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  The History behind The Chaperon Bride

I am a Yorkshire girl born and bred so I was delighted to be setting The Chaperon Bride in Harrogate, an elegant town in the Yorkshire Dales. I am indebted to Prudence Bebb and her wonderful book Life in Regency Harrogate which gave me a real insight into the town, its occupants, their amusements and entertainments in the years of the Regency.

In Regency times Harrogate was a spa town, "the Bath of the North" and noble families made regular visits. The air was bracing and invalids would take the waters -"the Cure" - at the Sweet Spaw in High Harrogate, which tasted better than the Stinking Spaw in the village of Low Harrogate! But Harrogate was not only a spa - there were also balls and assemblies, visits to the Theatre Royal and trips out to the medieval castle at Knaresborough. It was a lively place, busy with the red coats of young officers on furlough and older officers retired from Army life, lords on the hunt for an heiress bride and ladies looking to dance at the balls and snare themselves a husband...

Taken alongside the prosperity and activity of Regency Harrogate was another, very different lifestyle - the poverty and hardship in the countryside. Yorkshire was and still is a wild and remote county and during the years following Waterloo, agriculture and the economy were in decline and many families found it difficult to raise enough income to eat. Under these circumstances the imposition of high rents and tolls on the roads created a situation of explosive unrest. I found The Rebecca Riots by David Williams to be a fascinating explanation of the violence in the countryside. The Rebecca Riots themselves took place in Wales, another remote and rural society, but it gave me the germ of the idea for the sub-plot in The Chaperon Bride.

Annis and Adam's courtship is conducted partly against the background and elegance of Regency Harrogate and partly against the backdrop of a wild time in a wild place... With gangs of armed men roaming the countryside and taking their revenge against extorting landlords, who is safe to travel alone? And who is the leader of the Washburn Men, the gang who right the wrongs of the poor and oppressed?

The contrasting elegance and violence of the Regency world has always fascinated me. I wrote about it in Lady Polly and in The Chaperon Bride the two sides of the same society come together again in a story I hope you will enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed researching.