1688, The Netherlands, and Master Mercurius has just settled back into his life as a lecturer at the University of Leiden when he is once again summoned by the Stadhouder, William of Orange. A message from William is never good news, but he is not a man you can say no to. So Mercurius finds […]
The Bedlam Cadaver by Robert J Lloyd
It’s 1681, and London cooks in summer heat. Bonfires are lit in protest against the King’s brother, James, heir to the throne but openly Catholic. Rumours abound of a ‘Black Box’, said to conceal proof the King’s illegitimate son is really the rightful heir. When a wealthy merchant’s daughter is kidnapped and murdered — even […]
The Messenger of Measham Hall
For Nicholas Hawthorne, the Catholic heir to Measham Hall in Derbyshire, subterfuge is part of everyday life. But there are deeper and darker secrets even than his family’s outlawed religion: why is his father, Sir William, so reclusive? What became of his mother, and his aunt Alethea? And who fatally betrayed his cousin Matthew? Nicholas […]
Fake news, or the Horrid Popish Plot
The ‘Horrid Popish Plot’, as it was called, was an anti-Catholic conspiracy that flared up in the 1670s; a classic example of fake news infecting the public imagination. Anna Abney examines the bizarre and sometimes shocking events. ‘Since Hell is broke loose, and the Press set a work,By Jesuit, by Jew, by Christian, and Turk; […]