J Tea asked Sharon Kay Penman:

As a lover of British history, and ability to trace my own to 1066, I decided to return to fiction from non-fiction for a time and the first thing I thought of was your works because I find them close to recorded history. How important is it to you to follow "real" history, since there can be many variations in what's recorded? Also, will you ever venture to Agincourt as a field of play? Thank you

Sharon Kay Penman I tend to be obsessive-compulsive about historical accuracy. Obviously historical novelists have to rely upon our imaginations and sometimes must do what I call “filling in the blanks,” for medieval chroniclers could be utterly indifferent to the needs of modern writers and neglect to mention birth and death dates, etc. But I do not feel comfortable straying from known facts and if I do take any liberties with them, I clear my conscience by red-flagging them in my Author’s Notes. You are quite right, of course, that often some interpretation is involved. We may know what a character did, but novelists are also expected to know why; for example, why did Edward IV show such patience with his troublesome and treacherous brother George? In writing Sunne in Splendour, I was not breaking new ground, for Richard III found his defenders as soon as there was no longer a Tudor on the throne. And often we simply do not know much about the personality of a historical figure, especially women, who tended to fall through the cracks. But I would never drastically change what we do know about someone; for example, turning Henry III into the bold, gifted battle commander that his son was.
And no, I do not think I’d ever write about Agincourt. What writer would want to compete with Bernard Cornwell, whose battle scenes are as brilliant as they are bloody? If you have not read his novel, Agincourt, I highly recommend it.

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