The Mystery Behind the Founding of Modern America

by Jenny Barden

The disappearance of the 'Lost Colony' of Roanoke has become embedded in the folklore surrounding the birth of modern America. As an Englishwoman I can attest to the story being less well known in the UK than in the States, but most people are aware that, before the Pilgrim Fathers and before Jamestown, Sir Walter Raleigh tried to found a colony that failed in that it did not survive. The many layers of mystery surrounding its demise are not so familiar, and the uncertainty of its fate has been the subject of enduring fascination.

Roanoke sunset

When, in August 1587, Governor John White left the Island of Roanoke in the region then known as Virginia, and bade farewell to the first English colony with a chance of permanence, comprising at least 113 men, women and children, he expected to return within a year at most and bring relief in the form of extra supplies. But a succession of mishaps and interventions, including piracy and the threat of invasion by the Spanish Armada, meant that White did not return until the summer of 1590.

White must have been anxious to be reunited with his daughter, Eleanor, and his baby granddaughter, Virginia Dare, born only days before his departure -- the first child of English parents born in America. But tragedy blighted the relief effort before the landing boats got as far as the shallow waters behind the dunes of the Outer Banks. The expedition arrived in the midst of a storm, and in trying to pass through a dangerous inlet one of the boats overturned and seven men drowned. The search continued in failing spirits and under pressure of time in the teeth of a developing tempest.

Oregon Inlet - similar to the passage where White's men drowned

Late the following day, White and his party reached Roanoke Island and made for the light of a fire in the woods which gave them heart, believing it might be a signal left by the colonists. In his account of the expedition White wrote: 'We let fall our Grapnel neere the shore, & sounded with a trumpet a Call, & afterwardes many familiar English tunes of Songs, and called to them friendly; but we had no answere.'

Imagine the desperate hope with which White must have called for his family in the gathering darkness, having seen what he thought was a signal, only to be confronted with an eerie silence. The next day they landed and found dead trees smouldering where they had seen the light the previous night, but no sign of people beyond the 'print of the Salvages feet of 2 or 3 sorts troaden that night' in the sand. On the approach to the place where the colonists had established their 'citie of Ralegh', White saw the letters 'CRO' carved into a conspicuous tree. Then, on a post near the entrance to a defensive wall of tree trunks, he found the word 'CROATOAN'.

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, thought to be close to the location of the 'Citie of Ralegh'

The signs have become iconic in that they represent the last messages of the Colonists to be received by Europeans, but their meaning remains an enigma. White was in no doubt that the signs showed that at least the Colonists had not left Roanoke in distress because they had agreed a code with White by which, if they were forced to abandon the settlement, then they would carve a cross thus ✠ next to the name of their destination. If there was no cross then they had not moved under duress. 

But if they were not under threat, why had the settlers built a defensive wall, and why move to Croatoan, a smaller less fertile island? There was no other clue as to where White's 'Planters' had gone, no sign of them or their boats. White found the houses in ruins, and equipment and artillery left in disarray and overgrown with weeds. Chests, plainly once buried, had been dug up and their contents spoiled. Many of White's own books, maps and paintings had been destroyed. The message suggested that the Planters had re-located to Croatoan, one of the barrier islands occupied by the friendly Croatan tribe of Algonquian Indians, but White had no time to search there; deteriorating weather forced the expedition to leave.

Where had the Colonists gone? If they had moved to Croatoan then surely they would have kept a lookout for ships and signaled with smoke or in some other way in response to the gun blasts from White's ship with which the expedition announced its arrival, and it is doubtful that Croatoan could have supported over a hundred more mouths to feed in addition to the native Croatans who who were themselves short of food when the settlers first arrived.  

The reconstruction 'Elizabeth' at Roanoke Island, similar to the 'Lion' that brought the Lost Colonists from England

The uncertainty is compounded by the fact that, according to White's account, the settlers were 'prepared to remove from Roanoke 50 miles into the maine'. Some historians have taken this to mean that they planned to make for Chesapeake Bay which was their original destination before the expedition Pilot, Simon Ferdinando (often called 'Fernandez'), made the Colonists disembark at Roanoke.

Others have speculated that the settlers intended to move to a new site near the confluence of the rivers now known as the Roanoke and the Chowan. This theory was given added impetus last year when a patch over White's Virginea Pars map of the region was discovered to mask a fort like symbol. Did this mark the secret destination of the Colonists, one that they dared not reveal publicly for fear of making the new city a target for Spanish attack?

Excavations in this area are now planned, and are continuing near modern day Buxton on Hatteras Island at a site presumed to be the principal Algonquian settlement on Croatoan. They may never yield definitive proof as to what happened to the Colonists. The patch on White's map could simply mark a fort that was once proposed but never established. It indicates a place close to the main settlement of the Choanoke tribe who were originally welcoming of the English, though relations deteriorated between them and the garrison initially stationed on Roanoke under the command of Ralph Lane, to the point at which Lane took the son of the Choanoke chief prisoner and may never have released him.

Chowan swamp

Perhaps the Colonists did head north for Chesapeake; they had boats with which to navigate through waterways and swamp. They also had a pinnace that could potentially even have got back to England since it had already made one Atlantic crossing. The messages carved into the trees could have been confusing because they were incomplete. Possibly the settlers were attacked before they had a chance to add any warning. They may have meant to retreat to Croatoan and then head somewhere else -- somewhere that could not be identified because it had not yet been named.

The tantalising morsels of information that filtered back to England over subsequent decades suggested that some of the Colonists survived, at least for a while. John Smith (the adventurer famously saved by Pocahontas) sent back reports of 'certaine men clothed' who had established a community hidden in the forest to the southwest of Chesapeake Bay at a place called Ocanahonan. Later he was told by chief Powhatan that a settlement of white people had survived in that region for almost twenty years which had been destroyed by his warriors in the Spring of 1607.

If true, most of the inhabitants would have been slain just as the first Jamestown settlers arrived, possibly because Powhatan feared being overwhelmed by the invaders. This would be consistent with the observation of Captain Newport, who commanded the ship carrying the Jamestown colonists, that there was a large swathe of land to the south of Chesapeake Bay which appeared to have been cleared for farming, though he came across no Europeans or settlement, only hostile natives, and smoke rising from a distance in the forest.

Subsequent reports emerged of pale-skinned people living with tribes far inland, of white captives who worked at copper-smelting in villages along the Chowan River, and of grey-eyed, brown-haired people living on the island of Croatoan. None were ever verified.

Roanoke Island - woodland and marshflats

The fate of the Lost Colony is the larger mystery but within it there are many others, such as the mystery of the disappearance of the earlier second garrison left on Roanoke by Sir Richard Grenville* and the strange behaviour of Simon Ferdinando whose actions almost wrecked both Lane's expedition and White's. Was he incompetent or unlucky, or possibly a secret agent for Spain with a brief to sabotage the expedition? Or was Ferdinando under covert orders from Queen Elizabeth's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, to locate the colony further south than Raleigh intended?...

One of the joys of writing my second novel, The Lost Duchess, has been to take these questions and weave a story around possible answers. The challenge has been to arrive at a solution that not only makes for an engrossing read but hangs together in relation to what is known. I hope I have succeeded.

The mystery will live on.

***

* The loss of Grenville's men without trace beyond 'the bones of one of those fifteene, which the Savages had slaine long before' is a subject I cover in more detail here: http://readingthepast.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/when-eden-became-hell-vision-and-plight.html

** Quotations from the original accounts of the 1587 and 1590 expeditions are as reproduced in The First Colonists: Documents on the Planting of the First Settlements in North America 1584-1590 edited by DB Quinn and AM Quinn

*** Other sources: Big Chief Elizabeth by Giles Milton and Roanoke the Abandoned Colony by Karen Ordahl Kupperman

**** All images copyright of Jenny Barden

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jenny Barden’s second novel, The Lost Duchess, is an epic Elizabethan adventure-love story set against the backdrop of Raleigh’s ‘Lost Colony’ of Roanoke. It will be released tomorrow (7 November) and can be pre-ordered from Amazon UK
More about Jenny and her writing can be found on her website:
www.jennybarden.com

A giveaway of The Lost Duchess will be held on this site beginning 11 November 2013.

Giveaway! The Disinherited, by Helena Page Schrader

Helena is giving away an ecopy of The Disinherited. You can read about the book HERE. You will be prompted to return to this post to enter the drawing. Please be sure to leave your contact information.

Castles and Siege Ladders

by Scott Higginbotham

I walked the walls for a spell, clearing my head, wishing I could catch some rest.  It was obvious who had shot Howard Tyburn.  My wife was an amazing woman.  I laughed a little, wondering how else I would be surprised. 
Still, as I strolled, I chewed my nail, trying to concentrate.  The men manning the battlements had clustered on the eastern walls and east-facing towers, loosing a quick shot when Tyburn’s mercenaries came into range.  I stopped and rested my arms on a stone block, looking right and left. 
I was alone. 
But something was out place on this deserted stretch of wall. 
Ladders.
Six. 
And then seven. 
We had been fooled.

Your home has oftentimes been likened to your castle.  It’s a place of refuge during the storms, both literally and figuratively; it is meant to withstand the battering of the elements.  But what if your home is actually a castle?  The inside contains the hall, hearth, and heart – everything you hold dear is ensconced behind the walls. There is little difference when it comes to the things that matter, except for sheer size.

There are many ways for a besieger to get inside; however, not all are easy.  In fact, once a castle is buttoned up it becomes quite difficult.  The besieged have the distinct advantage of height from which to fire volleys of arrows, loose crossbow quarrels, drop heavy objects, or dump barrels of burning liquid.  A handful of soldiers can keep hundreds at bay with the strategic placement of towers and their adjoining wall walks.

But once a path to the battlements is secured, then the situation rapidly deteriorates.  That handful of defenders now flees from the hardened besiegers streaming onto the battlements.

Access can be gained by a siege tower, but if time is short then scaling ladders of various types can work just as well if there is a clear stretch of wall. Trees have to be felled, the straight pieces identified, the rungs made and fitted into the bored out holes on the rails. Getting close enough to the walls requires sheer bravery and heavy covering fire while two stout soldiers lug the ladder to the wall.  Sound easy?

Most of us envision a rickety set of poles with equally shoddy rungs secured with frayed rope. A handful of soldiers then scramble up the ladder, some falling to the left or right, some landing on their comrades below.  And just when a hearty soul’s kettle or open-faced helm approaches a merlon gap the ladder is effortlessly tipped backward, sending gear and men crashing to the ground.

Not so, if some thought is put toward the task.  The image below and on the right hand side depicts some ways of gaining access into a castle, ranging from scaling ladder to siege ladder, with a couple of other ingenious methods to boot.  Perhaps one method is a hasty means of escape!

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1923

Siege ladders are cumbersome and are of more stout construction than your typical ladder – they have to withstand armored men tramping up the rungs and have to endure the rigors of warfare.  If fabricated and placed correctly, they are quite stable and are a quick and easy path up and over the walls.  Simply driving the ladder off the wall with a pole or halberd in the hands of a defender is not so simple.

If done correctly.

The ladder can be secured to the wall by driving the bottom poles into the ground, often aided by spikes driven into the wood.  Also, a rope passed through iron rings driven into the wood can be secured to a wooden wedge driven into the wall with a similar ring.  This is no easy task encased in mail or plate.  Speed, coupled with sheer numbers assaulting the walls, simultaneously, can even the odds of survival and success.  The odds of a defender picking you off lessens the quicker you are and whether or not you get lost in the crowd.

Climbing 15 or more feet into the air on a ladder, exposed to various missiles and heavy objects and firebrands requires a special breed, someone stout of heart. However, those that pull the short straw and have to scale the ladder don’t have to shoulder all the risks. Covering fire can keep alert defenders down long enough for a path over the wall to be made. Wooden mantlets are portable shields on wheels that can be quickly moved into a place to defend those going over. Designs and size vary, but they can provide a short window of opportunity.

This work is in the public domain in the United States, and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years or less

Battles can turn on a silver penny.  Like the tide, there can be a quick, overwhelming rush that destroys, or it can rapidly recede into a rout. For any siege device or weapon to succeed, timing and strategy are paramount. Sun, clouds, fog, rain, and utter darkness can be leveraged by either besieger or besieged.

The key is staying two moves ahead.

Enjoy the video.  Much is packed into such a short clip!

~~~~~~~~~~~~   Scott Higginbotham is the author of A Soul’s Ransom, a novel set in the fourteenth century where William de Courtenay’s mettle is tested, weighed, and refined, and For a Thousand Generations where Edward Leaver navigates a world where his purpose is defined with an eye to the future.  His new release, A Matter of Honor, is a direct sequel to For a Thousand Generation.  It is within Edward Leaver's well-worn boots that Scott travels the muddy tracks of medieval England.

A Cautionary Tale for all Highwayman - the Sad Story of Sixteen String Jack

by Mike Rendell

I am not quite clear why some villains manage to capture the public's imagination as heroes while others are treated as a thieving menace. Take highway robbery -- there is nothing very subtle, clever or brave about brandishing a gun and threatening to blast somebody’s head off if they don’t hand you their watch (or whatever) and yet Georgian society seemed willing to treat some of these robbers as having a heroic quality, simply because they swaggered and boasted and liked to be seen around town with a pretty girl on each arm, while dressed in fine clothes which they had either stolen or bought using the proceeds of crime.

No more so than one John Rann, whose distinguishing “trademark” was that he liked to stand out from the crowd by wearing eight brightly coloured ribbons tied around each knee – hence his moniker of “Sixteen String Jack”.

Why sixteen? One story was that each ribbon represented a time when he had been acquitted of highway robbery…On one occasion he was charged with breaking and entering – but it turned out that he had an assignation with the girl who lived there; she had fallen asleep and rather than give up and go home, he decided to clamber up to her window on the first floor and “help himself”. He was apprehended by the watchman and dragged before Sir John Fielding. On hearing the evidence from the girl that she would have freely admitted the young man had she not been asleep, the judge had no choice but to dismiss the case.

The Road to Ruin, © The Trustees of the British Museum, showing John Rann  at Bagnigge Wells.

You might think that John Rann would count his blessings and keep a low profile.  But no, far from it. He headed out to the fashionable spa at Bagnigge Wells, disporting himself in what the Newgate Calendar described as "a scarlet coat, tambour waistcoat, white silk stockings, laced hat, &c", and publicly declared himself to be a highwayman.

He became quarrelsome, and somewhat drunk, and started to chat up one of the young ladies in the ballroom. This led to a spate of minor scuffles – someone prised a gold ring from his finger, at which he remarked that he cared not, for it cost but a hundred guineas, and why, he could make that amount in one evening’s work!

Not surprisingly, some of the assembled company at the Wells grew weary of his tiresome behaviour and gave him a right going over, and for good measure chucked him out the first floor window when he declined to make himself scarce. The River Fleet presumably provided him with a soft landing, and the Newgate Calendar remarks that “Rann was not much injured by this severe treatment; but he complained bitterly against those who could so affront a gentleman of his character.”

Ancestor Richard Hall's cut-out of a highway robber at work.

It had all started very differently. He was born in a village outside Bath into a very poor family. He had no formal education and for a while eked a living selling goods from the back of a donkey as he toured the streets. When he was 12 he came to the attention of a “lady of distinction” who no doubt was impressed by his barrow-boy chutzpah and way with words.

She took him on as a servant in her household and all seemed well for a couple of years. He came to London, got a job at a stables at Brooke’s Mews and in due course became a driver of a post chaise. But the ambitious young man wanted to impress -- and to do that he needed more money than he could get from his wages as a driver.

It appears that he extended his repertoire as a pick-pocket by chancing his arm at robbery on the King’s Highway – a capital offence if caught. He was dragged before the magistrates on a number of occasions but each time managed to talk his way out of the charge. He liked to adopt the persona of a modern day Robin Hood – well, he robbed the rich, even though he never seemed to follow it up by helping the poor.

He enjoyed being in the public eye – he turned up at Barnet Races sporting an elegant blue satin waistcoat trimmed with silver, to make sure that he stood out. He was followed by hundreds of people, who were eager to gratify their curiosity by the sight of a man who had been so much the subject of gossip. On at least one occasion he turned up to watch the fun at Tyburn, thoroughly upstaging the poor man who was about to be sent to the gallows. One story has it that he even bragged that one day he would be the main attraction, and not just a bystander.

He appeared at the Old Bailey in April, 1775, charged with others of robbing Mr. William Somers on the highway, and was acquitted for lack of evidence. Shortly afterwards he was again tried, for robbing a Mr. Langford, but again was acquitted for the same reason. The lad appeared to be above the law, and how he loved it!

A month later a Miss Roache (his girlfriend -- one of many), was caught trying to pawn a watch which Rann had stolen during a robbery “near the nine-mile stone on the Hounslow road.” Again he was hauled before the Bench and when Sir John Fielding asked him if he would offer anything in his defence, Rann replied "I know no more of the matter than you do, nor half so much neither."

His appearance in court was suitably flamboyant – the Newgate Calendar comments that he “had a bundle of flowers in the breast of his coat almost as large as a broom; and his irons were tied up with a number of blue ribands.” Once more, he got off...On another occasion he was sent to Marshalsea Debtors' Prison for failure to pay a debt of fifty pounds – he sent word to his mates and in no time a steady stream of ne’er-do-wells, male and female, turned up at the prison gates and paid off the debt.

Various other acquittals followed until one afternoon in September 1784 he stole items from Dr. William Bell, physician to the Princess Amelia. Bell gave evidence that he was riding near Ealing when he observed two men of “rather mean appearance” ride past him. The Newgate Calendar takes up the story: “A short while afterwards one of them, which he believed was Rann, crossed the head of his horse, and, demanding his money, said "Give it to me, and take no notice, or I'll blow your brains out." On this the doctor gave him one shilling and sixpence, which was all the silver he had, and likewise a common watch in a tortoise-shell case.


Later that evening Miss Roache tried to offer the watch to a pawnbroker in Oxford Road. He had his suspicions about the watch, and turned it over to observe that it had been made by a well-known watchmaker called Mr. Gregnion of Russell Street, Covent Garden. The pawnbroker contacted Mr Gregnion, who confirmed that he had made the watch for Dr. Bell.

The net was closing tight: John Rann and his associate, William Collier, were arrested and committed to Newgate, charged with highway robbery; Miss Roche was charged, along with her servant, with being an accessory after the fact. In the event Miss Roche was found guilty and sentenced to be transported for fourteen years; her servant was acquitted.

When Rann appeared for his trial the Calendar reports that he was “dressed in a new suit of pea-green clothes; his hat was bound round with silver strings; he wore a ruffled shirt; and his behaviour evinced the utmost unconcern.”

He was so confident that he would get off scot-free that he ordered a fine supper to be provided for the entertainment of his special friends and associates. But the atmosphere became more sombre when all present realized that this time there would be no acquittal. A short time afterwards he was found guilty, and sentenced to death by hanging. Still the merriment continued -- on October 23rd he held another dinner, this time for seven girlfriends. It was by all accounts a mirth-filled evening.

[The Tyburn stone at the junction of Edgeware Road, and Oxford Street, Marble Arch.]

The hangman’s noose was finally put round his neck on 30th November 1774. James Boswell was one of the people in the large crowd which turned up to watch. According to the Newgate Calendar “when he came near the gallows he turned round, and looked at it as an object which he had long expected to see, but not as one that he dreaded, as might reasonably have been expected."

According to contemporary reports Sixteen-String Jack went to the gallows wearing his pea-green suit and all his finery complete with a huge nosegay in his buttonhole. He decorated his foot shackles with bright blue ribbons.

Some accounts suggested he enjoyed some lively banter with the crowd, danced a jig, and generally showed no sign of fear or apprehension. According to Boswell he was cheered by ‘the whole vagabond population of London’.

He was twenty four years old when he died.

In the Victorian era there was an insatiable appetite for stories about Rann's exploits, and even today there is a public House named after him at Theydon Bois, near Epping Forest. And in case anyone is interested in the paper cut-outs I have published a book of them (see here) and it is also available on Kindle  - see here.

What's a Fall Front? you ask...

by M.M. Bennetts

It seems only fair that since previously I've given such a full and frank appraisal of a gentleman's clothes, circa 1812, I ought to offer the same care and attention to the ladies...

Just to be fair, you understand.

The first thing I should tell you is leave all your pre-conceptions behind.  For many of the gowns of the era weren't constructed as we think women's gowns were...with fastenings at the back.

So, how did they work?

Imagine if you will that the top of the gown is like a short-waisted jacket--almost like a shrug or bolero-- into which you would slip your arms.  (This is for the ladies in the audience...)

Then the attached skirt was gathered on a tape or ribbon which was tied at the front.  The front of the gown, attached as it was to the front bodice, was buttoned, tied, or pinned in place over the bosom, probably at four points--two on each side, one just below the shoulder at the top of the neckline, and at the waist on either side.  When these were unfastened, obviously the bodice front would fall--hence fall front. 

Underneath, yes, the corset.  Not the boardlike flattening corsets of 30 years previous.  No, these were designed to make the most of a woman's charms by pushing up the breasts so that they (here's that classical reference stuff again) resembled the improbably high bosoms of ancient Greek godesses as seen on all the statues.  In their results, if not their construction, Regency corsets were not dissimilar from today's push-up bras.

Underneath that, a shift.  I fancy this would protect this tender skin from any biting or pinching that a tight corset might get up to... Be that as it may, it was a loose-ish, often white, sometimes pale pink or beige, slightly gathered about the neck slip which came down often as far as the knees, or longer.  It might be made of cotton lawn, linen or silk.

The pale pink or the pale beige silk was designed to create the impression that the woman was wearing nothing at all under her gown. 

And, for those who wish to know, yes, dampening one's petticoat, as Lady Caroline Lamb and others were said to have done, would cause the silk to cling to her waist and thighs so that everything was on show. 

Stockings were worn, held up with garters tied about the thigh.  Fancy garters were de rigeur if one was expecting to waltz. 

Finally, colour.  Much is made of the fact that they wore a great deal of white or pale-coloured muslin.

The fashion for white muslin goes back at least as far as Marie Antoinette in France.  She and her ladies in waiting were known to wear simple white muslin gowns as they played at being milkmaids at le Petit Trianon at Versailles.  And the fashion continued well into the early years of the 19th century.  There was as mentioned above the desire to resemble classical Greek statuary and for their gowns to recreate the image of the classical draperies found on such statuary. 

But white muslin also has the benefit of sending a clear financial message to the on-lookers.   For the very nature of the fabric meant that it could not be laundered frequently and survive--hence the wearer could afford to replace her clothes as often as she chose.  And, those pale colours soiled easily, and required frequent washing--so the wearer could afford the luxury of a laundrymaid. 

And now you know...

~~~~~~~~~~~~

M.M. Bennetts is a specialist in early 19th century British and European history and the Napoleonic wars and is the author of two novels, May 1812 and Of Honest Fame set during the period.  A third novel, Or Fear of Peace, is due out in 2014.

For further information, please visit the website and historical blog at www.mmbennetts.com

The Pestilence of Great Mortality (The Black Plague)

by Phillip C. Wright

Imagine living in medieval Europe in 1348. If you were the average European, you were a peasant who either tended the orchards, fed the animals or worked in the fields. The nobles had inherited their land through birthright, or some, through service to the king as a soldier in his army or night in his court.

Life in the 14th century wasn’t glamorous--neither was it easy. Most people never ventured out of their own town or village. Most were uneducated, which in truth, kept the servant class in their place, for education then, as today always meant more opportunity, and the nobles and the royals knew this. In fact, the only education the average person received was on Sunday by the local priest. The nobles and the royalty hired monks to teach their children, everyone else continued illiterate generation after generation to follow in the footsteps of their father which usually meant learning the family trade and performing it from one generation to another.

In England, the king maintained a stronghold over his subjects. To keep order and to collect taxes, every town was organized with a local government that reported back to the king. The local sheriff kept order, kept the peace and supervised the collecting of taxes. Unfortunately, it wasn’t uncommon for unethical government officials to take advantage of the locals. In fact, a famous sheriff of the time, John Oxford of Nottingham, was known for his extortion and robbery from his community; due to his notoriety he later became a famous character in the Robin Hood tales.

Not every town was controlled by corrupt leaders, and for most life was simple and very predictable in medieval Europe, but something happened in the summer of 1348--something that not only changed lives, but livelihood, politics and even religion.

Imagine it’s June 1348 and that you just finished purchasing a bag of grain from a local merchant in the seaside town of Bristol, England. With over 10,000 full time residents, Bristol was the second largest city in England and the main English port for trade throughout Europe. As you loaded the bag onto your cart, you noticed a ship anchoring in the harbor.

Of course, this was nothing you hadn’t seen before, there were always ships coming and going in the Bristol harbor. But among the cargo of this ship was a unique stow-away, one of many unnoticed passengers that had already caused havoc in the lives of thousands as it traveled all the way from eastern Mongolia, Asia, to Egypt, western and eastern Europe, the Middle East and today it was debarking into the beautiful and welcoming town of Bristol. Neither you nor any of the other residents and visitors of Bristol had any idea that today would be the beginning of the pestilence of great mortality in England.

Most modern day researchers agree that it was the flea that carried the Black Plague from Asia, to Africa and to Europe. As the strain of the pestilence grew it also morphed into different types of bacteria. The most common form entered the blood stream, and the other lodged in the lungs, so just breathing on another person transmitted almost certain death.

Those infected had little hope of survival. For most, the plague ended their lives within days and some within hours. The pain was so intense that the infected welcomed death as an end to their suffering. Once infected, lethargy overcame the body, accompanied by high fever, delirium, boils under the arms and in the groin, black circles on the skin, and dried blood as the flesh decayed from the inside out. The uninfected lived in fear of becoming the next victim of this unyielding, blood sucking killer.

Within days you get word that the merchant you’ve done business with for years has died of a horrible sickness, days later his wife and even children also die. You hope that it is an isolated event, but then discover that one of your neighbors has contracted what appears to be the same sickness.

You are awakened at three o’clock in the morning by loud screams. At first you think that someone down the street has been robbed. You look out the window of your second story apartment that is meshed between many identical homes on the street, and all of the doors appear to be locked. You then notice an unusual sight of pigs wondering down the street. You assume that they got out of their pen from the farmer's house about a mile away in the country. So you go back to bed, only to be awakened again by more screams. This time your wife and children also wake. The screams continue for the next two hours. Finally, just before sunrise you dress, tell your family to stay inside, and you muster the courage to leave your home.

The pigs are gone, but the sounds of human sobs continue. You walk just three doors down, and you hear a man sobbing from the open window; he is your friend Arthur. You look into the window and see that he is sitting on a bed holding the corpse of his dead wife, a woman that you spoke to on the street just two days earlier. Before you can speak, he looks up and notices you. His eyes are bloodshot, and filled with salty tears of despair, that are running down his cheeks and throat. He shakes his head as he speaks to you,

“My friend, evil has come and we are all going to die. Run! Leave now, while you still can!”

He turns his head back toward his dead wife, and you notice a large black pustule on the side of his neck. You slowly move away from the window trying to make sense of what you just saw and heard. Suddenly you hear screams coming from two blocks away, and then more, even closer. It occurs to you that with the rising of the sun more people are discovering the dead all around them.

You turn around and begin running back to your home. You run up the stairs, fling open the door and shout to your wife and children to dress. You tell them that you must all leave now, before it’s too late. They begin to ask questions, your six year old daughter begins crying causing a chain reaction to your ten year old daughter, and 12 year old son. Your wife tries to comfort the children as she too fights to maintain her composure. After five minutes, everyone is dressed, small bags of clothes are packed, two loaves of bread and dried fruit and meat are shoved into a basket.

You take your wife by the hand, the children join hands making a human train that rushes down the stairs and out the back of the building. You hurry everyone to the cart. You open the stable door and take your horse from among the other horses still tied to the hitch. You think about your job working for the local blacksmith, and wonder what your boss will think when you don’t show up for work today.

You attach your horse to the cart, jump on its back, kick it in the shanks and pray that somehow God will spare your family as your little cart heads for the countryside. Unfortunately, you soon discover that nowhere and no one is safe from whatever evil has come to Bristol.

By the time the Black Plague begins to devour the town of Bristol, it has already moved deep inland and up the coast. It is only a matter of days before it hits London and all of the major cities of England. Word comes that a mysterious pestilence is overcoming France, Germany, Italy and all of the coastal communities of Europe.

Physicians began to administer treatment, to no avail. Communities are shocked and terrified as the doctors succumb to and die of the sickness. The people turn to the Church for an answer. Church officials are baffled as to the cause, or how to defeat the plague. Soon priests, in fear of their own lives, begin to hide from their parishioners; so many have died that local churches and towns cannot keep up with the burials. Eventually towns begin to dig mass graves; workers are paid to dump the plague victims into the graves. The Pope declares absolution to anyone who dies from the plague; even mid-wives are given authority from the Pope to administer last rights to newborn children and their dying mothers.

Everyone wanted answers to the cause and treatment of the plague. Theories came from every direction. Some believed it was a plague from God caused by wickedness. Others thought it was an unusual alignment of the planets, still others thought it was a poisonous cloud traveling through the air, and others thought it was a virus-like menace carried by cats, the known companions of witches. A decree was sent throughout all of Europe to kill every cat. Obviously, as the cat population decreased, the rat population increased, and so did the plague.

Those who adhered to the religious belief that God had sent the plague to clean the land of the wicked looked for ways to separate themselves from the wicked. A group of zealot priest arose in Germany who decided that God wanted another sacrifice to rid the earth of the plague. They formed a coalition of like-minded priests and parishioners that became known as the Flagellants. These men marched from town to town, carrying crosses, beating themselves with whips laced with glass and metal shards, unwittingly taking the plague from town to town. They believed that God would accept their public display of humility and remorse, along with the shedding of their blood, as a type of atonement for the sins of mankind. The Pope eventually put an end to this vile display of self-debauchery, with a decree condemning it.

As the plague continued to grow another idea of its origins surfaced. The followers of the Flagellants determined that the Jews had been poisoning the wells and the public water system. Throughout Germany Jews, men, women and children, were rounded up and burned in mass fire pits. The Pope came to the rescue a second time, condemning anyone involved in such an act as being "seduced by that liar, the Devil." and threatened punishment for anyone involved in such an act of wickedness.

Although 1348 ushered in the beginning of the Black Plague which lasted about three years, the plague returned on several occasion over the next twenty seven years, at one point returning for two years and only killing boys. The last known occurrence of the Black Plague ended in 1665.

By the end of 1350 more than 25 million people, one third of Europe’s population, not to mention the great number in Africa and Asia, had died. This tremendous death toll caused an economic strain on England and Europe. In England, the serfs who had survived the plague began to charge higher wages for their work, some became land owners, and even nobles began to work in their own fields.

But one of the most interesting effects of the Black Plague happened to the Church. During the middle ages the only common bond between the bickering European countries was the Church in Rome. The Pope had amassed great power and influence over the kings and rulers of Europe, none of whom wanted to be seen as a heretic of the Church. In fact, the Church was highly involved in politics almost as much as it was in religion.

As the plague ravaged Europe and the Church had no answer to stop it, more and more believers began to question the legitimacy of the Church and more specifically the Pope.

 During this time the Pope Clement VI sent mixed messages to the masses by asking astrologers to help explain the origins of the plague, condemning the murdering of innocent Jews, the wandering Flagellants, and then issuing Indulgences that were essentially a free pass to heaven for anyone willing to pay a certain price to the Church. A faithful Catholic Englishman by the name of John Wycliff lost his faith in the Church and began to teach that all people should have access to the Bible and that it should be printed in English. He later printed the first English version of the Catholic Vulgate, the Holy Bible.

The Black Plague was certainly the most horrific killer of all time, and the effects of this plague not only caused a major decrease in the population of Europe, but it brought about political change and religious change in Christianity which effects are still being felt today.

My novel, Not Without Mercy: The Black Death, is book one in the Not Without Mercy series. Although the story takes place during the Black Plague, it is not a story about the Black Plague. It is a story of how one family survived in the midst of terrible odds. It is a story of faith, family, love, courage, hope and redemption. The Pestilence of Great Mortality caused moral malaise in the land. It created two types of people, the faithful and the faithless. The faithless became fearful as they saw death all around them, with no way out. The faithful, became fearless, as they looked toward God for survival, and as they discovered in the midst of the most frightful killer of all time, that God had left them Not Without Mercy.

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Mr. Wright is not new to the publishing world, neither is he a novice at writing. In fact, he has worked professionally as a writer, director and producer of television and radio productions, commercials, documentaries and infomercials. He won the coveted Silver Telly Award for a television productions for The Yellow Jacket Trap, by Stirling International, two other Telly Awards, and five Silver Microphone awards on radio commercials for Nissan.

Phillip C. Wright is a resident of Bountiful, Utah. He has been married to Shaun (McKinney) Wright since 1982. They are the parents of seven children, and they have six grandchildren.

He has written and directed numerous plays including a full length musical re-creation with Brett Raymond called "First Light" with an original cast over 200 people. Phill is in the process of publishing several new books. The Not Without Mercy series begun with the first volume, The Black Death. The series will contain at least two more volumes, book two, The Passage Home, to be released the end of 2013 and book three, Redemption, will be released in 2014, along with two other books, Time and Time Again and The Arm of the Flesh.