Spring 1628, and England is at war with France as the rest of Europe consumes itself in increasingly bitter conflict. In Dunkirk, Philip Lord, disgraced adventurer, has a new ship and through it the chance to gain enough from his privateering to follow his guiding star. But when he must risk everything to rescue a […]
The Soldier’s Stand by Eleanor Swift-Hook
Summer, 1626, and Europe is ablaze as the supporters of the exiled Elector Palatine, who was also briefly King of Bohemia, challenge Emperor Ferdinand. The Emperor’s new general, Wallenstein, has achieved a crushing victory over the feared mercenary commander Mansfeld at Dessau, but Danish King Christian IV is on the march in Lower Saxony. Amid […]
The Dunkirkers – the 17th century’s forgotten pirates
Eleanor Swift-Hook thinks it’s time we remembered the Dunkirkers, the most feared pirates of the early 17th century. Forgotten by most of us, these privateers operating in the English Channel were, in their time, the terrors of the seas. My mistress, his good mother, with a daughterAbout the age of six, crossing to Jersey,Was taken […]
The Fugitive’s Sword by Eleanor Swift-Hook
Autumn 1624, and Europe is deeply embroiled in what will become the Thirty Years’ War. A young Philip Lord, once favoured at King James’s court, has vanished without a trace, under the shadow of treason. Outside the besieged city of Breda, Captain Matthew Rider faces the brutal reality of wintering his cavalry in the siege […]
The Cavalier’s Oath by Eleanor Swift-Hook
With the country riven by civil war, word reaches Royalist headquarters in Oxford that the Parliamentarian commander Sir William Waller plans to capture the strategic city of Worcester. Sir Philip Lord, a mercenary commander with a mysterious past, is sent to help prepare Worcester to withstand a siege. With Lord is Gideon Lennox, a young […]
Historia interviews: Fiona Forsyth and Eleanor Swift-Hook
Fiona Forsyth speaks to fellow author Eleanor Swift-Hook for Historia: After reading The Devil’s Command by chance, I found myself hooked (sorry, Eleanor!) and I have just finished The Physician’s Fate, the latest in the Lord’s Legacy series. I asked its author, Eleanor Swift-Hook, about the series. FF: The mess that is the English Civil […]
The Alchemist’s Plot by Eleanor Swift-Hook
England, March 1643. While the civil war between King Charles and his Parliament continues to tear the nation apart, erstwhile lawyer Gideon Lennox returns to England as part of a royal escort in the employ of Sir Philip Lord, a mercenary commander with a mysterious past. Accompanied by Gideon and Daniel Bristow — Lord’s second […]