Methuen first edition - 1953
At last, I have got around to reading Cynthia Harnett. Years ago, when I was collecting early Puffin paperbacks, I bought three of her historical stories: The Wool-Pack (PS153, 1961); The Load of Unicorn (PS257, 1966); and Ring Out Bow Bells! (1973). Then, over the last few years, I have searched for first edition dust-wrappered copies, and purchased six of the seven that she wrote between 1949 and 1971. There is just her Stars of Fortune (1956) to collect; but I am not paying over £70 for the one presently available on the Internet! So now, typically, I am embarking on the task of reading all the ones I own, but not in the order in which they were published, but in their 'historical' sequence, viz.: Ring Out Bow Bells! (1415); The Writing on the Hearth (1430s); The Load of Unicorn (1482); The Wool-Pack (1493); and The Great House (1690).
Cynthia Harnett
During her lifetime, Harnett was extremely popular with libraries and schools; and many second-hand copies now for sale bear the library stickers, pockets and stamps on them. Along with Geoffrey Trease, Ronald Welch, Henry Treece and Rosemary Sutcliff, her books reflected the resurgence in popularity after the Second World War of historical fiction for youngsters. Harnett partly harks back to the tradition of the late 19th century writers Emily Sarah Holt and Evelyn Everett-Green, as there is certainly a didactic feel to her work. Both in her text and with her accompanying line drawings, she loses no opportunity to explain and portray aspects of 15th century life. The postscripts to each volume point out which characters were real historical figures and which were the product of her mind. Similarly, buildings and events are marked and the end-paper maps, again drawn by the author, often superimpose modern roads etc. onto the 15th century cartography. The author was most drawn to social history and the daily lives, usually of ordinary people, of the period. Her illustrations are often copied from objects in museums or from old manuscripts; her narratives are closely aligned with her source material, such as Stow's description of medieval London. The audience is the young adult or juvenile, but that isn't stopping this antique adult from enjoying her stories!
Ring Out Bow Bells! is set in the City of London in Henry V's reign in the time leading up to, and including, the Battle of Agincourt. It concerns a well-to-do family, led by grandfather John Sherwood, a master grocer, warden of the Grocers' Company, and Alderman of the City. His niece, Aunt Isabel, helps him to look after the orphaned Adam, a steady, studious boy who wanted to be an apothecary, or, better still, a doctor of some sort - either a physician or a chirurgeon; Dickon, still at school, he was gay and careless, always getting into scrapes; and Nan, seemingly the most sensible of the trio, even if the youngest. A big bonus for the family is that Sherwood's best mate is none other than Richard Whittington - a smallish man, approaching sixty, unassuming in manner and in dress - already thrice Mayor of London and a regular visitor to Grantham's Inn, the Sherwood homestead. Nan is his god-daughter.
The tale is a pretty straightforward one. Adam gets caught up with a rather mysterious and sinister Master Gross, an alchemist., who wants him to get some potent earth, Silver Steel. Adam thinks it is for healing; in fact, it is deadly poison, to be used to kill the king. Gross is based in insalubrious Southwark, south of the river, at the sign of the Green Falcon. Here Benedict Wolman is a greasy, corpulent mine Host. It soon becomes clear, to the reader at least, that the latter are caught up in a Lollard plot to kill the king. Their dastardly scheming is found out whilst Henry V is laying siege to Harfleur, but they apparently escape. Dickon, although wanting to to be a grocer's apprentice, is indented to the Mercers' Company and has to leave home to start his apprenticeship. There are some well-told scenes of his time outside Cripplegate and the old City wall, in Grub Street near Moor Fields; of his fight with a larger Mercer apprentice; of his attempt to steal a head from one of the poles above the Drawbridge Gate on London Bridge; his subsequent incarceration in the Compter gaol in Bread Street; and his inadvertent involvement in treacherous Lollard notices. All's well that ends well, however. Dickon is reunited with his family; the Lollards are beaten; Adam is doing well, healing soldiers on Henry's campaign; the Battle of Agincourt is fought and won; the King crosses London Bridge in triumph; and Nan is able to tell two little children the story of Dick Whittington and his cat Madam Eglantine.
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