Accuracy, Names & Confusion

I have posted recently about making the characters in my novels as true to their history as possible, and how when I discovered that my 10th great-grandmother’s name was Denis Standen, I had to make it Denise. OK, I sold out on that one. I have had a few comments about my first novel, The Spy who Sank the Armada having three Henrys and three Anthonys and how that was confusing. Well it was the “War of the three Henrys”, Henry III of France, Henry of Navarre, and Henry of Guise. Anthony Bacon was one of Walsingham’s spymasters, and he controlled my hero, Sir Anthony Standen and, wait for it, Anthony Rolston.

Sir Anthony Standen was one of the sons of Edmund Standen. Edmund’s other sons were, another Anthony and Edmund, my 10th great-grandfather. The latter Edmund had a son Thomas. Thomas had a son James (b 1629). James had a son James (b 1655). The latter James had a son James (b 1695). He had a son Samuel (b 1728) and he had a son, Samuel (b 1753). Thankfully he named his son Elias (b 1779), and Elias was my 3rd great-grandfather.

It’s not my fault if people in the old days lacked imagination when it came to baptisms. I guess there weren’t as many saints around then to name people after.