You may wonder what it is like to be married to a minister. Well, imagine you are married to a butcher. Now ask yourself how you, the spouse of a butcher, would feel about sausage.
That's what it's like to be married to a minister. Often I feel that way about the church.
So I decided my novel would be about Mercia. Then I read the Wikipedia article on Mercia, which, by the way, has this to say about Mercia and J.R.R. Tolkien:
J. R. R. Tolkien is one of many scholars who have studied and promoted the Mercian dialect of Old English, and introduced various Mercian terms into his legendarium – especially in relation to the Kingdom of Rohan, otherwise known as the Mark (a name cognate with Mercia). Not only is the language of Rohan actually represented as[16] the Mercian dialect of Old English, but a number of its kings are given the same names as monarchs who appear in the Mercian royal genealogy, e.g. Fréawine, Fréaláf and Éomer (see List of kings of the Angles).[17]
The mid-seventh century was a bad time for Mercia. The king, Penda, died in battle against Northumberland in 655. His eldest son, Peada, became king. Peada was already married to the daughter of the king of Northumberland, apparently an effort to promote peace between the two kingdoms, an effort that obviously failed.
The royal family of Mercia were by this time the only Anglo-Saxon kings who remained pagan and had not yet converted to Christianity. It is sometimes said that Mercia was the last kingdom to convert to Christianity, but the truth is, our sources only tell us what religion the royals were. The faith of ordinary people is left unrecorded. No doubt there were both pagans and Christians in all the kingdoms, though in what proportions we can only guess.
Anyway, King Oswiu of Northumberland was a Christian, and so was his daughter. That Peada, eldest son of King Penda, convert to Christianity was a requirement of the marriage. Peada did indeed convert and marry Oswiu's daughter, Alchflæd. After his father died, Oswiu took over. He annexed northern Mercia into Northumberland outright, and set up his son-in-law as a vassal king over the southern portion of Mercia.
But even that arrangement didn't last long. Just a few months later, at Easter 656, Peada was murdered at Oswiu's command and apparently with Alchflæd's assistance. I like to think of this as Peada stabbed in the back at Easter Mass. Yeah, I had days like that in church, too.
Peada had a younger brother, Wulfhere. Little is known of his life up to this time. After the death of his older brother, Oswiu took control of all Mercia and Wulfhere disappears from the story. But two years later, in 658, Wulfhere reappears, leading a revolt against Oswiu that re-establishes the Kingdom of Mercia with Wulfhere on the throne.
Now that's a story worthy of a fantasy novel. And so I decided my story takes place during Wulfhere's "lost years" of 656-8. If he spent the time hiding out, far away from Oswiu's assassins (likely), and if he had some help from a sorcerer's apprentice (highly unlikely, but you can't prove it didn't happen) who protected him from Oswiu's men and helped him plot and execute his return to power, well, that would make a pretty good story, I think.
Today's word count is 56,738.
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