On the Trail of History - A Column of Fire

[Music] in the pillars of the earth for people of Kingsbridge built a great Cathedral in world without end their descendants coped with the most terrible plague that the human races ever learned the Black Death and in a column of five they live through the political earthquake shook Europe in the 16th century which was Protestantism story begins in Kingsbridge in 1558 our young hero goes to work for Princess Elizabeth and he comes here to this house Hatfield old palace which is where the princess lived before she was Queen and he finds himself at the heart of the intrigues of English politics in the 16th century Europe was divided into Protestants and Catholics when Queen Elizabeth the first became queen of England she was the only Protestant mark of a major country before she became queen Queen Elizabeth said it is my dearest wish when I'm Queen no man will be killed for his beliefs Queen Elizabeth the first became public enemy number one in Europe everybody wanted to assassinate him Pope the king of Spain the King of France and so she set up the first English Secret Service to protect herself a spy organization the very first the young hero of a column of fire goes to work for her he's assorted 16th century James Bond and so my story begins in case which spreads all over [Music] [Music] the important thing for me and the reason I want to look at these places and walk around them is that I've got to imagine these dramatic events happening and when I come to imagine it I need to know that I have an accurate picture in my head of what the place was like and then I can imagine the people moving around and the drama and a dialogue and the atmosphere if I don't know this stuff I'm constantly stumbling over the fact that I don't know not knowing is an obstacle to my imagination now by the time I make this trip I've planned a scene in this city and so my curiosity is already aroused what would it be like I've got a scene on the waterfront in Seville but what is the more that like this is the kind of thing that you can't budge you have to have the exact details you have to get them right to click at the side [Music] Perez in sixteenth-century was very different from the city we know today I wanted to look at the bits of Paris that still appear same as they did in the sixteenth century my friend Fez adults as soon as a historian and he knows Paris very well particularly many perhaps I asked him to walk around with me this is the pond knocked down they not an average and it was here in the 16th century but in that era there would have been houses and shops on both sides of the road this is early dawn of a lots of people lived here two three four people in the same room this is a map of Paris in about 1550 it's a wonderful piece of work because it's it's half a street plan and half a bird's-eye view this helps me to imagine my characters moving around these streets this row of shops or something very like it was here in 16th century and I've imagined that my French hero who's a woman called Sylvie lives in this stretch her father has a book shop and printing works and they sell as well as normal books they sell illegal books which are things like Protestant literature such as the Bible in French and of course the perfect place to do it is in the shadow of not a town [Music] here we are in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on the bank of the river noir in the great French town of all our I just learned the original Cathedral was demolished by the Protestants in 1568 they blew up the four pillars supporting the bell tower and when the tower collapsed it destroyed pretty much the whole building such a dramatic episode I think I better put it in the book in the 16th century the richest city in Europe was at war here there were Jews Muslims Catholics and Protestants the interesting place to take my readers to as part of this international rather I'm in the Museum of London in the heart of the older City of London and I'm here to find out about the clothes that my characters would have worn in 16th century here is some very mundane 16th century club in a brown sock knitted knitting was a relatively new thing in the 16th century and in a column of fire Barney will are a fictional character goes to suit and finding out what you might as well as a sailor in the 16th century we're looking at a shirt very beautifully embroidered I think I'd like a shirt this is the National Portrait Gallery the fictional characters in the book of course made up by me so I make up whether they've got long Terrell boys but there are quite a lot of real characters and this is where I come to find out what those people looked like what Queen Elizabeth look like Queen Elizabeth the first of England's here in her prime but foxy got the strength in that face she needed to be strong this painter has caught her vanity credibly elaborate dress very careful hairdo thick right a makeup I think what he hasn't caught here is what she was famous for which was for being a flirt this was a powerful political weapon for her because she pretended she was gonna marry a whole string of Catholic princes this fool many people into thinking that one day some man would marry her control her and bring her back to the true religion and of course that was just not gonna happen so everybody who tried to kill in this but wanted to replace her with a Catholic Moloch so the England would become Catholic again the person they all had in mind was Mary Queen of Scots she was a good Catholic she had a claim to the English throne in fact according to Pope she was the rightful queen me and these two women who actually never met were enemies Mary Queen of Scots escaped from a prison in Scott and when you do a seam like that an escape from the prison the physical details are absolutely paramount that's where the suspense comes from how highs war is the gate locked who's watching who might be watching so I felt I really needed to go and look at this prison on an island in the middle of a lake in Scotland and the first thing that happened was I realized how important the weather was because I got into this little boat to go from the mainland to be live and it was pouring and windy and the water was quite rough and so I immediately realized that the weather could be crucial element of this story so it's one chapter in the book and it's rather delightfully tragic this this very sparking young woman escapes from one prison and sadly two weeks lengths ends up in an actress [Music] I grew up in a an evangelical Christian sect but climbeth brethren all my relatives belonged to the same church or for grandparents I had I had lots of Arts London's and cousins all lived in or near Cardiff where I was born and all went through the various chapels of this sect dotted around South Wales our beliefs included a kind of sweeping Puritans so any form of pleasure was considered wicked in my childhood pleasure itself was bad so I wasn't allowed to go through movies we didn't have achieved the oral radio in the house strangely enough my parents admitted to censor the website the age of 12 I started reading James Beaumont and I'm still not quite sure why they didn't wrap down in five James Bond story is with a hero whose philosophy of life was about as a country so that overcometh brethren asleep yet I almost find it amusing that to read the kind of things that fostered synthesis in the century about Catholics and recall but I was told those things as a child as if they were true I hasten to add that I haven't believed any of that stuff since the age of reason but it does give me a certain familiarity with the kinds of conflicts that I'm writing about in this sixteenth century story excitement action either store is all very well but it's much better if it's in pain of some cause like winning a war I always like these adventures to be attached to something real and the issue in the 16th century was religious tolerance you were supposed to go to the church that the king told you to go to and say the prayers the king told you to say but there were a few people who fought for the freedom to go to whatever church you like sing whatever hymns you might read the Bible in your own language these were the things that people fought for I know our people are figured to cook about religion although I talked a lot of Appalachian it's not about religion it's about tolerance it's about human rights this is the first battle we fought for freedom it comes before democracy before the rule of law before freedom of speech freedom of religion is kind of the base upon which all the other freedoms were built once we started that fight then we can say not only does everybody have the right to their own religion they also have their right to their own opinion about everything else I still love disappear it's been fun to run more wide-ranging story in local affair and now in a form of fire the scope and the geography of the novel is much bigger I'm still incredibly fond of his page and so the readers we still spend a lot of time there [Music] [Music]

Channel: Ken Follett

Views: 32,776

Keywords: Ken Follett, History, Fiction, Books, Research, Author

Id: FPN10r9vFjw

Length: 13min 28sec (808 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 07 2017