aBurntShip

                                                              By Tony Morgan  The work of York based author Tony Morgan has already been featured in this blog. Pleased to see that he has now devoted  a whole work to York during the  reign of James VI/ I ( ruling England from 1603-1625) . Certainly this reader learnt a great deal from this quite short book. For example,  Medieval aspects of city life had not completely vanished. Trade guilds were of particular importance. Ecclesiastical courts functioned. The traditional 'Tanton' feast held every three years, where a piglet had been especially reared and fattened  to be slaughtered for a feast organised by the 'Brothers of Saint Anthony', continued until 1625. The Roman Catholic faith had not be completely banished.  York's economic life fluctuated fo...

                              Power Treason and Plot in Tudor England  The first non-fiction book from Tony Morgan who lives just outside York. Mr Morgan has already had three novels published. Two concern alternative history outcomes to the Gunpowder Treason, another 'Pearl of York', is a fictionalised life of Margaret Clitherow, which also features a youthful Guy Fawkes.   Margaret Clitherow is most known for her refusal to plead either guilty or not guilty to a charge of harbouring  Jesuit priests in York in 1586. Her sentence was to undergo a punishment known as Peine forte et dure  . This entailed being stripped naked, a stone placed behind her back, a door laid across her, then weights were added to it. Was all carried out on 25th March 1586 at Toll Booth, Ouse Bridge, in York.  Margaret Clitherow was declared a saint in 1970. It must be said that this was an exceptional punishment...