Samuel Short said cheerfully as he escorted us to the Castle yard. “The Lord Mayor was very unhappy when he heard you’d found Esther to be with child.” He used Esther’s first name deliberately, to rob her of her status, and it rankled. Esther had been born into money and married a prosperous merc...
While I had seen snow before, not even York’s oldest residents could remember seeing such a storm, and many worried what it might portend. The city’s Puritans, Joseph chief among them, cried out that God’s fury at England’s sinful ways had not yet run its course. They put their spurs into the con...
Hooke did not even pretend she was glad I’d come. “You must be Rebecca,” she declared when she opened the door. “Why are you just standing there?” She dropped a newly used chamber pot at my feet, and its contents slopped out and soiled the edges of my skirt. “Clean that up,” she barked. And so, o...
Evelyn opened the door before I’d finished knocking. She was a fat, good-humored woman with an easy laugh and a warmth about her that is found only in the very best gossips. “Welcome!” she cried. “Welcome to London. You must be Mrs. Hodgson.” She took my hand and pulled me inside. “Please do come...