The Castle Library

By Chris Livemore On the 15th of June 1215, in a meadow beside the River Thames called Runnymede, a very unpopular king met a very angry group of barons and signed a document that changed the course of human history. I remember the story from a very interesting talk during my university law course way back in 2002 (perhaps the only constitutional law lecture I can still remember!). It was not a dignified moment. King John had not come to Runnymede willingly. He had been dragg

By Chris Livemore Five thousand years ago, the Sumerians were recording some of the world's earliest written texts, the first phase of Stonehenge was being constructed (not the famous stone circles we see today), and much of Europe was still in the late Neolithic period. Around this time, researchers believe story types related to Jack and the Beanstalk may already have been circulating. Before I wrote Jack the Knight and the Beanstalk, Book V in The Good Knight series, I loo

By Chris Livemore Essex does not have the greatest reputation for castles in the UK. But I think that is a disservice to the county, it is unfair, historically inaccurate - rather like the movie Braveheart - and having grown up in the seaside resort of Southend-on-Sea is something I feel duty bound to correct. Almost a duty bound to correct the map of Essex that Photoshop has helped me generate - I tried to make it accurate but AI was not having any of it today! The county ha

By Chris Livemore The Wallachian Weasels have a major part in Book IV in The Good Knight Series, as serial cheats in The Tournament, they are the main rivals of Jack's castles and you will see why they have earned a special place in Sir Percy's 'A Complete and Entirely Authoritative Guide to Medieval Insults' (Nb. you can get your own FREE copy of the guide by signing up to Jack's Shield Wall - see end of the blog!). The Wallachian Weasels also sound made up, but only half of

By Chris Livemore This week I've been looking into how you get a children's picture book deal and the importance of growing a social media following. It is something that wasn't really a consideration even five years ago, but times have changed. I must adapt and find some content that will go viral. I have been thinking about this carefully. What could be more viral than the Black Death? The cause of an estimated 50 million deaths, you couldn't stop it spreading in the fourte

By Chris Livemore We've all heard of the Crusades but how much do you actually know about them? There is a moment in Crusader history that tells you almost everything you need to know about the Crusades. In 1204, the Fourth Crusade arrived not at Jerusalem, which had been its stated objective, but at Constantinople, one of the greatest Christian cities in the world. The Crusaders stormed it, looted it, and left behind destruction so extensive that relations between Eastern an

My son asked me over the weekend whether Jack and Fire Pud had ever been to Greece on holiday (we were packing for a holiday to Greece). He asked this with the seriousness of a medieval cartographer planning a campaign. I asked him if he knew where Greece was and he confirmed that he did not, but had decided it was a good place for a fire-breathing dragon to visit or live or fly too - I am sure both would love a trip to Corfu, but I wasn't sure how far they would have been ab

By Chris Livemore I spotted my first Green Man without realising what I was looking at. Not an alien or some outerwordly visitor. But I was in my late teens, standing in a medieval church somewhere in the cotswolds - the sort with walls thick enough to survive a siege and a font older than the printing press - when I noticed a face carved into the stone above a doorway. And for the record I use AI to generate pictures for this blog and despite my best efforts this one looks n

By Chris Livemore I can still remember the fear from reading Roald Dahl's 'BFG' as a 7 or 8 year old. Having to move my bed as far away from the bedroom window as possible, just in case I was eaten by one of the less friendly giants in that book. It left a scar and the impression that all giants are bad (apart from the one who helped Sophie out, did 'whizzpoppers' and ate snozzcumbers). My son has similar feelings about giants and when he found out that Book V in The Good Kni

By Chris Livemore Princess Charlotte, it has been established, would have a unicorn. This is not a question. It is a certainty. I know this because I have just started drafting the next book in THE GOOD KNIGHT series that has so far got the working title 'Do Unicorns Neigh?'. Now with each of my books I like to do a lot of research, looking for interesting angles, amusing parts of history that can help me bring Jack's castle to life. So the next question was really, really, r

By Chris Livemore I was explaining to my daughter that Disneyland Paris' castle - you know Sleeping Beauty's picturesque castle - doesn't really count in terms of actual real life castles. Admitedly it does have towers and she did advise me that there was the possibilty of a working drawbridge (need to fact check that), but something that was built in 1992 can't be included in the list. The good news is that Europe, as it turns out, is absolutely full of them. Infact, there a

Here's a quiz question for the ages! Which political leader/historical figure has made the biggest positive impact on climate change? The answer has been fact checked and it is honestly one of the most extraordinary things I have found in a 20+ year career in sustainability. It is an answer that is difficult to get your head around and it doesn't involve Al Gore! The climate bit...which is real, horrifying and fascinating all at once! Nearly 40 million people were believed to

Fresh from the knowledge that Humpty Dumpty was not an egg - he was very likely to have been a cannon garrisoned at Colchester Castle, Essex - it got me thinking about other nursery rhymes and their medieval intent. It turns out their is a very dark, medieval rabbit hole This blog is for any parent who is asked by their child "Why did the farmer's wife cut off the mice's tail?" This blog gives you the proper answer, or at least provides you with something in your arsenal to c

By Chris Livemore I was midway through a new GOOD KNIGHT story with my son (he is after all the head of content and decisions) and he asked me what does Jack get up to when he's not on a quest or some sort of rescue mission. Great question from a 2 1/2 year old. Given the time of day he asked the question I tried to tell him that knights slept s lot, like a koala (up to 22 hours a day). He did not believe that. Not by a long shot. To answer his question properly I needed to l

By Chris Livemore Well this blog sent me down a slivery trail of mucus / snail slime trail. But I've recently become a little obsessed with the gigantic snails that appear in manuscripts, texts and medieval art. Seriously Google 'gigantic medieval snails' - you can scroll or days and days! When I started writing this blog, I was fairly confident the answer was going to be simple. Perhaps there had been an unfortunate period of giant snail activity across medieval Europe. Perh

By Chris Livemore Here is a family dispute that makes every argument about who gets to play with a certain toy first, or who gets to sit in the front seat. For thirty years, on and off, with occasional ceasefire, two branches of the same royal family fought each other for the throne of England. Nine major battles. Thousand upon thousand dead. Nobles executed on both sides. A king imprisoned. Princes murdered. Enough betrayal and unexpected reversals to fill several seasons of

By Chris Livemore 1066 was a rather big year for castles in England. Before this date there were roughly four castles found throughout the whole country. By 1100, just thirty-four years later, there were around five hundred! That's five hundred in just over three-decades. Imagine that level of efficiency in modern England (yes I agree that might be a step too far anyones imagination these days!). The country had never seen anything quite like them. The speed, the scale and th

I have lived within reasonable distance of Colchester for most of my adult life, I even studied at the University of Essex between 2000-2004. For those unfamiliar with Colchester it is the oldest recorded town in Britain, a former Roman capital, a medieval fortress city, a place with two thousand years of documented history sitting quietly underneath a modern high street. It has a castle that William the Conqueror built on the foundations of a Roman temple. It has walls that

My daughter asked me this question a few weeks ago. She is a very smart five year old, she takes her dragon research extremely seriously and was seemingly preparing a full report to her younger brother based on my answer. She was looking at me with the particular expression she reserves for questions she already thinks there's going to be a very silly answer. It was time to not disappoint her! So, I considered my options. I could have mentioned Basildon on a Friday night. I h

By Chris Livemore It is January 878 AD. The greatest Viking warlord in England launches a surprise midwinter attack on the Saxon king’s base at Chippenham. The king, caught off guard, his army scattered, flees into the freezing Somerset marshes absolutely defeated. He is hiding in a swamp. He has lost almost everything. And he is the reason England exists as it does today. His name is Alfred. But you may know his as Alfred the Great - the only English monarch ever to receive