Guest Post: Author Gillian Bagwell on Jane Lane – The Girl who Saved the English Monarchy
Scandalous Women is very pleased to welcome author Gillian Bagwell to the blog today to talk about her new book The September Queen which came out on November 1st. Happy Release week Gillian! While researching The Darling Strumpet , my novel about Nell Gwynn, I read Derek Wilson’s book All the King’s Women , about the numerous women important to Charles II. As all of us who know anything about Charles II are aware, he liked women. His mistresses were many and famous, whether loved by the people like Nell Gwynn or hated like Louis De Keroualle. So I was intrigued to read his account of Jane Lane, an ordinary Staffordshire girl who played a starring role in an extraordinary part of Charles’s life – his six-week odyssey after the Battle of Worcester trying to escape to safety in France. The Battle of Worcester took place on September 3, 1651. Charles and his ragged and outnumbered army knew that all their hopes rested on that day, and the 21-year-old king believed that the outc...