The Executioner by Katherine Pym

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David and Sarah Kirke live in a time of upheaval under the reign of King Charles I who gives David the nod of approval to privateer French Canadian shores. When Louis XIII of France shouts his outrage, King Charles reneges.

After several years, the king knights David and gives him a grant for the whole of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Soon, David is carried in chains back to England. He entreats Sara to manage the Ferryland plantation. She digs in and prospers, becoming the first entrepreneur of Newfoundland.

 Bio: Katherine, her husband and their puppy-dog divide their time between Seattle and Austin. Katherine loves history, especially of early Modern England which is filled with all sorts of adventure. 

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King Louis XVI's execution by Sanson

Executioners are interesting although it is not easy to find a lot of data on these guys.  I know of two who were completely different. One was thoughtful, the other a menace to the public.

Charles-Henri Sanson

Charles-Henri Sanson was the executioner during the French Revolution. He executed Danton, Robespierre, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Before Camille Desmoulins was guillotined, he handed Sanson a locket of his wife’s hair. “Please return this to my wife’s mother.” 

Sanson honored Camille's wishes. While he was at the Duplessis’ household, Camille’s mother-in-law learned her daughter would be executed. Afraid Sanson would be recognized as the one who had guillotined Camille, and would Madame Duplessis’ daughter, he dashed away from their house, mournful of his vocation.  

I read once that the offspring of executioners in France were never allowed any other vocation but that of an executioner. He must marry an executioner’s daughter, thus keeping their grisly profession within a lower social stratum, and within the family. (Everyone must have been related. How many executioners could there have been in France in a given year?)

They were not allowed to live in town but at its outskirts. One of Sanson’s descendants was a known herbalist. People came to him for cures. Another Sanson, who could not bear a life of executing people, committed suicide. 

Jack Ketch somewhere in the crowd.

An English well-known executioner was Jack Ketch. There are no known pictures of what the man looked like. The one that shows up on Wikipedia and other sources is not the correct Ketch, but from the autobiography of another Jack. The clothes are not of the 17th century, either. 

English executioners were taught several ways to execute an individual; i.e., with fire, the axe, and the rope. I’m not sure if Ketch was very proficient in his vocation or a complete fool. He botched most of his executions.  

The hanging knot is supposed to be placed on the side of the neck so that when the poor wretch is thrust in the air, his neck should break, but Jack liked to put the knot at the back of the neck. This meant long strangulation. Family members were forced to run under the Tyburn hanging tree, grab the wretch’s legs and yank down, hoping somehow for a quick end. 

The Tyburn Tree

When Jack used the axe, he knocked the blade against the person’s neck several times before the head came off.  One tortured fellow was Lord Russell. It took four strokes of the axe before the man was finally dispatched. Because of his cruelty, a hue and cry reached the king. Jack Ketch was forced to write a note of apology to the Russell family, which published in 1683.

The Handsome Duke of Monmouth

The Duke of Monmouth expressly requested Jack Ketch make good use of the axe: “Here,” said the duke, “are six guineas for you. Do not hack me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard that you struck him three or four times. My servant will give you some gold if you do the work well.”

There is no evidence if Ketch took the money, but he disregarded the duke’s request. It took several strokes to finally behead the lad. 

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Many thanks to Wikicommons, Public Domain, &

Old and New London: A Narrative Its History, Its People, and Its Places, The Western and Northern Suburbs, Vol. V.,  1892, by Edward Walford

Disasters Lead to Children by Katherine Pym

Available July 1st

Pre-Order Here

One of the sources for my 17^th century novels is Pepys’ diary. He wrote of his daily existence for the period of 10 years, from 1660-1669. His thoughts of what he saw include the king’s restoration and his coronation, which Pepys missed due to having to use the facilities, but he was in the nose bleed section and couldn’t see a lot anyway. He fitted the naval fleet for the 2^nd Anglo/Dutch War and other journeys. He was in and about London during the plague and watched the great fire burn most of London’s inner city to the ground.

Samuel Pepys (older)

I’ve seen comments that Pepys was a pervert because he was unfaithful to his wife, but more importantly, he was insatiable during the plague. 

I don’t want to defend Pepys’ actions, and I don’t approve of them, but after seeing hurricane Ike in full swing where everything in its path was lost, the philosophical of going through a crisis such this will bring a response to human survival. 

No one remembers Hurricane Ike (Sept 2008) because on the heels of its fury and destruction, the stock market crashed. Banks closed. The car industry’s back broke and all but Ford’s CEO’s begged the US Government for a bailout. 

Hurricane Ike

Ike had made a swath of destruction that almost equaled Katrina. Bolivar Island, near Galveston was all but flattened. The storm battered Galveston Bay and produced storm surges. They swept ashore, engulfing houses and sweeping them off their foundations. Bodies are still missing. 

I have a friend who had fled Ike as so many fled the plague in 1665. Thousands died of the pestilence. As Pepys went about Navy business, he saw death on all sides: 

“14 Sept 1665 – My meeting of a dead corpse of the plague, carried to be buried at noonday... –to see a person sick of the sores carried close by me... my finding the Angel Tavern at the lower end of Tower Hill shut up; and more than that, the alehouses at the Tower Stairs: and more than that, that the person was then dying of the plague when I was last there, a little while ago at night, to write a short letter there, and I overheard the mistress of the house sadly saying to her husband somebody was very ill, but did not think it was of the plague – to hear that poor Payne my waterman hath buried a child and is dying himself – to hear that a laborer I sent... to know how they did there is dead of the plague...”

Hauling away the dead

After seeing this, Pepys found hilarity with others who still lived. He drank and cavorted. He had sex with as many women as would have him. It seems, whether or not he understood it, his natural inclination was to continue the species as a virulent pestilence tried to end it. If he weren’t sterile, several Pepys’ babies would have been born 9 months later. 

In the aftermath of Ike, fishing boats, and yachts were strewn along the highway. Houses were in shreds. Families slept in their cars and tried to contact FEMA in the middle of the night. 

Men and women found each other and had sex. 9 months later, more than the usual babies were born. Catastrophes, horrible as they are, seem to keep our species alive and well. As everyone dies around them, they come together and attempt to preserve the human race. 

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Many thanks to:

The Diary of Samuel Pepys, VI, 1665 Edited by Robert Latham & William Matthews, HarperCollins, UK 1995

Wikicommons, Public Domain, the Houston Chronicle, & www.gettyimages.com

Early Pulp Press & Superstition by Katherine Pym

Buy Here

 As a historical fiction author, I have accumulated a lot of data, and stored it for ‘just in case’. One such book I came across deals with pulp press during the 17^th century.

Strange and Wonderful Woodcut from 17th century Press

Thanks to King Henry VIII, most news of the 16^th and 17^th centuries was surrounded by religion. The constant upheaval during these nearly 200 years must have been mind-boggling. Wars on the Continent, changes in regime in England, regicide, conspiracy theories and civil wars were nonstop. Even if England wasn’t at war with the Holy Roman Empire, battles bled into their waters. The English navy was always on the alert. 

Something to attract the eye

Due to these unsettled times, a big interest was divining the future, reading about ancient prophecies. Strange woodcuts were attached to these pamphlets and journals, used again and again. Most of the woodcuts did not match the story or article.

Even Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary of an incident where he met a gypsy in the street. She said, ‘The world will end Tuesday next,’ then she wandered off, leaving the poor man in a conundrum. Should he put his things in order or leave them be? After all, if the world ends, no one will want his things, his chest of money buried in the back garden. There won’t be anywhere to spend it. So, he turned away from the encounter and went about his everyday business. I don’t recall if he mentioned having lived through "Tuesday next" or not. 

Kings and queens of those centuries tried to suppress unauthorized stories coming from the press rooms but it was a flow of nature no one could stop. “A list of prohibited books first appeared in England in 1529.” A licensing system followed where printers had to gain permission from the Crown before publishing pamphlets, which overwhelmed the Star Chamber whose other responsibilities were soon dwarfed. Queen Mary finally gave that responsibility to the English Stationers Company. 

Example of a 17th century News-sheet

Nothing could stop the flow. Within a few years, London was near buried under satirical and blasphemous pamphlets that soon found their way into the countryside. As a result, strange apparitions and beasts returned from the countryside in the form of divining the future, blaspheming God and Country. 

The government tried to suppress these incoming and outgoing tides of strange and ungodly news. Men would haunt the lanes looking for unauthorized presses. 

Printers found ways to secretly print their pamphlets. They made the presses smaller, easier to handle, to dismantle and hide them when the government came looking. Authors had pseudonyms so they weren’t caught and fined, thrown in to gaol. 

As an example: one fellow collected 22 pamphlets in 1640, almost 1000 in 1641, almost 2000 a year later. By 1660 he’d collected “a total of over 22,000 pamphlets, newspapers, and news books.”

The really good thing about this is, the literacy rate increased throughout England. 

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Many thanks to:

Wikicommons Public Domain & 

The Battle of the Frogs and Fairford’s Flies, Miracles and the Pulp Press during the English Revolution by Jerome Friedman, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 1993