London 1654: Kit Lovell is one of the King’s men, a disillusioned Royalist who passes his time between cheating at cards, living off his wealthy and attractive mistress and by plotting the death of Oliver Cromwell. Fleeing a sadistic and ambitious suitor, Thamsine Granville is alone, penniless and friendless in London. She has her own reasons for wanting Cromwell dead and when she hurls a piece of brick at his coach, she finds herself unexpectedly in the arms of Kit Lovell.
Far from the world weary, benevolent rescuer that he seems, Kit plunges Thamsine into his world of espionage and betrayal. The world Kit has carefully built up begins to unravel as the plotting takes a serious turn and his own life is now on the line. Neither had he planned on falling in love with Thamsine Granville and when Thamsine falls into the hands of her vicious suitor, Ambrose Morton, Kit is torn by his loyalty to his master and his love for Thamsine. In rescuing Thamsine, Kit makes one last gamble and loses. The price he has to pay is the hangman’s rope…
How did I come to write The Kings Man? It began with a chance sentence in Antonia Fraser’s wonderful biography of Oliver Cromwell, Cromwell, Our Chief of Men, (Antonia Fraser, published Panther Books Ltd. 1975) where she describes how a “Miss Granville” hurled a brickbat at Cromwell’s coach. I found no other reference to “Miss Granville” or indeed any explanation as to why she found it necessary to hurl a piece of broken brick at the Protectoral coach, but further reading plunged me into the murky world of “The Ship Inn” Plot and “Gerard’s Plot” and the story became substance. While Thamsine Granville may have her roots in a real character, Kit Lovell is entirely fictional. The Ship Inn did exist, although Jem Marsh and his sisters are also fictional. Most of the other characters that move in and out of the story are very much historical fact, including the French Ambassador’s English mistress and the impossibly French, Baron de Baas (who was himself, the brother of Dumas’ D’Artagnan) as are all the plotters - even those of dubious reputation such as Henshaw and Wiseman and the notorious Colonel Bampfield and of course, poor Fitzjames, found drowned in the Thames estuary with incriminating letters in his pocket! It is not a period that I am aware of that has been much addressed by the fiction writer, but what fun! I really enjoyed bringing the dry text of the history books to life with the, at times, almost comical antics of the plotters. I couldn’t have dreamed up a more interesting cast of characters. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
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