Monmouth Rebellion

So to look at it a little more closely, let's unpack the Pennys, because elements of their family story seem to have informed this skull lore, but in a way that really seems to tangle fact and fiction.

Azariah Penny was born in 1661, and when he was 23 he participated in the Monmouth rebellion.

That was a rebellion led by James Scott, who was the Duke of Monmouth and also Charles II's illegitimate son.

Charles did not have a legitimate heir, and his brother James, the Duke of York, was next in line for the throne.

The family crest was the same as the Penny family of Dorset.

Udall also connected several other instances of Pennys on the island back to Azariah, including one that said his cousin, John Frederick Penny, inherited the house on Nevis, after which it passed to John's nephew, John Praetor, who changed his last name to Penny when he assumed the ownership of the house.

Udall weighed the likelihood that there could be two Azariah Pennys from Bediscombe, who both participated in the Monmouth Rebellion and were sentenced to death and then shipped to Nevis.

He came to the conclusion that the odds of that were quite long.

And this is a kind of a more personal view of him when he's younger.

And what I think is fascinating with that when you come to Micah Clarke is actually Micah Clarke is the opposite of You've got plenty of romance, you've got plenty of picaresque incident, but because it's all centred around this one event, the Monmouth Rebellion, that has to lead the action.

And actually in this, the romance is subservient to the history and to the core of the story, which is the Monmouth Rebellion.

So already we're getting this dichotomy going on with this novel, which I think is... part of its fascination.

Yes, and it's an interesting point because if we cast our mind back to the refugees, then that is an example of something that it is about the picaresque incidents.

yeah it's a footnote isn't

it it's not really something people tend to know about never mind the details

so why do we think that he focused on the Monmouth Rebellion he decided to pick on this topic for his first great historical novel

In 1603, Sir Walter Raleigh was tried for treason in this hall.

In 1685, Judge Jeffreys held part of his infamous Bloody Assizes here after the Monmouth Rebellion, sentencing Dame Alice Lyle to death for sheltering fugitives.

Behind the hall, Queen Eleanor's Garden offers a peaceful medieval-style herb garden.

Return to the top of the high street to reach the grade one listed West Gate, one of only two surviving medieval gateways into Winchester.

But as a soldier, he incurred less, perhaps by his fault, than by mischance, the degrading imputation of personal cowardice.

In this respect, he differed widely from his friend the Duke of Monmouth.

Ardent and intrepid on the field of battle, Monmouth was everywhere else effeminate and irresolute.

The accident of his birth, his personal courage, and his superficial graces had placed him in a post for which he was altogether unfitted.

After witnessing the ruin of the party, and of which he had been the nominal head, he had retired to Holland.

The Prince and Princess of Orange had now ceased to regard him as a rival.

They received him most hospitably, for they hoped that by treating him with kindness, they should establish a claim to the gratitude of his father.

They knew that paternal affection was not yet wearied out, that letters and supplies of money still came secretly from Whitehall to Monmouth's retreat, and that Charles frowned on those who sought to pay their court to him by speaking ill of his banished son.

There were lots of rumors that the Dutch were coming for a good month already.

And the people of the, the west country are relatively well-inclined towards the Dutch, not least because many of them are, are, are fervent Protestants, but also because they have very, very strong memories of the repression of the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685, which make them relatively cautious to sign up to William's forces, but they're pretty happy to see James humbled in this fashion.

And the only thing they, they really fear, and there's a couple of instances of this, is that when the Dutch appear at the coast, that people think the French are actually invading, and that sparks an occasional, uh, riot and, and raising of militia.

But when it turns out to be the Dutch, people are relatively, uh, happy to see them, and basically they just land, land on a post.