About the blog
Welcome to a place where I look at popular historical fiction, and then like a proper killjoy point out the inaccuracies. In truth, I love historical fiction and I love anything that makes history accessible, interesting and entertaining, but I also appreciate how many people accept what they see, hear or read as fact without any further research. I hope to make the research accessible, interesting and entertaining so everyone can appreciate historical fiction and the actual history behind it.
Contributing
I welcome any articles on any element of history or historical fiction. If you would like to become a contributor, regular or sporadic or even a one-off, please get in touch at sarah@thehistoricalnovel.com
About Me
My interest in History is wide and varied, but in my time my specific research interests have included: Hagiography, Women in History, History of Monasticism, R.M.S Titanic, History on film and History of Mistresses & Sex workers.
I have a BA and an MA in Historical Studies with my first thesis on Anne Boleyn’s role as a mistress and my second on the Hagiography of Women.
I moonlight as a guest writer for Tudors Dynasty
Aside from this, I am a total nerd, am very Welsh, have a sweet tooth of mythical proportion and am slowly being subsumed by Fallout tattoos.
Aw Swish
~ Sarah
History in the (Re)Making 
I love your blog! I’m interested in English and Scottish history and especially that of the Stuarts and the Tudors. Thank you for your interesting articles that I’ll read with pleasure and curiosity!
Beatrice
Thank you so much 🙂 I appreciate your comments very much!
I applaude your blog! fully fulfilling the intent. Watching reign and I too feel there are many discrepancies, and this blog is fantastic. thank you!
An interesting article. Left me wondering about nitty-gritty details (not all prurient!) e.g. I presume your description relates mostly to the oldest profession in the towns. It must have been different in the villages. Did village folk even use money? Surely they mostly lived on subsistence on barter, so did whores offer themselves for barter – food etc? And what about STD’s, and pregnancy? You’ve got an MA already – surely any or all of these topics are for you to cover in your PhD thesis?
Thank you! I assume the article you’re referring to is ‘The Medieval Prostitute’? I haven’t researched rural prostitution as much so I’m just making an educated guess, but I imagine that there was less prostitution in villages. Villages being smaller it would be harder to get away from the stigma of it, and it would be more damaging to be moved on. Also, as prostitution was mostly used to supplement income in the cities, I’d imagine there’d be less call for it in the villages where people tended to have more rigid roles and less unemployment (such as it was). Generally speaking at least. Though I haven’t looked much into the STD’s and pregnancy, I will now! As for a PhD thesis, gosh I wish! Maybe one day when I’ve won the lottery lol!
Can’t believe I’ve only come across your blog now haha! Do you have a Facebook page? I’d be great to follow you there 🙂
Also, would you be interested in guest posting on my blog as well? Seems like it’s right up your street 😀 https://historicadrama.wixsite.com/blog
Great job with the blog, and so useful as well. I take more of a ‘character study on screen’ approach to historical drama, so I always look for blogs/articles with heavier historical content. But your posts are also very easy to read, which I consider a big plus for an academic writer.
Hello there!
I’m afraid I don’t have a Facebook page (YET!) that’s next year’s job lol! I’ve not come across your blog either before, but now that I have I can see myself losing the rest of the day to it and I would love to guest post! I shall have a read and see what I come up with 😀
Hi Sarah I noticed loads of shares of your posts on Twitter (including mine) with the user name @HistoryRemaking which doesn’t seem to exist. Is this deliberate or an oversight? I’d be happy to contribute something about Tudor history sometime. Tony.
Hi Tony, that’s a bit weird! I’ve never really used twitter but I think I experimented many, many years ago, the account (I think) was called @HistoryRemaking but I ended up deleting it some time ago, so it shouldn’t be sharing anything, but then I don’t pretend to have any clue how twitter works 😀
And I’d love to host any contribution again 😀 Hope you and your family are safe and well 🙂 Sarah
What is your full name?!
I am writing a historical essay in school and need to define my sources and need your full name for that.
Hey there
It’s Sarah Clement and I’m very interested in the essay you’re writing. If you check my bibliography you may also find other more credible sources 🙂
Hi, I am in a Master’s class and doing a paper on Elizabeth and her famous quote about “WIndows into men’s souls”. You wrote that one of the letters of Francis Walsingham has him writing that. Can you give me more details on that letter. I need to find the primary source to be able to include it in my paper? Thank you for your time.
Hi Steve, I’m afraid I don’t have a primary source to cite for you. Instead Francis Bacon referred to a letter Walsingham had written and that quote was apparently in that. If you need a citation for that, it’s in The Reign of Elizabeth I 1558-1603, by J.B Black published by Oxford University press, in Oxford 1963
I hope that helps and good luck with your paper 🙂
Thank you for the info 🙂