite quirky, like mums in Jane Austen, powerful and politically astute like Eleanor of Aquitaine who bore and counseled three kings, and great warriors like Boudicca (pictured right), who started a war with Rome when her daughters were besmirched. And I've read more than one regency romance where the hero is driven by his mother, either to escape her dominance or out of respect and love for her. Regardless if he is the tortured dark loner, the honorable gentleman, or the alpha male who leaps to the rescue, mothers have made their sons into the heroes we love to read about. 

My mother passed on nearly five years ago at the age of eighty. She didn't look a day over sixty (Great genes. I hope I get them:) ). She was an imposing woman. A force to be reckoned with. No one believes she was only five foot three, because her personality was so strong. 

She was a leader in her community. She sat on the city council of our town for many years. She was a founder and president of her sorority's  alumni chapter. She taught sixth grade for fifteen years then counseled middle school students for the same length of time. 

When I was growing up, we fought many times. She was a person who wanted it done her way, or else. And I, especially as a teen, didn't want to do it her way. Mind you, I didn't give my parents many headaches. But my mother taught me to be an independent thinker, even though she didn't much like it when my thoughts were independent of what she thought(lol). But later in adulthood we did come to a level of mutual respect and understanding. By watching her, I learned to go for what I wanted and to not stop until I got it. And so today I am an author who is almost published.

 Widow's Peak my first novel will be released on September 23rd, from The Wild Rose Press. It too is about a medieval mother, Lady Amye Barnard, who finds that after a long widowhood, life still has a few surprises for her. Here's a short excerpt:

Amye noticed the shift in breathing as her charge fell into slumber. She closed her book and quietly withdrew. Once outside she took a deep breath and leaned against the door. Had he called her beautiful? No. Be not foolish. He spoke of the reading.

Pushing aside thoughts of the handsome troubadour, Amye went to check on her household. In the list, Siward had just finished training the garrison. Their bodies, wet from the work of sword play, reminded her of wiping the sweat from Laine’s fevered brow. When she checked with Genevieve, in the kitchen, supper was nearly prepared. She wondered if the soup had been to his liking. A chill wind blew through the courtyard as she passed, and she ordered the braziers filled so he would be warm that night. Try as she might, thoughts of him intruded on her. Where did these feelings come from? I must stop this nonsense this instant.

For more, visit my website at www.hannarhys.com 

Through much of my life, my mantra was "I will never be like my mother", but each day I see that I am getting to be more and more like her. I notice little mannerisms that she used to do or phrases she used creeping into my everyday actions. And at her funeral, dozens of people came up to me and said what an influence she had been on their lives. I realized then, that's how I want to be remembered. As a strong person who has been a good influence on those around her. I may not have helped hundreds of people like my mother, but I will do as much as I can for those who ask.

What is the most valuable thing that your mother taught you? 

Leave a comment and I'll enter you in my Mothering Sunday contest to win this beautiful pewter and mother of pearl pendant on a silver chain from my trip to the UK!

Welcome to our Blog

Welcome to the Hearts Through History Romance Writers of America Chapter 189 blog. We call our selves HHRW for short, much easier than writing the above. HHRW is a special interest group of RWA which specializes in the discussion of different aspects of the historical romance, how they may fit into the genre and how, we as writers, can further perfect and promote our work.

We are a tight-knit community of writers, both published and non-published, and we welcome new members of like mind and like passion to join us on our blog and our chapter. Visit our website by clicking here.

Members of HHRW must be members of Romance Writers of America as well.

Learn more about the chapter on the Hearts Through History Myspace site.

Sign up for the new Seduced By History newsletter that announces the latest releases by Hearts Through History members!

We'll have blogs by our published authors who will talk about their books, discuss historical research, share recipes and daily antics. We will also feature a writer once a month and have guest bloggers from time to time.

Please stop by often and leave comments. We're sure to have prizes to give away!

Melinda Porter
HHRW President