Bringing History to Life

What period of history do you wish you knew more about?

My first love will always be the sixteenth century, with its sweeping religious, political and social changes that affected rich and poor alike. However, I’d love to know more about another time of upheaval in English history — the English Civil War. In the course of my research, I’ve come across courageous Devon women from that tumultuous time. I’d love to learn more so that I can understand the astonishing challenges they faced.

If you could write any other genre, what would it be?

I would choose travel writing. Many years ago, in the days when we used to roam the wild places of the world, I won a prize in Wanderlust Magazine for a short story set on the banks of the Zambezi during the canoe trip of a lifetime. As well as thrilling adventures like that on our travels, my husband David and I had a holiday home in Belize, Central America for eleven years. It was a timber house on stilts, nestled in twenty acres of secondary rainforest habitat for jaguars, tapirs, snakes, parrots, toucans, and many other birds and beasts. My friends often suggest that I should write about my time there, and perhaps one day I will.

Do you tend to write about places you’ve been to, or places you wish you could go to?

Visiting the places I write about is an essential part of my research. Luckily, in England we have a wealth of churches, castles and manor houses where I can find glimpses of Tudor England. When writing about a specific location, I need to understand the lay of the land, to see where the sun rises and sets, before I can capture the spirit of that place in my writing. Sometimes it’s quite difficult to strip away the present and see ancient buildings like Dartington Hall in Devon as they were at a given point in their history. But it’s worth persevering. Dressing as they did, occasionally, I can even ‘walk in their shoes’ in the places my characters knew.

Do you have another artistic outlet in addition to your writing? Do you sew? Paint? Draw? Knit? Dance? Garden?

Sewing is another passion of mine. I research and create sixteenth century clothes, which I then wear to bring history to life for audiences across the southwest of England. I love blackwork embroidery, a popular Tudor embellishment. Hand-stitching is not only relaxing, but it also allows me to connect with the women I write about who would have spent countless hours at their needlework. I also enjoy tending my Devon garden and maintaining an allotment where I grow vegetables and fruit.

What was the inspiration for your most recent book?

In my research on the Champernowne family in sixteenth century Devon, I’ve come across many remarkable women. Amongst them, Lady Gabrielle Roberda Montgomery’s story particularly intrigued me. Known as Roberda, she was the daughter of a French count who had the misfortune to kill the King of France in a jousting accident and later became a prominent Huguenot leader. After enduring a traumatic childhood during the French wars of religion, Roberda married Gawen Champernowne and came to Dartington Hall. The reception she and other refugees received in Elizabethan England really struck me, since it resonated with issues we face in the 21st century.

Author and speaker Rosemary Griggs has been researching Devon’s sixteenth-century history for years. She has discovered a cast of fascinating characters and an intriguing network of families whose influence stretched far beyond the West Country. She loves telling the stories of the forgotten women of history; wives, sisters, daughters and mothers who played their part: the Daughters of Devon.

Her novel A Woman of Noble Wit tells the story of Katherine Champernowne, Sir Walter Raleigh’s mother. The Dartington Bride is the extraordinary tale of Lady Gabrielle Roberda Montgomery, who travelled from France to Elizabethan England to marry into the prominent and well-connected Champernowne family. She is now working on a third Daughters of Devon novel, set in the time of the Spanish Armada.

Rosemary creates and wears sixteenth-century clothing, a passion which complements her love for bringing the past to life through a unique blend of theatre, history and re-enactment. Her appearances and talks for museums and community groups all over the West Country draw on her extensive research into sixteenth-century Devon, Tudor life and Tudor and Elizabethan dress.

Out of costume, Rosemary leads heritage tours at Dartington Hall. The fourteenth century manor house was the home of the Champernowne family for almost five hundred years.

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