11th February 2016
One of your posts asked about the artwork between the sections in The Taming of the Queen – the squiggle and the 'KP' are both copied from Kateryn Parr's real signature. She signed herself 'Kateryn the Quene KP', perhaps to distinguish herself from Henry's previous two Queen Katherines, or to assert her loyalty to her family. I thought it added an interesting extra facet to my contemplation of Kateryn's sense of self. Odd to think also that within my lifetime women in the US won the right to use their birth name however they choose after marriage; but of course, it is often their father's surname, as in the UK.
A variety of different shapes were suggested for the section breaks in the book, including crowns and books, but when it was suggested that we use parts of Queen Kateryn's own signature it seemed absolutely the best choice. Within the fiction, it's as though the book is her own chronicle, signed. In real life, she was a writer, England's first woman writer to publish her own original work in English in print under her own name – a pioneer who expressed herself in published works in a time when it was almost unknown for women to do so, who helped lead the way for the rest of us. It feels something of an honour to use some of her own handwriting in a novel that is full of admiration for her.
Images: Images at the chapter heads and section breaks in my novel The Taming of the Queen; Katherine Parr's signature, via tudorhistory.org; Book signed by Kateryn Parr, at Sudeley Castle