The Spanish Bride

"This book is set during the siege of Badajoz. It is the retelling of a true story of Harry Smith, who was an officer at Badajoz, who saved a 14-year-old girl and eventually married her. In fact, in later life he becomes the governor of the Cape Colony and he founds the town of Ladysmith and names it for his wife. It is a sort of nostalgia for me. It is what I grew up with, under the bedclothes in the middle of the night. It is an historical version of Nancy Mitford. It is very well researched and she is very good on dress. It is very light. It has that kind of dash and wit about it. It is very much not in the tradition of the way that we are now writing historical novels. I think we are now writing historical novels to be something much more literary and weighty. In a way we are using them partly to comment on our own time. If you look at historical novels now being written in Britain, religion features very prominently and that is partly because we have got very interested in religion again, in particular sectarian religion. Historical novels are being written with a greater level of literary seriousness. I think the other thing is that historical novels give a licence to write about passion and romance – themes that are much harder to write about elsewhere, especially in modern times when people are quite cynical. These themes can still hold a real place. Perhaps the past is a place where you have more freedom, which is why I think there is something quite interesting going on in the historical novel. My rule of thumb is that you must be true to the facts. I did shift the odd scientific experiment a year here or there but I am certainly not as liberal as Hollywood with my dates. I think the historical novelist has a licence to take a less even-handed view of the past that a professional historian does. But, on the other hand, I also think that even professional historians choose topics and arguments according to their own particular interests. Exactly. I think there is an ideology of impartiality in professional history whereas a novelist is seen to be able to be freer. My other really strong rule was never to use any language that wouldn’t have been used at the time for all those characters who were thinking and speaking in English. I had a couple thinking and feeling in a different language and at that point I thought I can cut loose a bit here. But for all the others I was very severe because I wanted to create that linguistic net they live in. And I was able to do that because of all the time I have spent studying this period. I have that language in my head. I made one or two little mistakes which a couple of readers picked up on but on the whole it worked well."