A Murder at Rosamund's Gate - By Susanna Calkins Page 0,112
the great door shut behind her, latching it tight. Slipping the key into her pocket, she rested her forehead against the heavy oak. Silently, she traced a crack with her fingers, marveling for the first time at the vast rings woven by nature into the old wood. How had she never seen them before? she wondered. How long the tree must have lived before the woodsman felled it with his ax? A single tear slipped down her cheek. Nineteen months before, a knock at this very door had brought death and sadness. Now, the door was shut and a new world awaited.
She did not know what lay ahead, but the street looked wide and open. She could see Adam and the magistrate in quiet conversation by the carriages. They looked toward her expectantly, and she wondered if they could sense her resolution. She waved and walked toward life.
HISTORIC NOTE
Although the main characters are fictional, I tried to render A Murder at Rosamund’s Gate as historically accurate as possible. The persecution of the Quakers, the treatment of servants and women, the trial and imprisonment of criminals, the plague, and the Fire of London were all important aspects of Restoration London.
At times, I took minor liberties for the purposes of creativity and readability, using far more modern phrasing and spelling than people would have used in seventeenth-century England. For example, a ballad describing a criminal’s activity might actually say “As the Prancer drew the Quire Cove at the Cropping of the Rotan through the Rum pads of the Rume vile, and was flog’d by the Nubbing-Cove.” According to J. Coleman’s History of Cant and Slang Dictionaries (Oxford, 2004), this statement would translate to: “That is, The Rogue was drag’d at a Carts-arse, through the chief streets of London and was soundly whipt by the Hangman.”
Similarly, the constabulary and magisterial duties were not as clear-cut as I conveyed them; indeed, there was no real police force in London for another fifty years. I sometimes assigned policing roles to English soldiers as well (the emerging “Redcoats”), on the premise they would take a role in maintaining an orderly society. Along the same lines, the gentry was not a solidified group, and “master” and “mister” seem to have been used interchangeably at this time, referring to men who owned their own livelihoods and homes.
I did retain, however, the Julian calendar for all dates and events, since England had not yet adopted the Gregorian calendar used by most of Europe (indeed, Great Britain did not reform its calendar until 1752, at which point the government retroactively adjusted all dates). The Julian calendar differed from the Gregorian calendar by having ten fewer days and starting on March 26, not January 1. I kept the original dating system to be internally consistent with contemporary accounts (such as the famous diaries by Samuel Pepys), and because certain religious markers had to occur on the correct day of the week (for example, Easter has to land on a Sunday). If I used the revised Gregorian calendar, those dates would be off. Thus, my book begins in March during Lent, which technically occurred at the end of 1664, according to the Julian calendar year. Easter (March 26) started the new year of 1665. So as not to confuse the reader, I just said the story opens in 1665.
Lastly, I took license with two other aspects regarding Restoration culture. It’s unlikely that someone would have thrown a masquerade ball after Lent, especially for Easter (such activities usually occurred around Twelfth Night or Shrovetuesday); however, I thought that the Embrys would be the sort to indulge themselves, following the lead of King Charles II. Also, the miniature eye portraits were not popularized until the late eighteenth century, although they were created for the same intriguing purposes described in my story.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SUSANNA CALKINS became fascinated with seventeenth-century England while pursuing her doctorate in British history and uses her fiction to explore this chaotic period. Originally from Philadelphia, Calkins now lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two sons. This is her first novel.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.