They Burn Lesbians, Don't They?
While researching a subject from King James I of England's reign for an academic publication in New York, I found an obscure piece about two witch fornicators who were killed for having a same-sex relationship. The first woman was torn apart by horses, and then her partner was burnt at the stake as the town's major attraction for spectators and beverage vendors. Naturally, further study was needed to acquire enough fragments for this novel, They Burn Lesbians, Don't They?
This work was inspired by a broken journal from the Harleian collection of manuscripts, whose first entry is dated June 17, 1632. These diaries follow two young, well-educated, independent-thinking women who often walked the fine line between being a proper citizen and being executed for treason. The main character was acquitted because her father was a respected attorney and she knew the law.
The Rose family ended with Phoebe. At some point between 1645 and 1800, a family record added ‘Rose of Tudor.’ Phoebe and her life partner Tammy saved two witches from fire or axe executions by raising them. Dina, the younger, became a strong, confident lady who married and had three boys. The family passed on the diaries to those boys, which were later found in an archive.
On the first blank page of a medium-sized vellum book, Phoebe wrote, ‘They burned ladies like us.’ Below that statement was, ‘Dedicated to a young woman who confessed the night before her execution that she only loved another woman.’
Phoebe and Tammy formed the South Star Shipping Company with three ships and, with the help of her uncle, a feared and respected French pirate, created the wealth to form Rose Bay, a strategic location in Papua, New Guinea, as trade with the Americas grows, and Rosebury Sanctuary outside London, England.
The perfect mix of historical facts and snatches makes this fact-based fiction entertaining and educational.
