Historical Novel Extract – Introduction
As part of a packed programme of cultural events marking the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of Northampton, we present an exclusive extract from Northampton 1290.
2025 marks 350 years since flames tore through the heart of Northampton, reducing 700 of its 850 buildings to ash and smoke and claiming 11 lives. The fire changed the face of the town forever. In this fictionalised tale based on Northampton, we step back in time when the streets of Northampton’s market square were still steeped in cobblestones.
In the middle of England, the middle of everywhere, kings, traders, knights, courtiers and murderers all pass through Northampton.
Author Notes
Please note that Northampton 1290 is a work of fiction. I’m bound to have got a few things wrong. Apologies for that, and apologies too, to the real people who were living in Northampton in 1290. I’ve taken the names of people who were alive then (mostly from a book called ‘Crown and Town’ by John H Williams) and bestowed them on my characters. I hope their shades will forgive me. Unfortunately, over the centuries, Northampton suffered two serious fires, in 1516 and 1675. Almost all the medieval buildings have been lost. Only three of the churches remain, All Saints had to be rebuilt after the fire of 1675. Most of the names of the streets in the town centre remain the same. Silver Street, where some of my characters live, disappeared only recently under the new bus station. The marketplace and the market however remain, so far defying the desire of politicians to alter or destroy them. Knights. In the 13th century the concept of ‘knighthood’ was not as sophisticated as it later became. Many so-called knights were mercenaries, professional soldiers who fought for whoever would pay them. King Edward was always hard up, and it was possible to ‘buy’ your title as Owen has, or simply assume it, like his Flemish companions. Throughout the ages, racial prejudice has always existed, and Northampton people were, and are, no better and no worse than anyone else. In the late 1200s the Church actively encouraged people to hate Jews as ‘Christ Killers.’ A popular medieval conspiracy theory accused the Jews of murdering children and drinking their blood, even though there was no evidence for this. (Fake news is not new.) The Welsh were also much despised and feared as rebels and barbarians.
Chapter 1
Late January 1290
Belaset, daughter of Elias the Jew
A blustery wind hurled occasional daggers of rain through the air, although the sky arched blue above fast moving clouds. The great open space that is Northampton’s market square provided no protection for buyers and very little for sellers. Although the months of December and January had been exceptionally mild, a small taste of what winter can do when it wants had arrived this morning. The stallholders, muffled up to their chins, and purple about the ears, huddled beneath the wind-slapped awnings of their stalls. They stamped, clapped their mittened hands, scratched at chilblained heels, and grumbled to one another about the lack of trade.
Two young women, each with a willow basket on her arm, hurried between these close-packed stalls, crossing in a jagged diagonal from the north western corner towards the seld, the town hall, which clasped together the corners of Abington Street and Woodhill.
‘I want to get a bundle of kindling from one of the carts on Woodhill before this rain soaks it,’ said the taller girl, wrapped deep in her dark blue felted cloak. Her hood all but concealed her face and muffled her words. What it didn’t conceal was the yellow felt tabala, six fingers long and three fingers wide, sewn below her left shoulder. This girl is a Jewess. Her name is Belaset. She is seventeen year old.
‘Yer reckon?’ said her skinny companion, doubtfully. ‘I reckon it’ll get wet anyway before yer gets it home. If you’re gonna chat wiv Nella over the butter and eggs, like yer usually do.’
‘I’ll put the bundle under my cloak,’ Belaset replied. Trust Meggie to raise objections!
Meggie released a raucous laugh, causing several stallholders to glance their way. ‘Yer’ll look like me then! When I were nine months gone!’
Belaset could only give thanks that her all-concealing hood hid her burning cheeks. Oh, trust Meggie! Sometimes she’s convinced the girl is half-witted. Meggie is fourteen. She is supposed to be a Christian, although Belaset thinks the girl knows less of the faith she was born to, than she does. Cast out by such relatives as she had, for her “sin” in giving birth to Ed, the scrawny babe now strapped across her body beneath her layers of tattered shawls, Meggie would have been reduced to beggary. Belaset’s Aunt Leah however, had found herself in timely need of someone to bully.
Belaset’s father, and all the men of the town’s Jewish community, detest the situation. It has been against the law since King Henry’s time for a Jew to employ a Christian servant, and they are always nervous of reprisals. Aunt Leah, however, insists she is not employing Meggie, merely providing her with a roof over her head in exchange for small services, which the church and the nuns out at Delapré had vehemently refused to do, knowing Meggie’s family only too well, and that her child is, they believe, quite likely to be the product of incest. Meggie’s mother, now dead, had consorted with any number of men, all claiming to be “uncles” to Meggie, and who knew who had been sharing a bed with whom in such a disorderly set up?
From Belaset’s point of view however, her aunt’s adoption of Meggie has been a blessing. If she could only stop her father worrying about it! Aunt Leah, though her wits and her mistrustful black eyes are still as sharp as ever, can no longer get around her house in Silver Street as she used to. She is reduced to shuffling from room to room with the aid of two sticks. Cooking, cleaning and shopping were now largely beyond her powers, and Belaset had found herself run ragged, trying to care for both father and aunt in two separate households. Meggie, having been bullied all her life, is untroubled by Aunt Leah’s tongue lashings, and to Belaset’s great relief, if no one else’s, Meggie and Aunt Leah had settled down together in a kind of rough amity.
Nevertheless, with her shekels, Aunt Leah does not trust Meggie. Not because she thinks the girl dishonest but because she suspects, rightly, that Meggie can barely count, let alone reckon. Her niece Belaset, she has decreed, must always, always, accompany her to the market.
The two young women had been making good progress towards the southern corner of the marketplace, the great church of All Saints already towering above them, when they encountered an obstacle, a large puddle.
‘Ow!’ Meggie squealed, ‘Us’ll get us feet soaked!’ Both girls were wearing wooden pattens over their shoes, but there was a serious dip in the ground here, and the puddle was a young lake. Belaset has heard her father mention what he in turn has been told.
Discussions amongst the town’s councillors about filling these potholes have foundered, yet again, as it seems they always do, on cost.
‘We can go round,’ she said, nipping to one side and brushing past a stall piled with turnips, onions and winter cabbage.
‘Oi! Jew-girl!’ snarled the stallholder, ‘You mind where you go with that cloak of yours. You’ll be knocking my veg flying, you will, and don’t think I won’t make you pay!’
‘Don’t talk daft!’ retorted Meggie, clumping after her, ‘She’s as neat footed as a kitty-cat. She’ll never knock nothin’ off yer poxy stall! Us gets better stuff from ol’ Beata’s stall of a Thu’sday.’
Infuriated by this cheek, the stallholder dived for a broomstick with which to threaten Meggie, but before he could do so a cry went up.
‘After him! Thief! Stop, thief!’ From the midst of the marketplace a figure was seen running, splashing heedlessly through the puddle and spraying muddy water over everyone close by. The vegetable seller, bending beneath his stall, got a wave of it thrown straight into his face. Other men as the law required, joined the “hue and cry”. They too ignored the puddle, wading through it in their eagerness to catch the robber before he could claim sanctuary inside All Saints……
Why you should read the book:
All the references to Northampton will strike a chord with local readers. It’s packed with thoroughly researched historical detail. This is a story grounded in fact but brought to life through rich, imaginative storytelling.To buy the book visit: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Northampton-1290-everything-courtiers-murderers/dp/B08YMBSWFW?crid=2E9TZ0V1WE83Z&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.WFCj2jh7tShkPDal7sTq2Q.-0e2Fcwuus_UjFs1c8VyuYY3XnwTaiJZWOj7ccUs-nw&dib_tag=se&keywords=rosemary+sturge+1290&qid=1748633718&sprefix=rosemary+sturge+1290%2Caps%2C103&sr=8-1
About the Author: Rosemary Sturge
I’ve been making up stories since I was a child, in fact my parents thought I would grow up to be a novelist, because I used to climb into their bed on Saturday mornings, aged three, and entertain them with long sagas about the adventures of my toys. However, it was a long time before it occurred to me to write things down, and then only when a little friend suggested we spend sunny days during the summer holidays by the river, writing our ‘novels.’ We must have been ten or eleven. None of this juvenilia survives, which is just as well, as we were certainly not the Bronte sisters! After that there was a long period when I wrote nothing at all, although I did make up stories for the children I taught in nursery and special schools.
