Northanger Abbey, Donwell Abbey, and Downton Abbey may all be fictional locations, but homes titled an “abbey” are perfectly real, scattered across England: Forde Abbey in West Dorset. Anglesey Abbey in Cambridge. Woburn Abbey is the family seat of the Duke of Bedford. Notley Abbey is available to rent for weddings.
When I was asked to write a mystery for the Crime & Culpability anthology, I admit to being a little stumped at first. Which Jane Austen character do I turn into a detective? It’s just not the way my brain works. But then I realized that what I wanted to do was take a place, not a person, from Jane Austen’s world, and use it as the setting for a mystery. At that point, I knew instantly which location needed to have a mystery written about it.
Anything labeled an abbey has some dark history attached to it.
When Henry VIII was on his desperate quest to provide England with a male heir to the throne, he really would stop at nothing to fulfill his duty. I feel so horrible for Catherine of Aragon: she did her part. She gave birth to six children, including three boys. She provided him with sons, they just didn’t survive. When she passed her childbearing years, Henry had to deal with all the stupidity of the rules: he HAD a son – by a mistress, so that was no good. And his only surviving child through his wife was a girl – and THAT was no good. So he needed a new wife to provide that male heir.
Unfortunately, the rules of the time said once you got married, you were married for life. Henry had to break those rules in order to dispose of his no longer fertile wife. He made lame excuses, he petitioned, but the Catholic Church (one of the only organizations that held any checks and balances with a monarch) was not going to change their rules for him. They didn’t care if he had no heir, and the political stability of England was at stake. England had just gotten out of all that Wars of the Roses stuff, but that was just too bad. They would just have to go back to civil war again.
Since Henry didn’t like that answer, (you get the feeling he didn’t like being told “no” very much) he did what any despot who wields too much power does: he changed the rules. If the church told him no, well, he’d just start his OWN church. He didn’t invent the concept: protesting the edicts of the church was also going on in Germany. Back in 1517 Martin Luther was nailing protests on the church doors. Now it was 1533 and Henry was GOING to marry Anne Boleyn.
Starting a church, in a time when there really only was one church, wasn’t like starting a church today. The church was the ultimate authority. You don’t share power with the church. So Henry had to eradicate it. No more Catholicism. He had to think of what made the church powerful and take it away from them.
Which brings us back to the abbeys. The abbeys were the administrative centers for the church – where the personnel lived and worked, and carried out the will of the Pope and the Catholic Church. They were also a source of wealth: monks weren’t living in hovels. The monasteries were the wealthiest institutions in the country. According to Historic UK, the monasteries owned over a quarter of all the cultivated land in England.
After divorcing Catherine of Aragon and marrying new wives until he got that male heir for the throne, Henry now had to protect the son that came via the THIRD wife. The church was sure to question Edward’s legitimacy. So Henry couldn’t just disagree with the Pope; he had to break the church in England. Part of doing that was to “dissolve” the monasteries.
The monks and nuns were evicted, and land and buildings owned by the church were redistributed as Henry saw fit. As a savvy ruler, he used this newly-acquired asset to strengthen his base of support, and awarded these estates to his friends—to people whose loyalty he, well, frankly, bought. Who was going to cross the guy who gave you a giant estate? Especially a guy who liked to execute people who annoyed him.
The magnitude of this change in English society kind of fascinates me. What was it like? Where did the monks and nuns go when they were evicted? How did people feel about all this? Was it awkward, being the recipient of one of these monasteries? Sure, you just got one because the king liked you, but what did all the neighbors think?
So I set my mystery, “Shadows at Northanger,” at Northanger Abbey during this time of huge changes, in order to explore these questions a little, and examine a very different time period than we usually do when writing stories inspired by Jane Austen!
I hope you enjoy my exploration of this question when the anthology Crime and Culpability comes out on September 10th. Many thanks to Elizabeth Gilliland for putting together this fun collection!
Crime and Culpability: A Jane Austen Mystery Anthology
“No one can withstand the charm of such a mystery.” – Jane Austen, Persuasion
Jane Austen mysteries have become a popular subgenre of Austen variations, but this is more than just a trend. Austen was a masterful storyteller who embedded clues within her stories for her readers to follow, inviting readers to read between the lines and “gather the evidence” to follow her intricate plot lines.
In this anthology, various authors who are also fans and admirers of Austen’s work have taken the challenge to add some mystery to Austen’s stories and characters. From Regency sequels to film noir retellings to cozy art heists, Crime and Culpability: A Jane Austen Mystery Anthology explores the many faces of Austen and all of her enigmas.
Featuring stories by Regina Jeffers, Riana Everly, Jeanette Watts, Michael Rands, Linne Elizabeth, Emma Dalgety, and Elizabeth Gilliland, with a foreword by Regina Jeffers and an introduction by Elizabeth Gilliland Rands.
Kindle https://mybook.to/1JpI
Available to Read on Kindle Unlimited
You may also find it listed on Goodreads
Every Woman Dreams... 
You had me at “abbey.” I can’t get enough of those old ruined abbeys when I’m in the UK, and I alternately think Henry had a LOT to answer for in stripping these magnificent structures, and that he provided us with some wonderfully picturesque ruins!
Now to see what was happening at Northanger, back when it all began.
I love that each post I read I learn something new