How does a historical mystery grow?
It grows the same way any piece of history grows--organically from the sources. A piece of nonfiction, however creatively imagined and written, should never exceed its sources. If the sources don’t support your theory, you have chuck the theory and go with what the sources support and suggest.
An historian can never prove anything. Historians are like lawyers: we make arguments and present evidence to support those arguments. Our arguments are our interpretation s of the facts available, from the evidence.The evidence comes from the sources. We don’t go beyond them.
Fiction can go beyond the sources, even if the story still grows organically from the material. Going beyond is the nature of fiction--it dramatizes, idealizes, romanticizes. But we can’t go too far because many readers want to get their history from fiction, so that fiction has to be as accurate as possible.
There are ways around this potential bottleneck. I’ve chosen to drive a coach and six through some late 18th century political machinations that aren’t particularly well documented. I have changed one thing from the historical record to suit my purposes--change the place and the leadership of a parliamentary subcommittee. Instead of Mr. William Eden chairing the subcommittee on smuggling, I move it over to the House of Lords under Lord Armitage’s direction.
Beyond that, I keep all the evidence from the actual subcommittee. I add to it from material obtained by Lord Shelburne in his investigations. Edmund Burke did pick up from Shelburne and inquired into smuggling. All the numbers come directly from the sources.
The debate in the House of Commons Armitage hears actually occurred, except for Lord North’s biting comment at the end of the chapter. All oblique references in the sources and the secondary works, however, suggest that North was anything but pleased with this challenge. Almost everything that Mr. Richard Twining--yes, that Twining--and Mr. Thomas Coutts say about smuggling or the current political situation come from their writings. I even incorporate Mr. Coutt’s crack about the weather.
Where does UNQUIET JUSTICE fit in the range of detective fiction?
UNQUIET JUSTICE (a working title), the Earl’s first adventure, deals with smuggling, a crime that didn’t carry the death penalty. By the Act of 1779, a convicted smuggler faced five years impressment in either the Army or the Navy.
As a crime, smuggling reveals corruption. It developed from sky-high consumption taxes, which were an invitation to smuggling. Smugglers called themselves Free Traders. Their goal was to undercut the legal price of spirits, tea, tobacco, lace, gloves, playing cards, sugar, rum, and other imported goods and run a business at a (sometimes substantial) profit.
They bought off officials, particularly amongst Customs and Excisemen, at all levels. Buying off the Revenuers was much easier thanks to the government politicians’s use of high level posts to reward their placemen. The placement, in turn, provided deputies who did the actual work for a fraction of the actual pay. Frankly, the smugglers paid better.
As a crime, smuggling used violence and intimidation. Violence against property could easily be a death penalty crime. Under the Bloody Code, arson, theft, robbery, amongst other things, earned the convicted offender a trip to the gallows. Assault on a person did not. By 18th century standards, people were replaceable; property, not so much.
Since this novel will be about the causes and consequences of crime based in corruption, it’s a crime novel that leans to the hard-boiled. It also leans more to the police procedural than the PI novel because Armitage has the legal and political authority to investigate crime.
By what authority does Armitage investigate crime?
Armitage is the Lord Lieutenant of the county of Stafford and he is also the custos rotulorum (keeper of the rolls). The Lord Lieutenancy dates back to the Tudor period, and the occupant of the office must be a peer. He is both the commander of the local militia and the chief magistrate at the Quarter Sessions. Because he’s a peer, he sits in the House of Lords and is a politician. The Lords Lieutenant functioned as the conduits between the national government and the local government.
As the chief magistrate, it was the Lord Lieutenant’s job to preside over the Quarter Sessions. In actuality, this work was generally carried out by the deputy Lord Lieutenant who generally wasn’t an aristocrat. As custos rotulorum, the Lord Lieutenant nominated, to the Lord Chancellor, men from the gentry (untitled landowners) for the bench of Justices of the Peace. Aristocrats were forbidden by law to be Justices, so the untitled landowners (and later the upper clergy) dominated this office.
Whilst this office was itself open to abuse and corruption, it could also be a powerful platform from which to control a county. For someone like Lord Armitage, a man committed to economical reform, really an anti-corruption platform, the Lord Lieutenancy gives him all political, legal, and even moral authority to tackle crime at both the local and national level.
Of necessity, procedure will be minimal. There were no police as we understand police now, nor even as the French had at the time. England still operated on its ancient system of coroners, JPs, and parish constables largely because the French system was considered to be a threat to liberty. (Scotland had/has a very different legal system.) The rules regarding the use of lawyers, particularly for defense, were still in process as were the rules of evidence. And jury nullification was a very real issue.