Douglas Skelton found inspiration in the criminals and politics of the early 18th century, a time relatively unexplored in fiction, for his historical crime novels. He explains what it was about the period that drew him to set his Jonas Flint books then.
When I began my adventure in historical fiction, following years of writing contemporary thrillers, I kept the four Ps foremost in my mind.
Period. Places. People. Plot.
The early part of the 18th century was, though not the first and certainly not the last, a period of great flux for this country.
The Act of Union of 1707, formally uniting Scotland with England and Wales, was not universally popular. There was a new king, George of Hanover, who barely spoke the language and had little regard for the nation. In the eyes of many, there was another king, James II and VIII, but he was ‘over the water’.
There were international pressures, the traditional enmity with France across the aforementioned water had only recently flared into war and would again if the tinder was lit. At home, there was war of a different kind, a political one between Whigs and Tories.
And, as ever, there was crime. Quite a bit of it.
The period seems to have been relatively untouched by fiction, which appealed to me.
I’m not an historian, though I have written historical non-fiction, mostly criminal history. I see myself more as a storyteller and it was a story that appealed to me first.
I’d stumbled on a line in a non-fiction book concerning a will or document that may — or may not — have been written by Queen Anne. It was rumoured that the old Queen, the last of the Stuart line to take the throne, could have bequeathed the crown to her half-brother, James Francis Edward Stuart, in exile in France.
Naturally, that was not something the powers-that-be in the fledgling Great Britain would countenance. After all, the Act of Settlement had been passed in 1701 to ensure that a Protestant monarch reigned — and James was Roman Catholic.
That document, whether it existed or not, was an ideal hook on which to hang a historical crime novel.
Naturally, there was research to be done — isn’t there always? For the first book, An Honourable Thief, this was performed on and off over a period of years. That revealed not only the political backdrop I was to use, but also the rich and somewhat noisome life on the streets of London and Edinburgh, which I was determined to bring to life as best I can, to drop the reader right into the cramped, noisy, foul-smelling, dangerous streets and alleyways.
There were also parallels between the period and our own: a royal family not wholeheartedly supported by all, and also riven with scandal; a rift between king and prince; political turmoil and even corruption; and forces north of the border who would rather not be associated with those in London.
The threat of Jacobites coming out in support of the King over the Water was always present, and in An Honourable Thief, the Mar Rising of 1715 forms a backdrop to the thriller element.
Then, of course, there was the law enforcement of the period, or rather the lack of it.
There was no professional police force patrolling the streets or conducting investigations. Law was administered by magistrates and sheriffs, in London the post of City Marshal and deputy going to the highest bidder, and a vague collection of constables and watchmen at street level.
London did have the thief-takers, who were generally as guilty of flouting the law as those they were supposedly pursuing.
Chief among them was Jonathan Wild, who styled himself the Thief-taker-General. Put simply, he, along with his mentor Charles Hitchen, were receivers of stolen goods, which they then returned to the owners for a reward. Any street thief who didn’t play ball found themselves incarcerated in Newgate, or any of the other jails in the city, and perhaps thereafter the centre of attention on the Triple Tree, the gallows at Tyburn.
It was a rich period from which to draw out a series of crime thrillers, albeit ones that mix adventure and espionage with a little political intrigue. Characters like Wild, and the young thief Jack Sheppard, his paramour Edgeworth Bess as well as fellow criminal Joseph ‘Blueskin’ Blake, I thought, were ripe for placing into a fictional narrative.
I’m not the first to use them, I admit — I was first introduced to them in the 1969 film Where’s Jack?, when Wild was played by Stanley Baker and Sheppard by none other than Tommy Steele. I saw the film on television, perhaps its only ever screening, and the names and characters stayed with me.
These underworld figures had their own argot, refined from the medieval ages, and its use I hope enlivens the dialogue, giving the reader a sense of period and place.
Added to the mix are the competent but devious politician Sir Robert Walpole and other real-life figures from the period like Sir Isaac Newton, George Frideric Handel and Daniel Defoe, who were all active in the period.
Another minor character who appears in the third book, A Grave for a Thief, is John Duck. He was a real-life sword master working out of Little White’s Alley off Chancery Lane and his daughter Ann later achieved a considerable level notoriety in criminal circles leading to her being executed at Tyburn for murder. Fleet Street bookseller Bernard Lintot also makes a brief appearance.
Putting characters, both famed and forgotten, who did live and breathe into my fiction helps the plot live and breathe, as does setting the action in locations that actually existed, such as the inns and taverns of the day. The Old Cheddar Cheese in Fleet Street can still be visited, while what was once Edinburgh’s White Horse Inn can be seen off the Canongate.
Period. Places. People. Plot.
That’s what comes together to make up story. And that’s what makes up most of the word history.
A Grave for a Thief by Douglas Skelton is published in paperback on 8 August, 2024.
Douglas is the author of 28 books, both fiction and non-fiction. A Grave for a Thief is the third in the Jonas Flynt series. The fourth, A Thief’s Blood, will be out in hardback in November.
You may enjoy these related features:
Rake, Whores and Highwaymen by Antonia Hodgson
London in 1708: a surprisingly modern city by David Fairer
The unsung heroes of Grub Street by Ruth Herman
Mr Beeston and the Cockpit by Jemahl Evans
Linda Porter‘s review of Later Stuart Queens, 1660–1735
Imogen Hermes Gowar‘s review of The Favourite, a film based on an episode in Queen Anne’s life
For some Jacobite background, read The Battle of Killiecrankie and 1719: the forgotten Jacobite rising by Maggie Craig
And for the Irish angle, The never-ending Battle of the Boyne by Angus Donald
The Earl of Mar’s wife, Frances, is an important character in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, mental health pioneer by Jo Willett
Images:
- Ticket for the execution of Jonathan Wild (detail), 1725: Wikimedia (public domain)
- George I by Georg Wilhelm Lafontaine, 1720–27: Wikimedia (public domain)
- Queen Anne, studio of Godfrey Kneller, 1705: Wikimedia (public domain)
- Ticket for the execution of Jonathan Wild (detail), 1725: Wikimedia (public domain)
- Jack Sheppard in prison, c1724: Wellcome Collection (public domain)
