Research Reminiscences

The gatehouse of Brancepeth Castle, Co. Durham
Most of my on-the-ground research has been in England and Belgium, and I pride myself that I have pretty much explored everywhere my characters would have walked, although not all the venues look the same as they did in the 15th century. Two incidents—one serendipitous and one funny—come to mind when I look back on nearly 20 years of traveling for research.

In Mechelen, Belgium (Malines, Burgundy in Margaret of York’s time), my travel companion Maryann and I were traipsing around the town, she taking photos and I scribbling descriptions, making our way to one of Margaret’s principal residences. I knew it was now used as a theater but I really wanted to go inside and see if I felt any Margaret vibes. It was shut up tight, and I groaned.

Undaunted, I circled the building and saw a modern, glassed-in staircase tacked on the back. Before Maryann could stop me, I tried the door, found it open and marched up the stairs, no knowing where it would lead me. A woman appeared on the third floor and started down before she saw me trying a door on the second floor. “Puis-je vous aider” she asked a little perturbed at my trespassing. When I told her I was researching Margaret of York, she lit up. “This was her palace,” she told me, and I nodded and said I had so hoped to go inside. “I am the director of the theater,” she replied. “Come with me!” And so I got to have my goose bumps as she opened up the part of the theater that was still medieval. Margaret was definitely with me that day!

The other story was hilarious! My oldest friend Roxy, who lives in Devonshire, agreed to cart me around Yorkshire on my research trip for Queen By Right, Cecily Neville’s story. We stayed near Sheriff Hutton a little way outside York and radiated out to as many Neville locales as we could. I had been given the name of the owner of Brancepeth Castle (see photo)—a forbidding, rather unattractive hulk of stone but still very well preserved. She lived in one of the several apartments that had been created out of the building, but hers incorporated the great hall and medieval kitchens underneath.

We knocked on her door and heard a distinctly upper-class Brit call from a distance, “Come in! Come in!” in the style of Maggie Smith’s Lady Grantham. We pushed open the front door and walked in, and about 20 feet away was our hostess, pulling up her knickers in the hall bathroom— door wide open. She was in her 70s, with grey hair pulled back into a scraggly bun, a rather rumpled, not-too-clean heavy wool sweater over a plaid skirt, and very sensible shoes with baggy woolen stockings sagging around her ankles. “Come in, dears,” she said cheerfully, and we didn’t like to tell her, as she led us into the massive—and frigid—great hall (no wonder she was so warmly dressed), that she had tucked the back of her skirt into the aforementioned knickers! The impressive but drafty hall was her living room with two ancient leather chairs and a faded sofa covered in children’s toys. “Sit down, sit down! Just shove them all on the floor, my grandchildren were here last week,” she said. “Take off your coats while I make us some tea,” and she disappeared off. A true English eccentric! Roxy and I had a hard time containing our giggles, and there was no way we were taking off our coats. But she was kindness itself and had some wonderful knowledge about the Neville family for me--as well as the all-important good cup of Yorkshire tea!

For more about my books please see www.anneeastersmith.com

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